Greenwood Elementary: The Power of Praise and Criticism
I live on nw73rd St. just west of 3rd Ave NW about a block or so. I noticed that not many young families on my block and in my immediate neighborhood go to Greenwood Elementary.
I am looking to get input from many sources about what's good at Greenwood and what's not. My hope is that this dialogue can be used to build additional neighborhood confidence in Greenwood and I can stop watching my neighbors enroll in Whittier, St. John, or head out or move out of the neighborhood altogether.
I have nothing against those other schools or neighborhoods, but it should be a choice not a decision made because they perceive that Greenwood Elementary is not a viable choice.
I think it's very important to have strong public schools at the heart of every community.
I have the feeling that if alot of folks weighed in about the pluses and minuses, we could build the former and minimize the minuses. Maybe idealistic, but I think worth it because of the possibilities of the end result.
Please think about this topic and weigh in on it here. Consider forwarding the link to this thread to others in the community who may have an idea about what's right and what's not. Thanks.
posted by Kate Martin @ 6:05 PM
10 Comments:
Fair and valid question. I would love to see Greenwood have the reputation of an engaging, powerful school that supports its teachers and community. I hear there is new leadership and hopeful that this will make a difference. We are sad not to walk our daughter to school. We attended the preschool there and loved the teachers.
Our reasons to send our daughter to private school were varied. As a public school teacher, I know how important it is to have a smaller class size, and this has not been an issue with Seattle since there are far more problems to address. I know that PTAs have subsidized class size, but it is uneven across the district. When I looked at which schools offered foreign language during the course of the week and what the non-academic classes were, it seemed that some clusters had much more to offer their students. Inequity across the district is extreme.
We have a daughter that had some specific learning requirements and when we questioned not only Greenwood, but the district, they were not able to address our needs and concerns. We were afraid our daughter would get lost in the class size and not be challenged in the way she needs to be challenged and then labeled a trouble-maker or not be excited about school. We also did not want her to skip K and go right into 1st grade which was another option.
Lastly, Loyal Heights has a program of tracing student achievement through an individual plan. This makes sense since every child starts at a different place and progresses at a different rate. Since we felt that we could track the progress of our child to see if she was being challenged and learning, we applied but did not get into that school. That type of system is standard in the U.K. education system.
Thanks for your comments Shelly.
The individual learning plan model is very useful. It gives the system a way to help all students achieve and helps to establish equity.
My preference is to serve all students, not a particular group or no group at all, but all students.
By simply serving all students in whatever way will best benefit them as individuals, everyone succeeds in their own way and on their own terms or on the terms of their parents or advocates.
This is a very do-able methodology.
Personally, we have navigated the system quite widely, other than exclusive private schools where we never ventured, we've been in alot of situations.... Catholic, mainstream public, homeschool, and alternative public school programs have been a part of our experience over the last dozen years or so.
Unfortunately, I only engaged seriously in the district issues in the last few years because I'm spread pretty thin in other areas of activism in our fair city.
I came up to speed pretty fast and I thought that a blog would be a good way to get a bunch of neighborhood folks to weigh in (as well as informed folks from other places) and perhaps there is a way to bring it back home. I do think that a strong neighborhood elementary school is important to a strong community and that the public schools, and the neighborhood schools, need to serve everyone.
I really struggled with this issue as well. My son is entering kindergarten next year and I love the idea of walking to school, and the idea of a neighborhood school. We toured Greenwood last year and again this year. This year I really got the sense that the PTA and the teachers are excited about the new principal and the changes that he is bringing to the school.
That being said, in the end we did not put it as our top choice (although it is on our list so we may end up there). It is hard to put a finger on what just didn't feel right about it. On all of our tours I found myself going more by my gut than I had anticipated, and I really wanted to love Greenwood. But something about it felt cold, or disjointed, or just....off. (this had nothing to do with the people we met there; they were all great).
So perhaps this is just the residue of all of the issues that have gone on there -- and will likely change as things begin to change there. I can't think of a better way to describe it. (and it probably doesn't add much to this dialogue).
I'm really pulling for Greenwood to become a great school, and I feel a bit conflicted that we didn't choose it. I'm anxious to see what happens there over the next few years.
