Be Uncommon. Lead Our Schools.

Do you want to be at the forefront of revolutionizing the way we educate children today? Are you ready to commit yourself to some of the most urgent and exciting work of our time? If so, look no further. 

Uncommon Schools now offers future Principals and Directors of Operations a year of guidance and mentoring as they prepare to build an outstanding school within the Uncommon network. The Hollyhock Foundation (of Robert and Suzanne Karr, members of the Uncommon board and the Collegiate network board, respectively), and the WKBJ Foundation (of Bob Howitt, a member of the Uncommon board) have made this wonderful opportunity possible.

Hollyhock Fellows, in their year-long training to become principals and instructional leaders, will:

• Develop the school’s instructional guidelines and cultural blueprint, with the help of managing directors who have already helped to build some of the highest achieving urban schools in the Northeast
• Participate in a summer course of study
• Spend time in residence at current Uncommon schools
• Observe at least 5-10 high-achieving schools and countless outstanding teachers
• Receive support from Uncommon’s home office, related to teacher recruitment, operations and technology, facilities, finance, and development
• Partner with a Director of Operations

Howitt Fellows, in their year-long training to become Directors of Operations and the organizational backbone of their schools, will receive a similar year of guidance, but focus fully on the operations blueprint of the school. 

Evan Rudall, COO of Uncommon Schools, sees these fellowships as a remedy to the challenge of finding top-echelon leaders: “Given that there are so few school that do this work the way we do, finding candidates who share our vision of excellence is like finding a needle in a haystack. The fellowships will give our future leaders a full year to get to know our schools and our systems inside out.”

In the past, Uncommon leaders have partaken in a less formalized training year, in which they were able to observe classrooms, teach in Uncommon schools, and receive guidance from a managing director. Paul Powell is currently teaching at True North Rochester Prep, under the guidance of Managing Director Doug Lemov and principal Stacey Shells, and is slated to start the second school in the True North network, True North Troy Prep, in August of 2009. Powell taught as a TFA corps member in Los Angeles and New York City, and praises the time he has spent teaching math and observing the systems of Rochester Prep, which he will use as a foundation for his own school: “It’s just like night and day. For me, getting inside and working for a year has helped adapt my vision, taking it from a vague model that was full of gaps to knowing what systems will look like more concretely.”

The first of two selection weekends took place on February 8th and 9th, and candidates for both positions participated in a rigorous day of interviewing, role-playing, and teaching sample lessons.

The second, and final round of applications, are due on March 1, 2008.

If you are interested in taking advantage of this exciting opportunity, you can find more information about the Hollyhock Fellowship here, and more information about the Howitt Fellowship here.

— By Sophie Brickman

Prepster's Paradise: Stacey Shells and Rochester Prep

It is almost 5 pm on a Tuesday at True North Rochester Preparatory Charter School and the buses are waiting downstairs, but a handful of students just won’t leave the principal’s office.

“Where do you guys have to be right now?” asks Principal Stacey Shells, one beige cable-knit sock-clad foot tucked under her. (Her socks match her sweater.)

“Aww, we’re coming home with you, Miss Shells!” says sixth-grader Anthony, grinning.

“Yeah!” the other four sixth-graders shout, waiting for Shells to laugh. And she does. A loud, genuine laugh that sets off her students. Then she looks at the time and shoos them out of her office and down to their buses.

After a beat of silence, she calls out to the front room, which she can see from her desk when her door is open (almost all of the time). “Hey, Deck-meister? You want to come to a sushi dinner tonight?”

“Ahh, Shells-meister, I have plans!” Director of Operations Dan Deckman says, turning to help Amari Lesesne look up the answer to a bonus problem on his homework (“Who was the first African American female astronaut on a NASA mission?”), as a reward for being “so inquisitive.” Shells then makes her way to the staff room to ask her teachers if they want to join her for dinner.  

