How collaboration can really work: A BedStuy middle school principal explains

By Patricia King pking762@gmail.com

PUBLISHED: March 29, 2016 - 6:00 a.m. EDT

As the principal at M.S. 267, a middle school in a high-poverty

neighborhood in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, Ive always believed our wealth
lies in the expertise and passion of our educators who work hard every
single day in service of our students our communitys biggest
treasure.
But until recently, no matter how hard our team worked, we found it
challenging to get students where they need to be. Two years ago, only
11 percent of our students were reading and writing at grade level.
So when Chancellor Carmen Faria introduced the Learning Partners
program to help schools learn from each other, I signed us up. We
knew it was our responsibility to explore new strategies developed
beyond our own school doors as well as to share our challenges and
discoveries.
In our first year, we were paired with two other schools a host
school and another school that, like M.S. 267, had a lot of room to grow
to actively share and bring new practices into our schools. Now in
our second year, were part of Learning Partners Plus, so we have
six partners working with a host school.
Both years, our host has been the School for Global Leaders in
Manhattan, which faces challenges with literacy just like us but is
farther along in developing strategies to improve instruction. The
schools principal, Carry Chan, is a master principal in every sense of
the word who runs a school where teachers work together and
instruction is rigorous.
Working with Carry last year, we focused on improving our own
instruction by making stronger connections between teaching and

assessments. Practices that we took back from the School for Global
Leaders include their use of data trackers and exit tickets to collect
informal student data, plan instruction, and design interventions for
students that need them.
We constantly grapple with questions like, how do we monitor how
much students read and write? How do we get students to read more
than just fiction, and increase their vocabulary? How can teachers
ensure that every single lesson can meet the needs of all students?
Instead of just looking for answers on our own, weve explored possible
answers together by visiting each others classrooms. Teachers in the
host school willingly open up their classrooms for a period to showcase
a particular practice, and then teachers from all of the schools dissect
the lesson together.
Throughout the process, our schools created a deep bond. And along
the way we have been lucky to have Maureen Wright, a facilitator from
the Office of Interschool Collaborative Learning, guide us as we plan
our learning activities and push us to get more specific about our
schools needs.
This year, those needs shifted and the program shifted with us. We are
now focused on how best to make literacy lessons appropriate for
students of differing skill levels, and how to foster high-level
questioning and discussion in each classroom. We have also benefited
from seeing how other schools run their team meetings, and are
thinking about their methods as we try to make our own meetings
more efficient and effective.
Classroom practices have improved dramatically. We learned new ways
to make sure student performance today informs tomorrows lessons.
We learned how to use powerful data tools that allow us to know our
students better and provide them with a more supportive environment,
especially our students with disabilities and English language learners.

And, we learned how to foster student leaders, who have already

mastered content, who can teach other students.
Teachers arent the only ones learning. Carry taught me new ways to
empower teachers by giving them opportunities like taking charge of
professional learning, leading meetings, mentoring each other and
running school visits. Our school is stronger and our strength more
likely to survive over time the more our teachers rise as leaders.
All of our hard work translated into higher test scores for our students
after one year in the Learning Partners program: Nearly twice as many
students hit the states reading and writing proficiency bar last year.
We think this years scores will be even higher.
But the biggest benefit goes far beyond test scores.
School walls can be confining, and the Learning Partners program is
intentionally collapsing them all across the city. Being a principal or a
teacher can feel very isolating, but as a result of our participation in
Learning Partners, all of us are communicating with each other
nonstop, by email, text, or phone.
We feel like we are part of one big school, and as we work together,
share ideas and collaborate we know that it will be our students who
benefit the most.
IN THIS STORY: INTERSCHOOL COLLABORATIVE LEARNING, LEARNING PARTNERS, MS 267,
PATRICIA KING

By: Patricia King

pking762@gmail.com