I am going to go to their auction tonight. I have contacted Darlene Flynn who is the school board director in this district for Greenwood. I also got a call from the principal, Walter Trotter, two nights ago. I got his scoop and he got mine.
After talking to a few other folks, I think a Friends of Greenwood Elementary group or something like that needs to form so there's continuity. Alumni, neighbors, general community, etc. folks who want to make sure it is all it can be and keeping the pressure on in a positive way would be useful. This is important for our community whether our kids go their or have gone there or not.
I can see that they're addressing the struggling students, but not the middle or the upper achievers. To me that's discrimination. Every student deserves an Individual Learning Plan, not just low achievers. It's easy to lose sight of the higher achievers when we discuss equity. Personally, I look to see that all students are served.
To my dismay, I found out that they're stuffing a couple of pre-school classes from Wilson Pacific in the school to eat seats. That will take neighborhood spots away. I will request demographic data from enrollment to track where the kids are coming from and where the kids are going to in our neighborhood and the surrounding schools.
Attractive programs for all kinds of students are really important.
My discussion with Walter Trotter, the principal, included the following points. He said they have very low math scores and are working on it. The methods he mentioned to work on that seemed as though they were not maximizing resources that are available. The district is dumping several pre-school classes from Wilson Pacific into Greenwood to fill seats. The first floor is being reworked to squeeze them in. The music room is being bumped to the stage. The computer lab is toast as well to squeeze it in. They will not have any capacity to absorb potential neighborhood demand after they do this and we know potential neighborhood demand outstrips capacity already. They only do individual learning plans for struggling students. He did not take responsibility for previous admin problems as he said he was only in charge of the previous principal for 2 years at his former job. In my mind there is a decade long history of leadership problems there. The district tends to move bad principals laterally to go on and ruin another school but never out the door.
The auction was very nice last night. Good energy and parents at the K-2 level that are bringing their gifts to the table as far as involvement.
Now if the school could get and stay focused on all students it would be helpful. The decision to move the pre-schools from W-P there is disgusting. The district doesn't look at why a school is not enrolled or take responsibily to give it attractive relevant programs and funding to fix the problems which are mostly created at their end or at least are fixable from their end, it's always just get the seats filled and call it good.
I think a community group that keeps continuity of pressure on this school and the district and the school board would get things on track and help keep it on track. It may need to be a variety of folks that aren't necessarily intimately involved in the school, but maybe used to be or will be in the future or who realize how important strong elementary schools and other schools are for building and sustaining the community.
If it's just folks in the school, then they move on and the chain may be broken.
I'll keep gathering info an inviting other folks to blog here. You all do the same and we'll get somewhere.
Kate and others:
I have mixed feelings about posting to this blog. I have a Kindergartner at Greenwood, and a third grader at Lowell who spent her K-2 years at Greenwood. I know the school well and love it very much. The biggest hurdle facing Greenwood as we grow as a school is the negative perception of the place that is largely perpetrated through gossip by people who have no children at the school, and no involvement in it. Is this blog just another vehicle for gossip? I hope not, and I trust that you are committed to helping the effort that we in the school are engaged in, as you have expressed some of the same concerns that we have.
First and foremost, I appreciate your outrage that the Wilson Pacific Preschool - a wonderful and important program in the District - has been slated to move to Greenwood next fall, apparently based only upon our enrollment from this year. We had a very poor touring season in Winter 2005/6, largly because our Principal was on sick leave and the school foundered comewhat in his absence. For that reason, we enrolled far fewer Kindergartners this past fall than in any of the previous years we have been in the school. In contrast, this year, we toured more than double the amount of prospective students compared to last year, and the buzz at the tours was overwhelmingly positive. The District projects our enrollment at 274 for the fall, based on the enrollment forms received to date, and that would be a 15% increase over this year - we didn't have 274 at our highest enrolment, two years ago. The school is on an upswing, and the neighborhood knows it. If our enrollment is at or above 274, we will barely fit into the building and will have virtually no room for further growth - just at the point that we have turned a corner and are growing.
