In addition to the views we've shared in the print version of Education Update, we'd like to highlight what a few other members of the education community have learned by helping to open new schools.
Raymond Bailey, Head of School, the Oakwood School, Greenville, N.C.
I have been involved in starting two new schools and will again be involved in starting a new upper division in an independent school this fall.
In 1983, I was appointed to be a reading specialist in the Uinta County school system in Evanston, Wyo., a small town where the discovery of a significant oil well led to rapid growth from 4,000 to 15,000 residents. As a result, the town grew from 4,000 to 15,000 very rapidly.
Providing a quality education amid such growth was a challenge, but the oil revenues funded wonderful new school buildings. With foresight, the school system hired me and three other reading specialists to address reading difficulties from the start. When we opened North Evanston Elementary School, one of three new schools completed to handle the growth, I worked in small groups with students who had been diagnosed as at risk. As the year progressed, I, and the rest of the faculty, identified those children deemed to be at risk, and we intervened before the problems became massive. The result was that 90 percent of those children were reading at or above grade level by grades 4 and 5.
We accomplished this using early phonics instruction and good children's literature in a non-pullout program. Because I spent from 10 to 15 minutes a day with each student for three or four days a week, depending on the severity of the condition, the students didn't feel any discomfort when working with me. I also encouraged writing and making books of the students' work, which were placed in the classroom libraries.
It was a rewarding experience because we were able to alleviate reading difficulties before they became an issue. At the same time, the special education department saw a drop of 70 percent in the enrollment of learning disabled students, which I believe was a result of this program.
I then was offered the opportunity to be the founding curriculum director at the John Cooper School, a new independent school in The Woodlands, Tex. In a very poor economic climate, we began to build a school that would be similar in scope to the Kinkaid School and St. John's, both well-established independent schools in Houston. A key element was corporate backing from the company who was developing the property. Consequently, we were given 40 acres and the necessary loan to complete the first phase, or Lower School. This was vital.
As often happens when starting a new school, I was asked to serve in more than one role: head of the Lower School as well as curriculum director. Over four years, the Lower School grew from 100 students in prekindergarten through 3rd grade to 326 in kindergarten through 5th grade. Then I took over as headmaster and continued to build the remaining grades. By the time I moved to Boston College High School, the Cooper school had seen increasing success for eight years and had 726 K–12 students, which made it the fastest growing independent school in the country.
We developed outstanding programs in reading, writing, mathematics, the sciences, and languages, and we continually marketed our successes to the community and the local media. For example, in our beginning year, the local business community started a science fair for 7th graders. We had only 13 students in that class, but we succeeded in taking 66 percent of the awards in the county, which brought us strong local attention. As we grew, our athletic programs began to be successful, and these, too, we publicized.
We also introduced Kumon Math, a Japanese system of learning strong mathematic skills, as a pilot in grade 1. When we introduced the standardized test used by all quality independent schools, those children, then in grades 2 and 3, scored on average in the 90th percentile on independent school norms. This was truly remarkable!
One of the great things about building a new school is that you don't have to follow tradition. I worked hard to get great teachers from the best independent schools to come to the Cooper school by allowing them to be department chairs years before they could expect such promotion in well-established schools. They also had the opportunity to put their own stamp on an institution that would be innovative and exciting. In addition, I promised them that no one would ever say "but we've always done it this way at the John Cooper School"—something they had all heard in the past. They, in turn, brought the standards and methodologies that were extant in great schools across the country.
Although building such a school was not easy, we all managed to have great fun in doing the work. It was wonderful to meet and hire great teachers and to prove to skeptical parents that we had the expertise, knowledge, and experience to not only get their children into the colleges of their choice, but also have them thrive there once they entered. Our first valedictorian, a young woman of Mexican background, entered Rice University as a sophomore based on the classes she took with us. Another student from our first class graduated first in his class from West Point in 1998, thus creating opportunities for many future students at this great institution. All in all, it was a most exciting and rewarding experience.
Erin Roche, Principal, Ravenswood School, Chicago, Ill.
The first school I helped design was part of Chicago's small schools movement in the mid-1990s. The target population was the thousands of immigrant children in Chicago's Lower West Side. In our proposal, we highlighted the need for bilingualism to support the Mexican American students as they learned English and became literate in Spanish. We also painted a clear picture of the role of visual arts, music, and dance in the students' learning.
This vision attracted a number of excellent and eager bilingual teachers. However, our design said little about the nuts and bolts of curriculum design, assessment, teaching strategies, student discipline, ways for parents and teachers to communicate, or sustainable resources for the artists-in-residence program.
After the honeymoon of the school's opening a number of governing structures were tried, but after three years the structures were still unclear and the staff no longer shared a passion for its mission. In years four and five, more than half the teachers left the school. Test scores continued to be a challenge.
A few years later, I and 12 others spent an entire year designing a professional development school in Chicago's growing South Side. The school was to serve as a demonstration and training site for tenured teachers via multiweek residencies. The mentor teachers were to be certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS). This school, too, suffered from unclear curricula, assessments, and teaching strategies. In addition, the extra professional development layer was vague, and questions included
- Who would teach the visiting teachers' classes at their home schools during their residencies?
- What was the scope of decisions among leadership?
- What were the recruiting strategies and expectations for resident teachers?
After the planning year, four of the five NBPTS teachers left and no plans were made to have remaining or newly hired teachers gain NBPTS certification. Test scores remained low.
From these experiences, I learned that there are several key elements to planning a new school:
- Clear purpose for the school.
- Clear goals and time lines for the designers.
- Clear structures for student discipline, internal communication, leadership decisions, curricular foundations, and updates.
- Intellectual and professional opportunities to bond as a staff and develop strong collegial trust.
- Traditions that make a new school instantly unique and celebrated.
Both of these schools accomplished only a few of these components during my experiences with them.
Opening a new school is a complicated endeavor—creating new structures and traditions, hiring high-quality staff, purchasing furniture and materials, and paying attention to the politics of the new parents and local politicians as well as the possibly displaced former students. It's a big business; a new school in Chicago typically costs at least $25 million and an annual budget is at least $3 million. A lot of people pay attention to its structure, culture, and jobs.
Now, Chicago Public Schools has introduced Renaissance 2010, a plan to open 100 new district and charter schools within five years. It's a bold idea in the face of struggling schools, and its success depends on the leadership of the principal and her team to make sure the complex layers are in synchronization and accomplishing their goals.