Though hall transitions are tight and students stay on task throughout their nine hour day, the feel of Rochester Prep can be seen, in microcosm, in these ten minutes: students who’d rather hang out with their principal than go home, and staffers who want to spend even more time together, after a day that starts, for many of them, before the sun has risen. Deckman slipped out on Super Tuesday to vote, but found even that difficult: “It’s not that I’m guilty, even though it’s pretty much non-stop running  each day, from cleaning up vomit, to calling board members, to trying to figure out how to get the power back on, to doing finances. It’s just that whenever I leave in the middle of the day, it feels like I’m missing something great that’s going on at school.”

Over a fresh water eel roll at a new restaurant where the waiters recognize her (“It’s no New York sushi,” says Shells, a New Yorker for five years, “but it’s not bad either”), Shells rattles off her leadership model: “We don’t want the system to run the school, we want the people to run the school.” When she hires teachers, she tries to take them out to dinner after the more traditional interview that involves a sample lesson. “I need to know that they have personality, character, that they have a certain rapport with their kids while being able to maintain rigor in the classroom.” She daintily dips her sushi in soy sauce. “People who visit tell me how surprised they are that our staff gets along so well.”

Shells was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, where her mother ran an urban school. After working as an at-risk counselor in a school-to-work program and starting her own non-profit afterschool program that the YMCA soon took over, Shells turned more fully to education. A psychology major, she realized she wasn’t reaching students from the self-esteem model: “Their self-esteem would plummet because they didn’t have the skills,” she recalls. She joined Teach For America in Baltimore, moved to New York City to teach in the south Bronx while simultaneously immersing herself in the hip-hop music scene (she is on a first name basis with Talib Kweli and Mos Def), and found herself in Rochester five years later, after Uncommon Schools contacted her.

Doug Lemov, Managing Director of the True North Network, grilled her during her interview. “Two things were abundantly clear,” he says of that day. “Her absolute relentlessness and her faith in what she knew. One of the things I was testing for is if she would bite if I spouted a lot of mumbo jumbo platitudes about education. And she simply wouldn’t. And secretly I was agreeing with everything she said.” After working with her for two years, Lemov and Shells have managed to build a strong relationship despite the fact that Lemov does not work in the school building, and only sees her one or two days a week. “She combines her tremendous relentlessness with self-reflection,” he says. “Those things don’t necessarily go together. Someone who’s tough, relentless, and occasionally stubborn isn’t always the first to reflect on how they can get better. But Stacey is. She asks me for more critical feedback than I’d otherwise be inclined to give.”

In her two years as principal, she has used this relentlessness to assemble a staff of individuals who mirror her own yin-and-yang personality, which then expands to the school itself: a mixture of silly fun and serious work.  

As students are filing out from breakfast, History teacher David McBride’s students have become too loud. “Jasmine, do you see me laughing?” he asks, to a sea of shaking heads. “Right. When I laugh, you laugh. And I’m not laughing.” The students become quiet immediately. After a beat, Jasmine smiles meekly, and McBride winks at her. She giggles. As Shells says, “We hit the strict hard, but we hit the warm really really hard.” (In the same vein, the sixth, and final, item on the class agenda McBride prints on the blackboard isn’t “exit quiz” or “wrap up” but, rather, “You leave me alone!”)

“The Prepsters” feel comfortable enough with their teachers to joke with them, and the halls ring with cheers and stomps as they keep their spirits high throughout the day. Janelle Austin, a fifth-grade math teacher, breaks up her class with a simple cheer: “Who’s the best?” (bang, bang, bang) “We’re the best” (bang, bang, bang), “Who’s the best?” (bang, bang, bang), “Haaaaaaaaaarvard!” (Like other Uncommon Schools, classrooms are named after different colleges.)

Math teacher Monica Demchuk circulates through the room during independent practice in her math class, picking up a worksheet here or there to review. As she comes across a student who has completed every problem correctly, she sings softly, “I’m so excited,” and without skipping a beat, Larry, a student at the back of the room, picks up the Pointer Sisters song and finishes, a little louder, “and I just can’t hide it!”

Yet, the school couldn’t have achieved the results it did on last year’s state tests if it weren’t for a similarly strong attention to rigor. On the New York State Math exam, 87% of Rochester Prep’s 5th graders scored proficient and 33% advanced, compared to 48% and 6%, respectively, across Rochester. Rochester Prep’s mean score ranked 2nd out of 43 city schools. So what’s the other part of the story?

