How 2016 hurricane helped spark school’s turnaround
Around PORTSMOUTH,VA.— this time last year, ParkView Elementary faculty and staff hadbiggerworries than state accreditation ratings. About 70 students and their families had been displaced by Hurricane Matthew, which dumpeda foot of rain in parts of the region.
“Itwas tough in the beginning,” PrincipalAngelaFlowers said. “The parents didn’t know how they were going to get their kids to school.”
But the struggle brought Park View closer together and helped set the stage for growth at the school, which was denied accreditation last year.
They knew it would be close. So when test results trickled in this spring, Flowers and her staff kept recalculating numbers, identifying students who needed extra help to retake and pass the exams.
“Onthelastdayof testing, I told everyone that I believed wehaddoneenoughto reach full accreditation,” Flowers said. “And everyone started screaming.”
When the state released official results inAugust, Park View not only scored well enough to reach full accreditation, but students performed slightly better than expected, Flowers said. As of Sept. 27, only 14 Virginia schools accomplished that kind of improvement this year. ParkViewandNorfolk’s Tanners Creek Elementary were the only ones to do it in South Hampton Roads.
Flowers attributed the turnaroundtoimproveddata use, revamped lesson plans, training, teamworkandmore parental involvement.
“I think, from that point on, we started seeing a change in how the community related to us,” Flowers said. “It was one of our toughest communities that was displaced, but theywere the community with which we started building the closest relationship.”
Suddenly, teachers and staff began seeing an uptick in the number of parents willing to help with school events and have conversations about their students, Flowers said.
Flowers also started letting parents sit in on their students’ classes whenever they pleased. They could ask questions andraise concerns with teachers and administrators face-to-face.
“What I found is that because of the open-door policy, there just aren’t as many concerns,” Flowers said. “Typically, inmy previous experiences, kidswould go home, and parentswould only get one side of the story. This allowsthemtosee things firsthand.”
Park Viewalso flipped the way teachers use student data. Insteadof thepastpractice of specialists compiling class-by-class analytics, Flowers required teachers to take command of their own data. Thatmeant categorizing students based on theirclassroomperformance, analyzing their own lessons and decidingwhether struggling students lacked skills or justweren’t being taught effectively.
“If I just give them that information, teachers will have less of a connection to the data,” math specialist Tonya Fields-Hines said. “This way gives them a better understanding of it. That’s how we’re going to grow.”
“That helped me as an administrator, but it also helped the staff,” Flowers said. “Becausewhen I came to them, I could say, ‘Well, look, I’m learning, too.’ ”
Park View then held fullday training sessions for each department topass along lessons from the state.
Sixth-grade student DiamondWhite, 11, said she has been doing computer-based research projects to demonstrate her understanding of geographic features.
“More projects,” she said, when asked about the biggest difference she’s noticed from last year.
Six Portsmouth schools were denied accreditation this year, down one from 2016. Churchland Middle is awaiting a determination.
If the state denies accreditation for a school, parents must be notified within 30 days and the School Board must create aplan toimprove student performance. School denied accreditation, however, do not lose state funding, nor are they subject to state takeover.
Flowers said she believes Park View is nowinamore challenging position than last year’s — trying to continue to improve after hitting its goal.
“We don’t want to be stagnant in our numbers,” she said. “Wewant our students to do better.”
Fields-Hines, themathspecialist, started at ParkViewin 2009andrememberswhat it felt likewhen the school lost its full-accreditation rating.
“I saw that banner come down,” she said. “But now, I’m excited to see it go back up. That’s just going to be a great feeling.”