Brighton school an education ‘lab’
Teaching innovations sought
The Saint Columbkille Partnership School in Brighton will become a “laboratory school” for teachers and researchers, developing the best teaching methods to share with other urban Catholic schools across the country.
Through a new initiative with Boston College’s Lynch School of Education, the laboratory school expects to improve teacher training, research and professional development.
It is a next step for the Brighton Catholic school, where kids start learning Spanish in the third grade, where civics lessons are beginning to get integrated into prekindergarten classes and English language arts has a social justice focus.
“We’re like a teaching hospital. The ultimate goal is that we can be a solution for many other Catholic urban schools. We have a template and we can do the research,” said William Gartside, head of Saint Columbkille Partnership School, which teaches prekindergarten to eighth grade. “Teachers are also designers of the research and are given time to work on these problems with teams.”
“The most distinctive feature of a lab school relationship is the opportunity to do research,” said Lynch School Dean Stanton Wortham. “The lab school would allow for the exploration of innovative teaching ideas.”
The first target is English language learning. This week, a steering committee was formed to develop teacher training for how best to teach students whose first language is not English. In September, teachers will get trained and start using the new practices they learn in the classroom.
The effort is already gaining interest from other schools, Gartside said. He has fielded questions from school leaders in New York City, Philadelphia and Milwaukee.
The new effort is part of a longstanding partnership between the two schools. Boston College, the Archdiocese of Boston and St. Columbkille in 2006 forged a partnership to save the Catholic school on the brink of closure. Since that time, the school has grown from 175 to 430 students, with a diverse student population of roughly 50 percent white, 23 percent Hispanic, 10 percent Asian and 10 percent black. Students speak 23 different languages.
“We are taking it to the next level. We can target research co-designed by the university and us,” Gartside said.