Hidden Gems and Community Cohorts
An announcement, and a reflection.
Thursday, May 15th, from 4-8pm
Meany Middle School's Jaguar Arts Festival
301 21st Ave. E.
Admission free. Catered dinner available.
This event will feature participatory, performing, and visual art of all kinds, including the unveiling of a "long lost" William Cumming painting found in a storage closet last year and retouched by the 90-year-old local artist. For more info: http://www.seattleschools.org/schools/meany/
CPPS has identified Meany Middle School as a hidden gem in the Seattle Public Schools' system. It's a small middle school (450 - 600 students, depending on classroom usage), with an inclusive philosophy, a decent facility, and a strong principal and teaching staff. Its thriving programs include an arts integration model, advanced learning opportunties (ALO), schoolwide literacy, music, advanced math, afterschool sports and activities.
It's also undersubscribed, because although community parents have worked to raise its profile and its funds, aggregate test scores, programs, and events don't stand out in comparison to the bigger schools with more resources, more high-test students, and more dollars. Most unfortunately, plenty of folks never visit the school to find out what has changed in the last several years (scores rising far faster than average; new programs launched, reputations contradicted)
The CPPS hidden gem program is designed to bring more awareness of successful small programs like Meany's to the community, because when parents and students don't look for themselves, old beliefs die hard. A corollary to this truism: old patterns are hard to break. Even when schools drastically improve, many parents fear to choose schools less often named on their friends and neighbors' choice lists. Nobody wants their child to end up alone.
In addition to hidden gem publicity, CPPS is endeavoring to bring parent communities together to build cohorts and provide supports for "unpopular" but educationally strong choices. We're recruiting 4th grade families to check out Meany and southeast families to invest in and become ambassadors for several schools in that cluster (SE Ambassador workshop, 6:30 pm Thursday, May 22nd at Orca K-8). Please attend, and email me, stephaniej@cppsofseattle.org, with questions.
What do you think? Can we get parents to look beyond the safety of traditional choices? Do these strategies have promise? I hope so.
Thursday, May 15th, from 4-8pm
Meany Middle School's Jaguar Arts Festival
301 21st Ave. E.
Admission free. Catered dinner available.
This event will feature participatory, performing, and visual art of all kinds, including the unveiling of a "long lost" William Cumming painting found in a storage closet last year and retouched by the 90-year-old local artist. For more info: http://www.seattleschools.org/schools/meany/
CPPS has identified Meany Middle School as a hidden gem in the Seattle Public Schools' system. It's a small middle school (450 - 600 students, depending on classroom usage), with an inclusive philosophy, a decent facility, and a strong principal and teaching staff. Its thriving programs include an arts integration model, advanced learning opportunties (ALO), schoolwide literacy, music, advanced math, afterschool sports and activities.
It's also undersubscribed, because although community parents have worked to raise its profile and its funds, aggregate test scores, programs, and events don't stand out in comparison to the bigger schools with more resources, more high-test students, and more dollars. Most unfortunately, plenty of folks never visit the school to find out what has changed in the last several years (scores rising far faster than average; new programs launched, reputations contradicted)
The CPPS hidden gem program is designed to bring more awareness of successful small programs like Meany's to the community, because when parents and students don't look for themselves, old beliefs die hard. A corollary to this truism: old patterns are hard to break. Even when schools drastically improve, many parents fear to choose schools less often named on their friends and neighbors' choice lists. Nobody wants their child to end up alone.
In addition to hidden gem publicity, CPPS is endeavoring to bring parent communities together to build cohorts and provide supports for "unpopular" but educationally strong choices. We're recruiting 4th grade families to check out Meany and southeast families to invest in and become ambassadors for several schools in that cluster (SE Ambassador workshop, 6:30 pm Thursday, May 22nd at Orca K-8). Please attend, and email me, stephaniej@cppsofseattle.org, with questions.
What do you think? Can we get parents to look beyond the safety of traditional choices? Do these strategies have promise? I hope so.
Comments
Does anyone have any thoughts on the Montessori program at T.T. Minor?
"...to the bigger schools with more resources, more high-test students, and more dollars."
By more dollars do you mean from the school, the district or fundraising?
Most of the "bigger" schools have more students than they can truly hold (and not always by choice). They get more dollars per student, true, but they don't get more dollars from the district. Meaning that any middle school over, I think, 800 students gets the same amount as Eckstein at about 1200. The same number of secretaries, the same number of assistant principals but 400 more students.
