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Nicky Ramos-Beban
(MA ‘92) is Co-Director of East Palo Alto High School in the Ravenswood School District. She has worked as a teacher educator and
an English teacher in
public schools for the
past 12 years.
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The new East Palo Alto High School staff passed this summer engaged in marathon conversations-often lively, often passionate, always provocative-that produced the policy that is building our school. We are 10 teachers, including two directors who also teach. We fit around one table and are often joined by our mentors: community members, parents, students, professors, and business leaders. As professional educators we do what we will ask students to do; we pool our expertise to create something valuable, useful and expressive of who we are as people. As professional educators we digest the complex work of education and through our inclusive democracy, talk becomes the valuable product of a living high school —a high achievement for a group of teachers. As school begins, the talk is spreading out. Students are now engaged with teachers in building our school and in building their educational achievements. Could we have started this venture with the 100 staff one finds in a school serving 1500 students? How big can the staff get before folks have to leave the table and communicate via bureaucratic hierarchies instead of face-to-face? How big does an individual classroom have to get before a responsive and responsible education becomes a one-size-fits-all offering? How big does a school get before it loses the close focus on individual learning necessary to ensure high achievement for all and change the status quo student by student? At our school an eventual staff of 20 teaching a student body of 320 in classes of 20-25 feels about right. |
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Becky Elmendorf
graduated from the Stanford Teacher Education Program in 1967. She taught math for
27 years in California, Arizona, Michigan and Washington before
going into administration.
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I am the principal of a 1,050 student high school in the northwest corner of Washington State. In the mid-90s, voters in our town were convinced that two high schools of 1,600 were too large. I certainly agreed, having taught in schools ranging from 600 to 3,000. So the design committee for this third school began reading the research and studying books such as Sizer’s Horace series. Squalicum was opened in the fall of 1998 as a “school within a school”. A team of teachers in each house is charged with integrating curriculum for the 350 students assigned to them, while a counselor, secretary and assistant principal work closely with their families. Freshmen and sophomores spend half of their time in their house but have music, physical education and specialized courses in the core section of the school.
Physically, for teachers and students, the building is almost ideal. Emotionally, for the teachers, the switch from departments to teams has been difficult. Our goal is to continue inventing small learning communities. With the help of the Coalition of Essential Schools Northwest and a $4.5 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, we are working toward advisories and 9th/10th grade academies. Seventy five percent of our staff is involved in Critical Friends’ Groups, eight colleagues from different disciplines who, along with their coach, focus on student work and improving teaching. We’ve begun to see our student scores and spirit rise, our teachers passionate in their profession, and our families enthusiastic. |
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