As in all Uncommon Schools, teachers have high behavioral expectations for students. Shells instituted a paycheck system to help inculcate and enforce them. Students get “scholar dollars” for showing extra effort in class, staying on task, and being generally helpful and respectful, and can cash these in each month at an auction, for small gifts or activities with teachers and administrators. Dollars are docked for a whole slew of missteps: $2 for failing to say excuse me, $5 for chewing gum, $10 for not participating, $20 for backtalk. Students are said to be “on perch” if they cheat, disrespect, or bully others, and for three days have to wear a white shirt, can’t eat meals with their peers, and are generally isolated from the community. That students are fined $20 for talking to a student on perch encourages the entire school – both those at fault and their friends – to minimize these punishable incidents.

When a student enters Paul Powell’s math class with a silly swagger, Powell makes him walk outside and try it again. When a visitor walks into a room and students turn around, very often they are fined.  When Ariel Lawrence is unable to find the class’ spot in her read-aloud, English teacher Jaimie Brillante docks her $2. As the leader of this school, Shells is often the most rigid of all.

One morning, math teacher Robert Zimmerli sent sixth-grader Milan Hlywa to Shells’ office. Milan had claimed that his hand hurt too much for him to write. Shells offered him two options: home, or back to class. With that, Milan marched out of the office, and half-way down the hall, threw his bag angrily down on the floor. Shells came storming right after, telling him, “I will not allow you to be weak! You melt down at the drop of a hat! If you act the way you’re acting right now, you will never keep a job.” Milan picked up his bag, went back into Zimmerli’s class, and began writing.

Hours later, Shells, now fully calm, says, “He’s one of the smartest kids in the school, and when his behavior starts to catapult, it’s just this huge waste.” Simply put, Shells won’t be pushed around, and her students know it. 

Shells doesn’t just stay after her students. She observes her teachers daily, jotting down notes which she then shares with them over conferences or emails, assessing what they did well and what needs improving. When a teacher fails to correct the improper language of a student (pronouncing forests “forest-es”), Shells makes a note. When one teacher turns his back to the classroom too long, Shells makes another note.  

Like any good principal or teacher, she knows to praise what’s successful as well. Demchuk has written down a correct response for a math problem on an enormous piece of paper, and reads it out to her students to prepare them for their upcoming math exam. Instead of playing the role of inconspicuous observer, Shells raises her hand. Her students turn around to track the speaker in the back of the room as Demchuk calls on her principal. “You guys are so lucky that your teacher has modeled the correct response for you. She took the time to write out the answer on paper, and that takes time. Give Ms. Demchuck two snaps,” says Shells, and they do.

Back in her office at the end of the day, Shells is wrapping up: finding boots to put on, checking the news and yelling out funny things she reads to Deckman, emailing her teachers, and planning for the next week. Milan, the thrower of the temper tantrum earlier, walks into her office, a big smile on his face.

“Hey, Miss Shells?”

“Yes, sweetie?” she says, turning from her computer.

“I have an idea for Black History Month!” As he starts running over his words to get his principal’s approval, Shells slows him down.

“Come here, buddy. Did you bounce back today?”

Milan nods, smiling.

“Mmhmm, come here and give me a hug.”

He does, and then continues rushing on, waiting to hear his principal laugh.

— By Sophie Brickman

A New Sound in School: The Click
 

The sixth graders in Eric Green’s afternoon math class at Williamsburg Collegiate Charter School sit quietly doing their independent practice, punching numbers into a small white device and periodically looking up at the projection screen to their left. After a glance to see a green bar stretching out beside his name, Nathanial Wyatte III pumps his fist and wiggles in a kind of desk-bound victory dance, before turning to the next section of his work packet.  

Williamsburg Collegiate is the first school in the Uncommon network to introduce "eInstruction" Classroom Performance System (CPS) clickers to the classroom. Excellence Charter School will use the clickers in their fourth grade classes after the New York State math test in early May. Melissa Chotiner, spokesperson for eInstruction, says the tool benefits both students and teachers: “First, so many different types of students get more actively involved in their education, whether it’s somebody who’s too shy to speak up, or whether a student is zoned out. The other obvious benefit is to the teachers: the CPS clicker gives them real-time feedback.” (Click here to see the recent New York Times’ article on clickers.)