As to the phrase "high test" students - is that meant to mean Spectrum or APP students? I don't know. But those are successful programs and obviously popular, otherwise people wouldn't be filling those schools.
Every school has a choice to make about what it offers. I absolutely agree that schools can get a reputation that hangs on for years even when undeserved (good or bad). It is hard to gauge whether people turn away from a school because of personnel, programs, or lack of programs.
It might be worth going into the elementary schools and asking parents what middle schools they are considering and why.
I do not care specifically about WASL scores, but Meany's WASL scores indicate that they have a population of students that are struggling below grade-level and therefore the majority of the students in each class need remedial, not grade-level of beyond grade-level work.
How can a more advanced student be challenged in a large classroom with that population of students?
At the open house two years ago I asked the Math teacher how many students did ALOs and he said just a couple in the class. I don't want my to have to force him to do the extra-credit. I want the general requirements in the class to go further. I want the general expectations to be set high.
That was my biggest concern and I know there are a lot of parents that have gone to Meany that are very happy there, but I just can't get to the point where I believe my son's needs will be met.
Why would it be any different than elementary school where in math we struggled to get some more challenging work for the more advanced kids? It just didn't happen because the teacher was busy enough with the rest of the class.
I might be willing to do it for elementary school, where there are siz years ahead and the academics aren't as important as middle school/high school. By middle school kids need to learn the study skills and foundation subjects to succeed in high school where their grades really matter.
So, although this should have been a District-level decision, although it was the choice that served the students and the District best, it was vetoed by the Meany principal.
This is a critical change that is coming for Seattle Public Schools - a centralization of authority. In the future, principals will not retain veto power over program placements in their buildings.
As well, there are parents/educators who are philosophically against any kind of separation of students. Those parents seek out schools that also have that philosophy (although some elementary schools that say they don't "need" Spectrum have ended up paying for additional tutoring in math because those students need it). However, you can see that most of these schools tend to be smaller and are unable to have wide-ranging programs (including foreign language, music, etc.)
If the district, through the Strategic Plan, is going for more uniformity in what is offered (and note I said "what" not "how"), then you may see more schools having to have real programs for student needs. As well the assignment plan will likely put pressure on schools to match offerings so that a degree of equity can be maintained. Whether principals and teachers are going to want to do this or how they will be compelled to get with the new plan remains to be seen.
Not all of the students who are ready and able to succeed with more challange necessarily fit the Spectrum mold or meet the Spectrum eligibility requirements. Schools must find other ways to deliver that sort of rigorous, complex, ambiguous, and accelerated work outside of any structured program.
The principals and administrators can wax poetic about the inclusive classrooms and differentiated instruction, but I don't know a lot of people who are buying that myth anymore. Differentiated instruction hardly ever happens - maybe once a week - and, when it does, it is usually clumsy and punitive (Mandy is assigned an essay while Billy is asked to make a poster). It's de-motivating - the absolutely worst outcome possible.
I think it might be different if a school could articulately describe their ALO and how - exactly - it delivers a rigorous, accelerated curriculum to select students in an inclusive environment. I think it might be different if the District would review these programs for quality and efficacy (as they promised to do when they created ALOs). I think it would be different if there was data to support the contention that their program works. Right now, there is none of that. Not at Meany, not anywhere.
Hale has this inclusive model. They offer students the opportunity to add on AP or honors work within the "inclusive" classroom. What? It does feel punitive. Sure, give me a heap of extra work, that is not the standard, that I don't have to do, and am not expected to do. I wonder how many kids actually do this? I would like to see the numbers. I also wonder how effective it is? They are not getting AP or honors level instruction, just extra work to do on their own.
Then take a school like Meany, which is fighting to keep the inclusive model, and has a majority of students that are struggling. I would think the standard drops below the middle ground in their classrooms. How exactly are the kids that need advanced level work served in that environment?
Thanks!
Last year I attended an event for Meany in a parent's house during the enrollment period where several teachers, the principal, and lots of parents promoted Meany as a great school. The teachers and parents all claimed more advanced kids' needs were met, but I remain skeptical. Lots of parents think Salmon Bay is great, but then I hear on this blog that the curriculum is not very challenging at all. How many parents really know what their children should be learning at a given grade level? It's really hard to tell without attending the school and knowing what a challenging curriculum looks like at the grade-level in question.
And then there is another issue. I have never made any mention of the segration at WMS of APP/Spectrum students from the general population. But my son has repeatedly said that his classes that are not Spectrum/App have a much larger number of kids that are disruptive and the teachers have a much more difficult time controlling the classroom.