It seems to me typical of the District that they would only consider data that they already know to be outdated in placing the Wilson Pacific presechool. Greenwood's building is not large, and as you point out, as the community embraces the school we will need the space the preschool takes up for neighborhood kids who want to attend Greenwood. Will those students be denied a spot, or will the preschool be forced to move a second time? Neither alternative serves the students well. It would make more sense to put the Preschool in a larger building that had a more stable population, based on enrollemt numbers over a period of years.
The only other point I wish to address is the way advanced learners are accommodated at Greenwood. My daughter entered Kindergarten as a reader, and by the end of second grade was reading at a 5th grade level. JeSe Shook, the Primary MultiAge teacher, addressed Olivia's needs as well as the needs of the other advanced learners in his class by assigning them work appropriate to their individual ability. He had students able to add and subtract fractions in first grade; he also had a student enter in the middle of the year not knowing how to speak English. His strategy was to have his advanced readers teach the new student how to speak, read and write english under his supervision. This activity kept the advanced readers occupied and engaged; and it showed the new student the level of compassion and warmth that truly makes our school special. Within three weeks, he was able to converse in English. When my daughter moved to Lowell this year, she was on a par with the advanced learners from other schools in the district, including Whittier, North Beach, and other very well regarded schools in the North and Northwest Cluster. Greenwood served her very well.
Our Kindergartner is also an early reader, and his teacher also takes steps to see that the group of readers in her classroom are given extra attention so their skills develop and they stay engaged. These kids are pulle into a reading group once or more a week.
Greenwood does not have a formal program in Advanced Learning, or Spectrum or APP - but the teachers are very aware of the different levels of ability present in our wonderfully diverse community and they are committed to serving each child.
Kate, thank you so much for attending and supporting our auction. Those of us who make Greenwood Elementary our home love the place and are absolutely committed to making it the neighborhood draw that it should be. I encourage anyone reading this blog to please spend time volunteering in the building, talking to teachers, parents and students, and coming to see our events and performances. Make your own judgements of the place based on what happens within its walls. You may start by visiting our web site, www.greenwoodpta.org.
Sincerely,
Steven Sterne
Steve-
I could absolutely see last night that Greenwood has a critical mass of involved parents and caring teachers certainly including yourself.
I think that staking a position with the district to fend off crazy stuff like the W-P pre-school highjacking important classroom space is paramount. I wish this wasn't true, but I think it is.
A group of Greenwood supporters who don't go away and who beat the same drum and keep up with what's relevant and important to the school in any particular era is essential. Having 360 degree input on a regular basis into that to make it happen would be great.
I also think that what you said about the teachers making the individual challenges possible is important. I talked to Walter Trotter about that on the phone. The idea that individual learning plans would be for everyone supports that concept and makes it essential, not optional. Obviously some teachers will make more of it than others, but it's essential. Parents of prospective kindergarteners often have no idea how to judge a school's potential and verbal spin can easily be outweighed by another school's program which may or may not be doing any better.
I'm not interested in rumor or rumor mills. Also, I believe when it's time to navigate to another school, one should do so without trashing it and causing long term consequences that hurt the school. Everyone knows that a school never really stays the same, but has good eras and not so good eras. Greenwood certainly deserves to stay on the good era trend its on and to assure that it stays there requires diligence.
It would be good to have the ILP for everyone and blow horns about it and its accomplishments.
The art, music, and Spanish are great things, too.
When the district tries to inject crap like they are with the pre-school situation, having a posse of community people supporters to fend that off without having to rock the boat internally would be great. As a matter of fact, being pro-active to the point of not having to fend stuff off and be reactive to that stuff would be far better.
I do believe it's the administration's responsibility to make the school attractive even if the district makes the playing field unlevel with their distribution of programs. I think if the administration had a posse of community supporters to keep vigil and to keep things in balance it would be easier to run the school. It's very hard to cram stuff down a school's throat when there's a firewall of citizenry out there. That firewall, I believe, is best manned by folks who are on the long march...something I'm willing to participate in with the help of advisers from the inside made up of teachers, administration, students, and parents and folks from the outside made up of community members, businesses, and alumni amongst others.
I have no ill intent. I can see that Greenwood is on the upswing and I'd like to keep it that way. I also want my neighbors to go there and so I want to listen to what they don't see or like and work with that information not in a marketing way, but in a substance and constuctive way. What I mean by that is just seeing what's right and what's wrong and maximizing the former and minimizing the latter. Seeing it through the prospective parent's eyes is important.
