A lot has changed at Jackson Elementary since Sept. 14, the day
principal Garry Dudley resigned. The year five Program Improvement
school has had a leadership overhaul: new interim principal, new
team of Program Improvement specialists, new oversight committee,
new curriculum strategies, new after-school programs and new weekly
collaboration meetings for teachers.
A lot has changed at Jackson Elementary since Sept. 14, the day principal Garry Dudley resigned. The year five Program Improvement school has had a leadership overhaul: new interim principal, new team of Program Improvement specialists, new oversight committee, new curriculum strategies, new after-school programs and new weekly collaboration meetings for teachers.
Some parents have said the school even “feels different.”
A big, bright yellow change is the single school bus that waits at the curb in front of Jackson an hour after school lets out for the 80 or so fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders who pack the library for the revamped homework club. The presence of the bus is new.
Many questions went unanswered at Jackson as it progressed from its first year in Program Improvement, the year before Dudley was hired, into year two, three, four and now five. Dudley resigned 11 days after a Sept. 3 story in the Times reported 18 complaints were filed against Dudley in the past two years ranging from sexual harassment to verbal abuse of students. Eleven of those claims were found – after investigation by the Morgan Hill Unified School District – to be true either in part, or totally.
Now, being pro-active is the consistent answer to Jackson’s PI problem.
An “alternative governance” team was formed just before Dudley resigned with Ernie Zermeno, Gilroy High School’s former principal, as the leader of the PI team. He communicates between the district office and Jackson and is helping the staff facilitate change ensuring the Single Plan for Student Achievement is carried out.
Jackson’s structure and behind-the-scenes approach has also been readjusted with interim principal Ray Jimenez a refreshing addition to the principal’s office, teachers say; the district is searching for a permanent replacement planned for 2011. All kindergarten through sixth-grade teachers meet after school each Monday for staff development with two more Jackson additions – Honey Berg and Miguel Montes – spearheading new teaching tactics.
Berg is a former assistant superintendent of education services at Berryessa Union School District, principal and adjunct professor at Santa Clara University and San Jose State University. She is using her expertise as a consultant to provide curriculum development. Montes is a retired school administrator from Alisal Unified School District who is working with teachers to look at student data and translating it into how to best teach students who need the most help. Title 1 and American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds are being used to pay for the stipends for Zermeno, Berg and Montes.
“The staff is very busily engaged,” Jackson fourth/fifth-grade combination teacher Jocelyn Knapp said from Jackson’s library last Wednesday. Homework club students were filtering out of the library to go home just before 3:30 p.m. It’s been a full house at Jackson since September.
“Jackson is acting as a pilot in many ways for the district to see if these methods work,” she said.
While Jackson was teetering in the balances the last four years – its test scores repeatedly not improving enough to move the school out of Program Improvement – P.A. Walsh is being treated how Jackson should have been treated, Morgan Hill Unified school board members said at a Sept. 28 meeting.
“We missed that step. Jackson did not get this,” Trustee Don Moody said.
Walsh moved into PI year four this year and has since been implementing a detailed plan devised by the district office and Walsh staff to restructure the school. Now, teachers from Walsh are visiting to observe Jackson. Collaboration among schools has been the new mantra at Morgan Hill Unified since Superintendent Wes Smith started last year.
Evidence of collaborative progress at Jackson, Knapp said, was when two-thirds of the Jackson staff met voluntarily at the school for four hours on a Saturday to work on staff development.
“I have seen the changes at Jackson and they’re exhilarating,” said Cindy D’Angelo, a third-grade teacher. The students who can statistically account for why Jackson is still in Program Improvement, English language learners, are now in hyper-focused groups that target their language development for one hour every day.
“These kids are so successful. They have confidence like I’ve not seen before. It is just so fulfilling that we are meeting the needs of our kids,” D’Angelo said.
New to every classroom are large posters with “I Can” statements that describe what techniques students have achieved, such as “I can identify a helping verb.” The idea came from Zermeno, and will identify which students have mastered the statement, making the goal more student-friendly and visual.
“The idea is to make the students aware of it. We’re focused clearly on what we should be teaching and why, instead of being text-book driven,” Knapp said.
Jackson is piloting LitConn, a program for English intervention, and aligning curriculum with California standards: what every child should know before entering the next grade. Teachers from every grade are involved in the collaboration meetings so there is no overlap of what students should have in their “tool box,” D’Angelo said. Public presentations by Jackson staff will become commonplace, as will visits by the oversight committee that will visit the campus and give quarterly reports at school board meetings.
How Jackson got mixed in as a PI school is based on requirements of No Child Left Behind and Adequate Yearly Progress, which determines if a school has enough students who tested proficient on state tests. If a school does not, it’s susceptible to entering Program Improvement, requiring the school to follow certain rules set by the district and county.
If a school can show “significant” double-digit improvement of 10 percent growth or more over two consecutive years and every subgroup tests proficient it can move to “safe harbor” and out of PI. El Toro Elementary did exactly that this year by increasing its test scores by 33 points. If students again make improvements next year, the school will leave PI altogether.
San Martin/Gwinn did better this year by 27 points and P.A. Walsh made a small jump by 11 points, though neither school improved enough to move into safe harbor. Jackson was the only school to regress, sliding 24 points.
Jackson isn’t alone. It is one of 16 schools in Santa Clara County in PI year five. Since there is no PI six or seven, eight, et cetera, some schools – mostly elementary – are stuck in PI year five for more than a single year.
The expectation of No Child Left Behind that all children test proficient or better by 2014 has been criticized by Smith and other district staff who have said its expectations are impossible. President Barack Obama and his administration have proposed relaxing NCLB, though nothing concrete has been changed or enacted. Obama’s proposal would remove the AYP measure altogether, eliminate the 2014 deadline and stretch it to 2020.
