District Administration - July 2007 - (Page 50)

ADMINISTRATION and SUPERVISION Epps speaks at the Casino In The Park, in Jersey City’s Lincoln Park, where former Pres. Bill Clinton and then-future New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine were in attendance. qualiﬁed teaching staﬀ. Nearly all of our staﬀ is highly qualiﬁed, and 99 percent of them have completed 100 or more hours of professional development. The key to it is a commitment to providing training to new and incumbent teachers. That training allows them to teach in ways that probably are very diﬀerent from what they did before. We think it has helped us improve our test scores. We start in August—we call it “August anticipation”—when we bring in all of our new teachers and our administrators for professional development. We continue in September with all our ﬁrst-year and second-year teachers. We call it the “September Survival Kit.” We give them all those things to help them get through. We look at it again in October. Then in November, I meet with all the new teachers to talk about their concerns. We have established a buddy system for teachers. All new teachers have veteran teachers assigned to them. I always tell teachers that when I started teaching, I was placed in a seventh-grade class and didn’t know what to do. In those days, back in the ’60s, you didn’t have professional development or a seasoned person to support you. You were just thrust into the classroom. Now no teacher in this district is thrust into the classroom without professional development and a buddy, and it goes on all year long. 50 July 2007 We hire substitute teachers, but before they can be hired they have to go through a monthlong training process that starts in August. They do not get paid for that, but if they want to be a substitute and get paid, they have to know the core curriculum standards, have some management skills, know how to do a lesson plan book, and understand the types of things they will have to teach for whatever grade able to implement our programs and initiatives with that collaborative approach. For the most part, it has worked well. DA: What else does it take to be a highperforming school in a diverse urban area these days? EPPS: Students in immigrant families that come into Jersey City are tested in their native language so we’ll know how “It was like getting a nomination for an Oscar or Emmy.” level they are certiﬁed in. I don’t want any child to miss out on instruction during the course of the day, so if regular teachers are unable to be in their classrooms, we have trained substitutes who can go in and continue the instruction. DA: Have teachers and their unions been supportive? EPPS: Absolutely. There is always resistance when there is change, but we have a collaborative approach with the unions. We call them in and tell them what we are thinking of doing so we can be sure it doesn’t infringe upon our contractual agreement with them. Some union representatives sit on our committees so they can understand what’s going on and take that back to their leadership. We have been to place them in the schools. We have two “port of entry” schools for students who do not speak English. They go to classes in those schools until they acquire the skill levels they need, and then they can go into a regular classroom setting. There are 109 diﬀerent languages spoken in our district, and we accommodate all of them on a daily basis. While English is the primary language in most of our classes, we do have a large bilingual ed program. This allows for instruction in both English and the student’s dominant language. For instance, we have several classes with Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, etc. We also have a multilingual intake center where students are evaluated if they are not English dominant, and they are oﬀered assistance in their native language coupled with English. District Administration

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - July 2007

Contents
Editor’s Letter
Letters
News Update
Facilities/Construction Update
Curriculum Update
Inside the Law
Administrator Profile
District Profile
Cover Story: Rethinking School Bus Safety
Broadening Collective Bargaining
Searching for Subs
Jersey City’s Broad Appeal
Improving Nutrition in Schools
New Products
Computer Literature
How Well Does This Web Site Work?
Research Corner
Problem Solution
Online Edge
Speaking Out
Supervisor’s Opinion
Calendar of Events
Understanding the Times

District Administration - July 2007