I attribute this to those classes having a larger number of kids that have already fallen far behind and lost interest in school. My fear is that a school like Meany, where most of those attending did not actively choose the school, but were assigned because they didn't even have the initiative to follow the enrollment process, will likely have more kids that fall into this category.
So, I would love to hear specifics from parents that have attended Meany on how these issues are addressed. For me it has to be more that they are committed to improving their neighborhood school and the school is working hard to bring all kids to a high level. Just like the criticisms of the Strategic Plan, I want specifics....
Since we live in the southend, RB would be our reference school, and though I know the school is working hard to attract more neighborhood students, I can't help but apply the same logic to RB as I, and Ann, did to Meany. What happens when my child, who loves school and welcomes rigor, is in a classroom where a number of the students may have a completely different outlook?
I think the District's biggest challenge is to find a way to serve a broad range of students with often extremely different needs in the classroom. This dichotomy is much more prevalent in the southened where socio-economic diversity is great. I am thrilled that RB has made such great strides this year, but my child needs more than "working to pass the WASL." Will she be "ignored" because she is not at risk? Will she be bored? Will she be challenged? I can't waste her high school years on a bunch of questions.
I too would like to see some hard data on Meany's success with ALO...and not just in grades or test figures—what do parents think?
I know a kid in a neighboring district who is in middle school and doing precalculus at the high school, so I was thinking about it again.
Helen Schinske
TOPS only has one math teacher to cover 7th and 8th grade (total of 240 students) and we have been told that he can't be expected to teach accelerated math as well (it would mean four 'preps' instead of two). Also that tracking math would lead to all of the accelerated-in-math kids being in all of the same classes together which would be bad.
Salmon Bay is bigger at MS so maybe they have more math teachers and more flexibility in their schedule?
Int I is only offered to 8th grade students, and any motivated 8th grader can take the class. It is not like other middle schools such as Eckstein, where students have to "test in" or have a teacher recommendation. In keeping with their philosophy, and lack of emphasis on grades Salmon Bay has no grade requirements to enter or stay in Int I.
There's a lot more to address in terms of philosophy, parent support, deciding what will work in a diverse, high % of struggling kids environment, but I do believe that parents, working with cooperative teachers and administrators, and working together for a group of kids, not just their own kid, can help facilitate real ALO-style advanced progress. Obviously, that's my line -- More later.
I have no problem with time spent out of the classroom if that time is spent doing something to support the learning going on inside the classroom. A camping trip could hold a ton of educational opportunities. Even a school dance could hold educational value - making a budget, advertising, calculating and ordering supplies, allocating any profits, etc.
Unfortunately, Salmon Bay did not use the field trips for this purpose. They were just for fun and entertainment, and resulted in my son being away from his classroom over 1/6 th of the school year. That to me is just irresponsible.
If Meany is taking positive steps along that path, then they should see acceptance and foster a successful program.
But even if Meany - or any other school promoting any other program or service - can and does their part of the effort (accurately and articulately describe their purpose and practice and collect the necessary data to demonstrate quality and efficacy), it will still fall upon the District to do their part (assess for quality and efficacy). Until the district does their part, it is all for naught.
The good news is that the the Superintendent says that the District is going to start doing their part. I look forward to that.
When they do, they will see that many of the program are NOT of high quality and that many of the programs are NOT effective. That's when the telling moment will come. What will they do? If they determine that the Spectrum program at School A is not effective, what will they do?
My problem is that beyond the teacher giving the work, there is no teacher involved. Meaning, your child is doing advanced work/learning without the teacher's input or teaching. Leaving out the element of having a teacher teaching at an advanced level (whether it's pace, sophistication or depth) is not something that worked for my child.
But, as I said, there are parents who like different things and so it's great that schools offer them. However, Spectrum and APP are always full which speaks to how parents like it. I think the ALOs could have been more popular if they were embraced by all teachers or aligned properly. But it just didn't happen. It sounds like its happening at Meany.
"...to the bigger schools with more resources, more high-test students, and more dollars."
I'm unclear on more dollars and more high-test students.
To a lot of parents, the small schools can't quite compete in terms of show, regardless of what they're doing in classrooms. And 1st choice votes (and numbers of middle class families engaging in the choice process) follow the popularity bandwagons. Educationally and socially speaking, I'm not a fan of the large middle school models, but it is hard to break the cycle of their advantage.
I also think there needs to be parent and community support for such things. An ALO program that nobody signs up for is not much good, no matter how well-designed or even evaluated.