"Today's principals must be the lead learners of their schools…."
Leading Learning Communities, Second Edition
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Read about one NAESP member who leads a learning-centered school community:
Centre Ridge Elementary School, Centreville, Virginia
Principal Jim Baldwin
The NCLB Act was a wake-up call for Centre Ridge Elementary, prompting more focused attention on the individual student needs once it became clear that not all student subgroups were achieving. "We found that we needed to drill down to look at each child to say what we could do to make this child more successful," says Principal Jim Baldwin.
Focus on Learning
Baldwin—along with a veteran staff—has put in motion a number of strategies for creating a strong focus on learning at the school. The master schedule was adjusted to set a common planning time for teachers to meet by grade level. By scheduling an entire grade level of students into art, physical education and music, teachers were able to meet as a group at least a few times a week to discuss instructional strategies.
New Approaches
The structure of the day was examined to create time for teachers to teach, reteach and to enrich, says Baldwin. The school uses an approach they call SET, or student enhancement time, which sets aside time at the end of the day for a teacher to reteach a concept to students who did not grasp it, enrich the activities for those students who did or give students more time to practice what they learned.
The Payoffs
Block scheduling for language arts and math was also introduced to allow more focused time on those subjects. Staffing assignments were also adjusted to more effectively assign staff to high-need areas.
One result, says Baldwin, is that students are more engaged in the learning process. "The children get excited about doing things and showing how well they can do," he says.