W-2: Pursue additional instructional time
What does this look like?
Creating kindergarten curriculum (Kindergarten)Maximizing available time (Middle School SPED)
Intervention program (Kindergarten)“The Homework Club” (6th Grade ELA)
Secure reading intervention services (3rdGrade)“Taco Thursdays” (6th Grade Math)
Saturday tutoring (3rd Grade)Grant-writing success (7th Grade Life Science)
Building a reading café (4th Grade)Donorschoose.com to the rescue (7th Grade Math)
Providing Middle School Choice (5th Grade)Extra time forbiology (HS Biology)
Integrating technology (5th Grade)Saturday school: breakfast and history (HS History)
“Parents’ Learning Night” (5th Grade)HS Chemistry resources (10th Grade Chemistry)
Maximizing science scheduling (Elementary Science)
Nylah Wahem, Baltimore ’05: Creating kindergarten curriculum(Kindergarten)
Top / I have definitely had to reach beyond the resources of my school in order to ensure that my students make significant achievement. One constraint I have had to reach beyond is the time constraints of being a teacher. Not only do I work with students before school, during lunch/recess, or after school to reinforce skills, but I also have to devote many after school hours to developing resources that my students can use in the classroom for learning.
Also, I do not have a collaborative grade level resource or Instructional Support Teacher at my school to assist me with struggling students or ideas for instructional improvement or behavior management. Being the only kindergarten teacher at my school has limited the collaboration with other teachers that occurs there. To alleviate this constraint, I have developed a relationship with another kindergarten teacher in the city, and we collaborate via email about instructional strategies, struggles we have, and specific students in our class.
Likewise, because my goals for my students in reading are beyond kindergarten expectations, I have had to purchase and make many learning tools to help them achieve the goals that I have set. For example, I have made sight word cards beyond the ones provided in Open Court for practice for the students, purchased leveled books for reading instruction, and have purchased first grade reading workbooks for my students to use to practice sight words, decoding, diagraphs, and other skills that are not specifically focused on in the kindergarten materials.
As a Title 1 school, my school does offer free breakfast to any student. However, because some students get to school past the breakfast cut-off, I have several students who are often hungry in the mornings. Therefore, I make sure to have a supply of cereal and milk in my classroom for mornings in which students’ basic needs have to be met in order for learning to occur.
Linh Luong, Bay Area ’06: Intervention program
(Kindergarten)
Top / At the start of this year, over half of my students were at-risk of being retained. This meant at the end of October, those students knew fewer than 10 letters (uppercase or lowercase). When a student is identified as at-risk, the district guarantees that those students are entitled to receive an intervention program. Typically, this means that these students are given the option of participating in classes after the regular school day for additional practice. My school, however, suffered from a shortage of teachers willing to teach intervention classes. The administration decided to prioritize intervention classes for testing grades and limit intervention classes for other grades. In the end, funding was provided for 1st through 5th grade – kindergarten was the only grade level denied an intervention program.
In response, I proposed to teach intervention classes for free. At first, my principal refused, trying to convince me that there is no need for intervention programs in kindergarten. I convinced my principal of the dire need to service under-performing students at the earliest age possible. By addressing academic gaps at their age, we could prevent larger groups of older at-risk students in the future.
I designed a 2-month after-school intervention program and split the 11 students into two groups, taking into account their academic, behavioral, and linguistic needs. Each group met with me twice a week to work on the material on which they specifically needed improvement. In January, when I retested my students, only one of the eleven remained at-risk of retention. In the 2-month period, these students made great academic gains. For example, at the end of October these students had a group average of 6.7% mastery in identifying uppercase letters. In January, this jumped to 85% mastery, a 78-point increase. Six of the students have surpassed some of their peers and are now among my highest-performing students. My focused intervention program was highly successful in producing major academic gains with my lowest students.
Stephanie Scott, South Louisiana ’03: Saturday tutoring
(3rd Grade)
Top / Stephanie is another teacher who refused to let limited instructional time negatively affect her students’ achievement. Notice the many specific methods Ms. Scott used to stretch her time and resources for the sake of her students:
What we are trying to accomplish as a corps is impossible within the timeframe of the traditional school day. It is even moredaunting with scripted programs such as Success for All and DEEP into Math where all student needs and intelligences are not met. Significant gains for me have meant significant commitments to my classroom before/after school and on the weekends. I tutor homogeneously grouped students three to four times a week where I target reading and math skills not addressed by the program lesson but essential for student growth and success. During the week, Ihave guided reading groups, homework sessions, math lessons, and anything else needed to push us to our BIG goals. On the weekends, I open up Saturday tutoring sessions at the public library to all students in my class. On average I have 6 students come, and we go through literacy and math centers in the library’s study hall.
