Education Week - November 2, 2022 - 24

20
What STEM
Can Do for
Student Resilience
21
The Secret Ingredient
To Meaningful
Teacher Observations
22
Letters to
The Editor
How One School Is Keeping Its Teachers
By Sarah Yost
A
quick scroll
through
social
media
reveals
how
difficult
teaching in 2022 is: pay
gaps, censorship, bullying,
threats of violence, overcrowded
classrooms, shortages of substitutes
and support staff, perceptions that
teachers are subservient, the
global pandemic, and trauma.
These issues are pushing many
teachers out of classrooms and
hindering efforts to recruit new
educators.
Yet the small public school where
I work as a staff developer began
this school year with a fully staffed
faculty, laughter, camaraderie, and
a lot of optimism.
This might be surprising because
our school was not shielded from
the effects of poverty and trauma
even before the pandemic-we
serve one of the lowest-income ZIP
codes in Kentucky. Yet, because
we have put our energy into a
human-centered approach to
improvement, we are finding our
teacher-retention numbers are
higher than those of peer schools in
our district.
Byck Elementary has about 270 students in the Russell
neighborhood, approximately 14 blocks west of the
business district in downtown Louisville, where a history of
redlining has left property values low. Externally, the school
is unremarkable: a typical brick, two-story 1960s building
with a grassy, block-long campus, playground, and blacktop
surrounded by a chain link fence.
Inside the building, however, Byck Elementary is a
standout. When you enter our school, you can immediately
sense that everyone inside is happy to be there.
The overall climate in the building is calm and pleasant.
Parents and caregivers enjoy coming to school for events. In
classrooms, students work together and with their teachers
as learning allies, and multiple teachers and support staff
push in and pull students out throughout the day in a
systematic effort to meet all kids' social-emotional and
academic needs.
We have been able to create this culture because every
adult in the school believes all children deserve to be seen as
fully human-imperfect and capable of greatness.
How have we united around this shared belief in our
kids? It has been a labor of love. Our administrative team
(including an assistant principal; a counselor; special
education, behavior, and instructional coaches; and me,
a staff developer) led by Principal Carla Kolodey for the
past six years believes that all teachers deserve to be seen
as fully human-imperfect and capable of greatness, just
like students.
This means understanding that life is messy and
professional learning is not always linear. Still, the school
leaders expect teachers to grow and improve at all stages
of their careers. And when teachers need help-supplies,
Still, we maintain our high
expectations because we know
we are capable of greatness.
Our teachers, administrators,
and school staff have all come to
better understand and accept the
challenges that our students often
bring to our classrooms, some
of them quite extreme, and we
have worked to teach appropriate
behaviors.
As student behavior has
improved, we have continued to
raise our expectations for students
academically. Our feedback for
teachers has shifted from their
classroom management to the
depth and complexity of the
academic experiences they are
providing students in all subject
areas.
If a school has a weak " why, "
the work is too difficult, too
thankless, and too unrelenting
for many teachers to withstand.
So, while we can't shield our
teachers from everything currently
happening outside our building,
our administrators shelter them
from as much of the negative noise
on social media as possible and
then give them a powerful reason
to stay.
Meanwhile, we continue to
improve. Our suspensions and
behavior referrals continue to
an hour to run an errand, a new strategy for a particularly
difficult student-our administrative team gives them
what they need. When they have ideas on how to improve
the implementation of a school or district policy, we listen
and plan together. When they name how they want to
improve as teachers, we provide opportunities for authentic,
personalized, and meaningful professional learning. And if
they feel it's time to move on, we support their journey by
helping them transition to their next opportunity.
Our school leaders recognize how difficult it is to work
with students who have suffered trauma, but we don't
lower expectations for teachers (or students) because of the
difficulties. We treat our teachers as professionals worthy
of high expectations. Teachers know that administrators
are working as hard as they are, standing by their sides in
their classrooms, co-planning, modeling good teaching, and
reflecting with them on how we might improve.
The result is a culture of respect among the adults for one
another, both as colleagues and as people. Administrators
know our teachers are more than just what they can deliver.
Likewise, we all know our students are more than their
standardized-test scores and we deeply believe that our
work is greater than a single high-stakes measurement at
the end of the year.
As a school, we understand that trauma-primary,
secondary, generational-has deeply affected many of our
students (and some of our teachers). Trauma alters the
brain in ways that are hidden, self-limiting, and sometimes
self-destructive. As a trauma-informed school, we have
been through many training sessions as a faculty over
the past six years. Together, we have developed a shared
understanding of how trauma responses sometimes
underlie people's needs and behaviors.
24 | EDUCATION WEEK | November 2, 2022 | www.edweek.org/opinion
diminish: By October 2017, Byck had 117 behavior referrals
and 19 suspensions. In mid-October of this year, we have
had 63 referrals and one suspension to date. Improvements
in student behavior have helped with teacher retention
and recruitment: In 2018, we had a teacher-retention rate
of 63 percent, whereas in 2021, we had 100 percent of
our teachers remain at Byck. This year, we were able to
successfully recruit teachers to fill every teaching position
and began the year fully staffed. We are now able to shift
our focus from behavior management to meeting all
our students' academic needs, and all members of our
administrative team are currently helping teachers by
providing academic interventions to close student gaps and
elevate their learning.
In education leadership literature, there is much written
on the importance of a school mission. What might not be
fully understood by all leaders, however, is that a mission is
more than a catchphrase. A true mission must be enacted
by the school leadership consistently over time to take hold.
Then it becomes a shared belief so deeply held by everyone
in the building that it could carry a school through the
darkest squalls with everyone pulling in the same direction.
When leaders in a school building shift our focus from
our own measurable achievements to fostering growth
within the school community, the data will follow. It is this
human-centered approach that has made the difference for
my school and one that keeps us committed to this work for
another year together.
YOST is a national-board-certified teacher currently
serving as a school staff developer at Byck Elementary
School in Louisville, Ky. She has been a teacher and
education leader since 2005.
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http://www.edweek.org/opinion
Education Week - November 2, 2022

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