Day Starts Early For Turnaround Teachers

An hour before students arrived at Hill Central School, seventh- and eighth-grade teachers were inside debating how to ensure letters about an upcoming open house actually reach parents instead of remaining in students’ backpacks.

“Some kids won’t take it home,” argued social studies teacher Robert Sobolisky. His peers agreed. They brainstormed alternatives.

These five teachers were a small fraction of the educators who chose to head to Hill Central at 140 Dewitt St. daily at 8 a.m., divided by grade, to work on various projects to support students in the classrooms.

Hill Central’s teachers originally did that because they had to. It was a stipulation of a federal 2010 School Improvement Grant for struggling schools.

Now the school has jumped off the state list of turnaround schools. Meanwhile, the early-morning team meetings have continued. By choice. The meetings offer a hint to why the school has continued improving and become a school of choice for parents.

Why volunteer to show up early to school if no funding is on the line?

Teachers need the extra time, said Hill Central Principal Lillian Fontan, who took over two years ago.

She inherited a school model of distributed leadership, meaning all teachers are encouraged to take up management responsibilities.

Thursday morning, teachers were not working on major school changes, but rather making many of the small decisions that keep classroom teaching and parent communication running without glitches between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., when students are in the building.

Jessica Ryan is new to the school this September. But she successfully applied to be a ​“vertical” team leader at Hill Central, directing Thursday’s meeting as fifth and sixth-grade teachers organized students into reading intervention groups of six or fewer based on their literacy levels.

Each of the teachers in the room was assigned a group of students within a specific range of literacy abilities.

“See if you have to make any behavioral movements,” said teacher Nicole Brown.

Which students don’t get along with each other? ​“I just know them as a group of 27” as a classroom teacher, Ryan said, soliciting opinions on which fighting pairs of students to break up.

Two students in the highest performing group often had to separated in larger group settings.

“Let’s just give them the benefit of the doubt and adjust it later if need be,” Brown said. The other teachers agreed.

Fontan said teachers are also encouraged to bring their problems to their peers in the groups. Kindergarten and first-grade teachers were sharing ideas for how to easily keep ​“running records” of student reading performance, tracking the percentage of words they get right while reading aloud daily.

There’s a smartphone app for that, said team leader Kim Turey, a first-grade teacher starting her third year at Hill Central.

“This one does everything,” she said, and it’s free. Teachers can mark errors on their phones while listening to students read. They can also record students reading and email the file to themselves for later analysis.

Another smartphone app, which would help with running records for a particular literacy assessment, costs $10 to download. ​“Principal Fontan?” Turey asked hopefully, inquiring if the school would foot the cost.

Fontan said she likely could pay for the app.

In the hallway, one special education teacher had just come up the stairs, heading from one team meeting to another. Fontan said she tries to keep at least one special education and English language learner (ELL) teacher in each team, so their representation can be felt schoolwide.

This year, she began a ​“specials” team that also meets daily, with all the teachers of electives, as well as ELL and special education.

Members of seventh and eighth-grade team were planning an upcoming open house for parents. They debated a seemingly simple but crucial task: How do we actually get those welcome letters from the teachers to parents?

Sobolisky argued students would lose the letters instead of taking them home.

What if we get students to read it in homeroom, sign it then, and emphasize how important it is to take it home? suggested Delores Marshall, reading comprehension teacher.

That idea was dismissed as being risky and complicated. Mailing the letter home could work, Sobolisky said. But there might not be enough time to ensure the letters reach students’ homes, especially since they have to go through central office at 54 Meadow St., said school counselor Carlie Degnan.

Principal Fontan stepped in. The parent liaison for the school should send out an electronic message to announce to parents that they should expect the letters from their students. That way, the accountability for the transfer is on both students and parents.

By the time students began to make their way into the building, the problem had been solved.