Also, I’ve definitely had to reach beyond what my school could physically provide for the classroom. I came into my room with zero books, and having a classroom library was a number one priority for me. With mass emailing and a letter writing campaign, I received over 700 books from friends, former bosses, churches, and friends of friends who wanted to help. Parents and volunteers also came at my request to help me build shelves to house the books donated to our room. Those generous donations are appreciated every day when one of my students goes to sit in the library and enjoy a book from any genre or level that they desire.
Leigh Kincaid, Atlanta ’00: Building a reading café
(4th Grade)
Top / Leigh’s below reflection makes clear her strong determination to overcome obstacles in the path to student achievement:
I have begged and borrowed to get the resources and materials my students need. Family, friends, and community have been kind and generous in their donations of every kind…books, money for our Reading Café, prizes, and time. Like most first year teachers, I spent hours and hours—until well past midnight each night— creating materials, visuals, activities, and center games. It didn’t seem like a choice. I didn’t have the materials and my students needed them. End of question.
Gillette Hughes, New York City ’06: Providing middle school choice
(5th Grade)
Top / My students deserve the best educational opportunities, and there have definitely been times where I have had to reach beyond the resources of my school in order to help them achieve. This was especially necessary when working to help my students to receive equal opportunities in the middle school application process. My school building houses two schools: an elementary school and a middle school. Because of this, many students typically attend the middle school in our building. This means that a lot of our students are together – in the same classes – for up to ten years of their schooling.
I encourage my students, however, to look at all middle school opportunities. If they choose to attend the school in our building, then I support that choice; however, I want my students to make educated choices about furthering their schooling. Because of this, I have encouraged my students to attend magnet schools for visual arts, theatre, music, dance, technology, mathematics, science, and other specific studies. I have also pushed my students to apply to talented and gifted schools that accept only the top 5% of students in the city of New York. I have even challenged my students to think outside of the box and consider charter schools, highly selective academies, and private schools. I believe these schools are the ideal options for my students to earn more educational opportunities. These schools provide my students with challenging, hard working, structured environments where they can pursue specific talents and interests or determine what those talents and interests are and be on the college-bound track in life. They provide extracurricular activities such as drama, clubs, choirs, orchestras, sports teams such as running and soccer clubs, robotics, filmmaking, and so on to provide a well-rounded education that focuses on all aspects of student achievement. These are the schools that my students deserve to know about and have the chance to attend and the path on which they deserve to travel.
I have worked with my students and their families to ensure that they get into a strong middle school such as these. Through individual family conferences, phone calls, and notes home, I have shared information about exceptional schools with my students’ parents. I have pushed my students to thoroughly and superbly complete their applications for magnet schools, talented and gifted schools, academies, and other incredible middle school programs. On the weekends, I have taken my students and other fifth grade students to take examinations to get into well-rated academies. I have researched schools and personally submitted applications during the week.
Unfortunately, due to the difficulties with the middle school application process at our school, in our district, and in the city overall, my students faced challenges being able to apply to certain middle schools. For example, my students applied to an out-of-district magnet program that offers acceptance to up to seven magnet schools. Since the schools are located out of our district in Brooklyn, my students first were required to complete a pre-application form. After submitting the pre-application form, qualified students are supposed to receive an application to submit. The day before the application was due, I was notified that the process had changed. Instead of submitting the pre-applications to the office in charge of magnet school programs as indicated on the application directions, they were to have been submitted to one of the schools itself. This change was not publicized and was unfortunately brought to our attention with only enough time left for parents to travel with their students to the school during school hours on the following day. There was not enough time for all parents to take off of work, travel to the school, and if the student qualified, fill out the final application. I notified parents immediately about this change, and then I contacted the school and multiple people at the office that oversees magnet school programs. I requested extensions for my students with all of these people, and was rejected multiple times. I, however, would not let my students receive fewer opportunities than any other school provided its students. This meant that I had to continue to contact this magnet school and the district in which it was located many times via email, phone, and in-person to guarantee my students the chance to apply to their school. A copy of the email I submitted to them is located below:
Subject Line: Please consider my students
To Whom It May Concern:
My name is Gillette Hughes, and I am a fifth grade teacher at P.S. 335 in Brooklyn. I am writing to request an extension for the application deadline for our students. After completing and submitting the preliminary form, we have just been notified that the Office of Student Enrollment Planning and Operations was not the office who should have received the applications as indicated on the “District 21 MagnetMiddle School Programs” application instructions.