Here’s how it works: As students complete a problem from a worksheet, they “key” their answers, or enter them into their clickers, which look like small remote controls. Before class, Green has entered each correct answer into his computer. His computer screen shows a grid with students’ names running down the side, and the number of each problem listed across the top. During independent practice, Green projects his screen on the wall. If a student enters the correct answer for problem one, the box beside his or her name will turn green. If he or she enters it wrong, the box turns red. As students complete the problems, the bar beside their names grow longer, making it simple to see who is ahead. The rule is that students have to get a problem “green” before they can proceed.

For other parts of the class, Green chooses not to project the results. As students punch in their answers to a worksheet or test, he can see who is struggling and then offer to help. Green can almost always spot an incorrect answer and know exactly why the student fumbled: “See, right there, it’s a case of a simple multiplication error,” he says, looking at his computer screen and watching as a student types in an answer once wrong, twice wrong, and then finally correct. “Over there, he doubled instead of squaring,” he says, pointing to another student’s record. The computer collects the data from the class and Green can use the CPS software to manipulate it in myriad ways, to see what topics need reviewing, which students would benefit from extra help, and which students are improving.  

Marc D. Hauser, Harvard College Professor of Psychology, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and Biological Anthropology, has been using clickers in his Harvard College class, Science B-29: The Evolution of Human Nature, for years. The enrollment for this popular lecture course usually hovers directly under the cap of 300, so a few years ago he thought to use clickers in order to track attendance – but then it struck him that the devices would provide other benefits as well. Now the clicker is an integral part of the class.

“It allows me to get immediate feedback on how well I’m doing,” Hauser said, reached by phone at his home in Cambridge, MA. “I’ll be going along and I’ll put up a multiple choice question on the projector and get people’s responses. If people did well, great. If people didn’t do so well, then I’ll have them turn to each other and discuss the question and re-answer. Classically, the scores shoot up. It allows people to teach each other.” This is, incidentally, one of the many foci of his class: cooperation can benefit not just the group, but also the individual.  

Williamsburg Collegiate Principal Julie Trott uses clickers in her math class in a similar manner. When students have finished the problem set, they’ll often raise their hand and ask if they can go over and help a struggling student – something which speaks directly to the strong school culture of caring and respect. “It’s so honest and transparent,” says Trott of the system. “It takes the stigma away from a student who may have gotten a problem wrong. And Eric [Green] has really maximized the clickers’ effectiveness in the classroom.”

After learning the software and the capabilities of the CPS system, Green incorporated it into four separate areas of the class: the “Do Now,” homework review, independent practice, and the “exit quiz.”  Like Trott, Green cites the emotional effect on students: “There’s this social pressure when a student looks up and sees a big red dot next to his name!” He also praises an aspect of the system, which its creators do not mention on their website (www.einstruction.com): “It forces students to go back and look at their work, which is really hard to train them to do, and so important.”

Nathanial Wyatte III has turned to the second part of his work (clicker-free), but some of his peers are still working, plugging in answers to their clickers and checking up at their names to see how they’ve done. As sixth graders, they’re just beginning to develop their work habits, and each student’s budding style can be seen clearly on the screen as boxes fill up with red or green. Some barrel along (which causes Green to mutter, as he looks at the screen, “Slow down, Jimmy!”) and make mistakes, others take their time, poring over their papers before entering their answers. Pre-clickers, Green would spend this time freely circulating through the room; now his circulation takes on a more purposeful direction. He sees that Adriana Diaz is struggling, and goes over to help. In moments, with a little guidance from Green, she’s corrected her mistake and moved onto the next problem.   

When asked, independently, of any downsides of the CPS clickers, Green and Trott both shrug and shake their heads. Green offers that after introducing the clickers, his class’ interim assessment scores were much higher.

“Maybe we’ll realize in the future that we’ve lost something by using the clickers,” says Trott, “but at this point, it certainly doesn’t look that way.”

— By Sophie Brickman