The district is very inequitable in the marketing of each school. I don't like that and am working on that, meanwhile, I want to know as much as possible about Greenwood to insure that it has a wait list of neighborhood folks, always. I think that shouldn't be a problem.
Does that make sense?
For some time I have been pondering how to enter this conversation. I have a long history with Greenwood Elementary, although I have been away from the school for the past 3 years. Prior to that I had three children who went all the way through from K-5, so I was a parent there for 9 years. I was an active volunteer and eventually a member of the staff, acting at different times as the Volunteer Coordinator (funded by the Families & Education Levy, then by the PTA) and the computer "teacher" (actually a paraprofessional position - I hate that term!). I began working there in 1998 and lost my position in 2003 when the District mismanaged their finances so badly. My proudest contribution (aside from direct student contact) was to take a leadership role in the committee of staff and parents that worked with the design team on our remodeled school building.
When our first child was ready for kindergarten, we strongly felt that unless things were terribly wrong at our neighborhood school, that we would want him to go there. Dating back even before that time, many families on our block and the surrounding area had sent their children to other schools (mostly public, but increasingly private). Three years later we were happy to send our other two children to the school, although at that time we were on our second of three principals and enrollment at the school (and therefore funding) was dropping, due to changes made at the District level, including revised busing practices and the relocation of a bilingual program from Greenwood to Northgate.
Unless you have participated directly in a school's annual budget process, I doubt that you can grasp how disheartening it truly is. Year after year we were faced with cuts to our enrollment projections, other budget limitations, and mandated items that had to be funded, regardless of the impact. When you feel you have cut as close to the bone as you can, over and over and over, it is really demoralizing for the staff. Positions are cut, enriching parts of the curriculum go unfunded, and the strain and anxiety are great. I really don't believe these effects on the school climate can be overestimated.
Layer over this a history somehow frought with leadership problems, and you have a recipe for overall decline in morale and reputation, if not in the actual quality of the learning environment. I can't explain why we have had such a poor experience in recent years making a strong working connection between the principals and the larger school community. This is not the forum for criticizing past principals or the initiatives they introduced to try to fulfil their vision of a vibrant, effective school. Suffice it to say that this has been a huge problem.
On the other hand, learning takes place in the classrooms, between students and teachers. I believe that at EVERY school there are gifted, compassionate, motivated teachers who are changing individual children for the better. There are also some who, for any number of reasons, are not as effective in the classroom. This is not dissimilar to what you will find in any work or civic environment. I don't think you will find a school anywhere that does not have this mix - but you may find schools that do a better job of supporting the growth of weaker teachers and recognizing and spreading the practices of the stronger ones.
All of our three children had areas of academic strength and areas where they needed extra help. With the exception of one particularly weak math year for our son, they all got what they needed. My son went on to be a successful student at a private middle school and then Ballard High. My daughters are just finishing 3 years in the Spectrum program at Eckstein and will also be heading to Ballard, because we STILL believe that neighborhood schools are the best places for our kids.
Good public schools (like public libraries) lie at the very heart of our democratic society. While as a parent I know we each need to make the best choices we can for our children, it saddens me to see so many neighbors choose other schools, particularly private ones. We need engaged, supportive families who value education to be active in our public schools, especially the ones in their neighborhoods. We were part of a wonderful community at Greenwood and have no regrets.
I hope this discussion might help inspire more neighbors to give the school a closer look and to contribute their passion and resources to help build up this community resource for everyone.
Judith-
Thank you a million times for giving us your perspective. I'm sure you're just about the best resource the community has for the collective history of the school and the wisdom to advise on strategy for developing Greenwood to its full potential as our strong neighborhood school. I look forward to your continued contribution to the conversation.
I'm pursuing a disclosure of information about the Program Placement decision to cram the Wilson-Pacific preschools into Greenwood. Highjacking Greenwood's computer lab and music room and at the same time taking away nearly all availability of space for the incoming neighborhood students is wacky and winds up blaming the school for mistakes that the district made over a very long period of time including last year's enrollment period when there was no principal at the helm at all.
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