Minneapolis school's gains prompt tweaks in district strategies

Holding a wrapped box, teacher Ben Goltz asks fifth-grade students how many sides need to be counted to figure its surface area. At the same time, colleague Jeff Rajacich walks them through the area calculation at an easel, followed by Tara Fagerlee, who focuses her class on the next question.

Time taken for this swirl of teaching activity? Maybe 15 seconds.

The three illustrate the team-focused teaching that's speeding student progress at the Pillsbury Community School in northeast Minneapolis, where more than half the kids are still learning English.

The K-5 school's success is attracting the attention of district officials who are under pressure and struggling to boost achievement, especially among low-income and minority students.

"My staff here is just incredible," said Principal Laura Cavender after observing the fifth-grade classroom.

The district is reaching out to principals to see what's working and what's needed to accelerate student achievement in schools. Faster gains, especially with the achievement gap, were mandated for Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson last month by members of the school board, most of whom are up for re-election in a year.

When the district released disappointing academic results for last school year in November, Johnson's No. 2, Michael Goar, said the district would pursue the eye-catching strategy of installing a second teacher in the primary-grade classrooms of a half-dozen of the most-struggling schools.

"It's going to be so dependent on what the school identifies as their need," said Susanne Griffin-Ziebart, the district's academic chief. She said the district isn't pushing a particular strategy, but trying to find what added resources principals think could make a difference. One example might be returning to literacy coaches who could teach small groups of students directly or show teachers how to do that more effectively. That might require redeploying people from central office jobs, but also hiring some recent college grads with intense support from district specialists, she said.

"Part of our goal in doing this is to get better at what works and what doesn't," she said.

Team teaching at Pillsbury does seem to be working. The school shot up last spring in the state's new multiple measurement of proficiency, student growth and achievement gap reduction, scoring especially strong in the latter. The school outperforms the district averages for math proficiency and usually matches the average for reading, despite its concentration of new English speakers. Among such students, it outperforms the state and district for reading proficiency, and does so by a wide margin in math. It also matches the district for reading proficiency among low-income students, and beats the state as well for math proficiency among those students.

With a high immigrant population and almost nine in every 10 students qualifying as low-income, Pillsbury puts a big emphasis on teaming classroom teachers with specialists focused on learning English, special education and gifted students.

That's what brings together the classroom where Fagerlee teaches all day. She usually has Goltz, a special education teacher, for 40 minutes a day, plus Rajacich, an education assistant, for another 50 minutes, but typically not all three teach together. She discusses class plans daily with Goltz but when the teaching begins, "We just jump in and feed off each other," Fagerlee said. "If an idea pops into your head, you share it," Goltz added.

Pillsbury's approach was launched by Cavender, who is in her fourth year leading the school. "The climate is a very collaborative climate," she said. But that didn't just happen. For years, for example, Mark Trumper was the building's sole teacher specializing in English learners.

Under Cavender, the school supplemented district English-learner money with its own budget to put an English-learner teacher at each grade level. It also budgeted to raise its special education teaching staff from one to 2.7 teachers, not counting the building's autism program. Building funds also added a teacher for gifted students. One trade-off was giving up a position that handled playground supervision and other duties.

At Pillsbury, specialist teachers are more likely than at other schools to go into mainstream classes to work with students more than they pull students out for individual and small group work. Teachers say that means classes get more adult time and there are more eyes on student behavior. "You're also kind of modeling social intelligence — how adults interact with each other," Trumper said.

Getting comfortable with another teacher was awkward at first. "You felt like someone's watching you teaching," he said.

But students now barely look up when another adult enters the class, and teachers said their attitudes changed.

Steve Brandt • 612-673-4438 Twitter: @brandtstrib