Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
In old Pickett, we had basically kids roaming the hallways all day long, every day of the
week, constant fights, like disrespecting teachers, pretty much chaos. There were fights
almost every day, there was non-learning going on, the teachers were afraid to teach, and
it was just not a very good environment. There was no learning; students were out of order;
the teachers and the principal had no control over the kids; the kids actually ran the school.
Students were in the hallway when we came in, there was loud talking in some classes,
there was yelling from some teachers to students. So it was very disruptive, very disruptive.
When adults work together to create greatness, there is a set of common judgment principles.
I believe that those are the management principles that make schools great: that the issue is
with the adults. If the adults operate effectively, efficiently, kids perform. School culture
is about building relationships with students; being sure students have access to adults;
building relationships with parents, and making sure our internal team is on the same page.
I would say the biggest difference at Mastery in our culture is that it’s safe. We also
try to really love our students. We have lots of fun activities to build in a sort of positive
love for the school and I think that the teachers and students here have a really positive relationship.
Every student, before they enter the building, is greeted by a loving, warm adult, saying,
good morning, telling them that we care about them and telling them that we hope that they
have a great day at school. Our job is simply to make sure that students are ready for post-secondary
education. We want kids to have the skills they need for college, we want them to have
the skills they need for competing in the global economy: so both the academic skills
and the interpersonal skills. I think students really embrace this idea that we really believe
they’re going to college and that everything we do is about that. So holding them accountable,
being very, very disciplined with them about behavior and academics. They teach us every
day, and we learn from the time we walk in to the time we leave, even after school, and
there’s actually even after-school programs like 7th period and office hours to help us
bring our grade up. We are completely focused on what happens in the classroom. So that
means hiring great teachers, it means pay for performance, it means constant attention
to instruction in the classroom, lots of professional development, coaching. Every moment of our
day needs to be carefully planned so that we’re teaching strategically to move our
kids. We assess students all along the way because we really want to know that every
student, that every single moment of every single day is tied to what we say or are supposed
to be doing, and I don’t know if there is a better way to do it. Teachers are held accountable
on a daily basis for being prepared in your classroom, teaching towards the benchmark,
teaching toward the PSSA, making sure students are ready for college. We want someone who
has presence in a classroom. They dig kids, but they know that they are the authority
in the classroom and can manage that classroom; a sort of intangible that lots of folks can
do it a different way, but they own their classroom. Mastery sweats the small stuff
because we believe that if we sweat small stuff, we won’t have the larger issues.
The structure here is very important; and that is that we want to have good, productive
citizens later on in life. And it causes the parents to take on their obligations, you
know, at home. I have to play my part. My sons are automatically planning and preparing
and looking forward to getting a college education. We are learning about stuff like goals and
stuff we got to do in the future, and once we get to class we’re learning, and our
homework is like three to four to five hours, so once we get home we’re still learning,
and every day we learn something new. The teachers are so sweet and they give us so
much attention when we need it. You know, they encourage us. If I feel like I’m giving
up, they say, no, you can do it, and then I can.