While some students were able to walk in their applications with their parents yesterday, we were notified Monday afternoon which was too little time to reach all parents so that they could reschedule work. Our students would great appreciate having the opportunity to successfully complete this application process, as their peers in other districts have been able to do so.
Please feel free to contact me by email at or by phone at 214-563-1066. Thank you for ensuring that my students receive the same opportunities as their peers.
Best,
Gillette Hughes
This email, along with many other pursuits, eventually earned my students a week extension to submit their applications for several magnet schools. Thirteen students have now been moved on to the third phase of this process and are testing to receive acceptance into one of these incredible schools. Through relentless pursuit, and the conviction that my students should receive every opportunity, I was able to acquire this extension for my students. I followed up with my students and their parents until every student returned their completed application to me. Then, the day the applications were due, I traveled an hour and a half to personally submit them to the school. By speaking up and fighting for my students and remaining in close contact with their families throughout the process, thirteen children now have the chance to attend one of these exceptional schools next year.
This victory took a lot of communication with my students and their parents, the passion to continue to push for my students, and the knowledge that what I was doing was, in fact, the best thing I could do for my students. Despite the challenges we faced through this application process, my students still have the opportunity to attend an incredible middle school.
Joseph Almeida, New York City ’05: Integrating technology
(5th Grade)
Top / Last year, I wanted to further integrate technology in my classroom. I asked my principal for a laptop and projector so that I could use media clips and PowerPoint presentations to increase the level of instruction in my classroom. She bought it. Then, this year, I asked her for a SmartBoard, after seeing it in the RiseAcademy, and she was hesitant because we had a low budget this year, but I convinced her of the benefit that it would bring to my students’ learning and she ultimately budged. Finally, I asked her for an iMac so that we could start a video editing club at the school. She agreed to pay for it, but I have paid for the video camera for our school out of my own pocket. I have told her that the video the video editing club makes will be sold to raise money to buy video cameras for the school. That was what sold her on purchasing the Apple computer.
Joseph Almeida, New York City ’05: “Parents’ Learning Night”
(5th Grade)
Top / One thing that parents always say to me is that they want to help their child at home with their work but they cannot because they do not understand the material themselves, the material is presented differently than the way it was to them, or because it has been so long that they have just forgot the material. To address this issue, I started a “Parents’ Learning Night,” which takes place one Thursday a month, and I preview all of the mathematics content that I will cover in that month. I will explain how I teach it and multiple ways that the problem can be done. Because many of the parents speak Spanish, I will have my slides in English and translate in Spanish. The best part about this is that both students and their parents come to these nights, so the students are gaining exposure to the material before it is taught during the school day and parents and their students are learning the material together. Approximately 15 parents attend per month. This has contributed to the high achievement in mathematics.
David Omenn, Houston ’05: Maximizing science scheduling
(Elementary Science)
Top / The science lab at my school has traditionally been a part of the ancillary rotation, meaning that I would see one class from each grade level every day for four weeks and then rotate to a new batch of classes. New to the classroom, I gave it a try for the first month or two of the school year. Quickly, however, I realized the schedule produced a lack of continuity among my critical 5th grade classes and that a change must be made. I reached out to the 5th grade team; we brainstormed ways to rectify the situation for our students’ benefit. After examining the daily program, I approached the team and my principal with an idea: if I were taken off the ancillary schedule for grades 3-5, I could see each 5th grade class twice a week and each 4th and 3rd grade class once a week. Moreover, since this would not interfere with the classroom teacher’s planning time, I could invite them to sit-in on my class, giving them a better sense of how to mesh their instruction with mine. Given our test results and the enthusiasm for the schedule classroom teachers have shared with me, I can say that this change has been a great success. We have continued this modified plan this year, and it has helped me provide better planning support for the classroom teachers as they get to see a science lesson modeled once (or twice) a week. One unforeseen side-benefit of this change was more effective science tutorial grouping. The classroom teachers and I were able to share information on how to help the low and bubble students both during class and after school. Proposing this change and implementing it successfully has been critical in helping my students accomplish their goals.