A district that illuminates success

Starkville Public Schools, Starkville, Mississippi

By Joan Richardson

Results, April 2004

"You can have a great classroom with one great teacher. But, in order to have a great school, you have to have lots of great classrooms with lots of great teachers. That can't happen without teacher leadership." - Janet Henderson Starkville assistant superintendent

If you believe as Janet Henderson does, then how do you ensure that all of your teachers become excellent? How do you move more teachers from the "good enough" column to the "great" column?

In the Starkville (Mississippi) Public Schools, the answer has been exploring the excellence within and learning how to spread it around so much that it infects all teachers.

Starkville is one of the six "positive deviant" schools and districts studied by NSDC last year with funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. These schools are achieving above-average results with students although they have the same access to resources as other schools and districts in their areas. In addition to standing out from others in their communities, these schools and districts also have processes that enable them to identify good practices internally and ensure that they are shared widely throughout their school or district, thereby enabling all teachers to perform at higher levels.

Starkville is a blend of poor families--65% free and reduced lunch enrollment--and university families because of the location of Mississippi State University within the district boundaries. It struggles constantly with the prospect of losing students to private academies and believes the quality of its programs is essential to preserving racial balance in its schools.

By any standard, the Starkville district is remarkable. At every level and in almost every way conceivable, Starkville is a district that knows how to learn. At the heart of its ability to learn is its expectation that every teacher and every administrator will be a leader of learning.

Several forces have converged to enable Starkville to identify teachers who are leaders and connect them in ways that allow those teachers to reach out to colleagues and help move them from the "good enough" into the "great" category.

One of the primary forces in the district is its home-grown Teacher Leadership Conference, initially an annual three-day conference (including a weekend) each fall. Participation is voluntary and has been limited to 18 to 20 teachers to provide a more intimate atmosphere that encourages bonding as well as learning. No teacher may attend more than once unless he or she becomes a presenter at the conference. Because they have found it so valuable, most who have attended figure out a way to become a presenter. Each year, all of the teachers who have participated in a TLC are invited to join the planning team for the next conference. So far, about 70 of the district's 270 teachers have attended the conference.

By all accounts, the first TLC conference in fall 1998 was the turning point for the district. For three days, 18 teachers shared what was going on in their schools and learned about ways to improve their teaching. Teachers from across the district worked together for the first time to identify the biggest challenges facing Starkville and to develop action plans for addressing those situations.

At the first TLC, teachers identified five areas of focus: curriculum development, public relations, teacher support for new and beginning teachers, formative teacher evaluation, and collaboration. Each of the 18 teachers volunteered to join a committee that would study each area and develop plans for improvement. What teachers recognized as important in those forums laid the groundwork for the district's long-range plan.

TLC worked for many reasons. Rather than focus on deficits, the TLC illuminated successes in each building. Teachers were encouraged to be proud of what they had achieved and to share their successes with others, often for the first time. Because all of the participants had chosen to be there, they had essentially agreed that they wanted to contribute what they knew and that they wanted to learn from others. Finally, the intimacy of the conference enabled teachers to talk openly about what they were doing that was unique. "I knew about some of these teachers but I didn't know these teachers (until the TLC)," said teacher Tina Scholtes. In a profession that's largely uncomfortable with acknowledging individual successes, Starkville's TLC cracked that barrier.

Moving in a nearly parallel path with the TLC was the district's involvement with the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, a certification process that involves deep personal reflection and collaboration with peers. Because of substantial district and state support behind the effort, about 15% of the district's 270 teachers have achieved certification and more are in a pre-candidacy program at Mississippi State University.

Where the National Board process provided teachers with tools to closely examine their own practice, the TLC helped create a forum in which teachers could share with each other. Between the two, a critical mass of teachers was developing a common language to use when talking about instruction and they were identifying strategies that were successful with students, said Amy Zitta, a 1st-grade teacher. Rather than working in the isolation that characterized the beginning of most of their careers, more and more Starkville teachers were learning the value of collaboration. They found colleagues in other buildings with whom they could share ideas, said Pam Pugh, a 1st-grade teacher.

WHAT HAPPENS NOW

Many ideas that were born in the Teacher Leader Conference have since blossomed into action in the district.

An extensive support system for new teachers known as SUPPORT grew out of one of the action areas identified by participants in the first conference.

Grade-level study teams have become the norm in Starkville's elementary schools. Teachers meet weekly to share concerns and learn from each other. Math and reading groups meet after school or over lunch. At those meetings, teachers routinely share test results, student work samples, and lesson plans.

At Armstrong Middle School, in addition to the typical cross-discipline middle school teams, principal Bob Fuller has created faculty inquiry teams that meet each Wednesday to explore a variety of curricular issues. Every other Tuesday, the staff does curriculum mapping, a process that makes for consistency in a course as well as alignment with preceding and following courses. The techniques developed at Armstrong are now being used by other schools in the district.

Starkville High School teachers are experimenting with tuning protocols and other formal ways to frame their discussions about their work, often bridging content divisions in order to address concerns shared by teachers of all disciplines.

Teachers throughout the district write common nine-week assessments in every subject. They share the results of those assessments with colleagues and determine what changes should occur in their teaching. If one teacher achieves better results with students than others, they study and borrow those practices for their classrooms.

Henderson, who has been the primary champion and provocateur for the district's changes, believes that much of Starkville's success has simply been introducing sound processes and making clear that those practices would be used. "I proceed as if something is the way you want it to be and soon it becomes that way," she said.

This article is adapted from Joan Richardson's book From the Inside Out: Learning from the Positive Deviance in Your Organization, which is now available in the NSDC bookstore.