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Deep change produces results in middle schoolby Joan Richardson When former Baltimore Supt. Walter Amprey said principals should be empowered to run their schools as they saw fit, Canton Middle School principal Craig Spilman took the authority and ran with it. After six years of a comprehensive restructuring, Canton Middle School in southeast Baltimore is a solid success with three years of improving test scores, greater student attendance, and fewer suspensions, a staff that is focused and enthusiastic about school improvement, and a model of school improvement other schools could adopt. "Most principals were too timid to try this,'' Spilman said. "But, if you take the initiative and have a success, (central office and the school board) will leave you alone, even if they don't agree with the way you're doing things.'' Canton's ambitious school improvement efforts have been funded by the Carnegie Corporation and the Maryland State Department of Education. The formation of a School Improvement Team in 1991 kicked off the change efforts. Spilman is a member, but not chairman, of the 28-member team which includes teachers, administrators, parents, and community representatives. The SIT, which meets every Wednesday, is the school's decision-making body. The team identifies school improvement goals for curriculum and instruction, reads research, and identifies strategies for reaching the goals. Ideas are carried back to each teaching team to ensure building wide consensus on a plan before it is adopted. Nina Parish, who is now language arts department head, served on the initial SIT. "I call it my year in hell. We had all these people who were used to doing it the old way and now had to try and do it the new way. It was wrenching for most of us,'' she said. SIT's first goal was to address the needs of at-risk students and the school's discipline problems. The team led efforts to develop school-based medical and mental health resources. Over the years, the SIT has provided the impetus for Canton's three other major transformations:
The series of transformations means every class includes 6th, 7th, and 8th graders and both general education and special education students. Only math classes are grouped according to ability. The school is divided into two houses, each with its own house principal (actually a lead teacher). Each interdisciplinary academic team includes special educators. Most classes are co-taught by a general educator and a special educator. Students that need special assistance are pulled out for intensive tutoring, whether or not they are special education students. Each transformation has been accompanied by generous time for staff learning. Teachers have 18 half days of staff development during the school year. Staff also works about five weeks during the summer attending workshops designed specifically for them, writing curriculum, and planning for the upcoming school year. External grants provide the $15 an hour they earn for their summer time. "The summer staff development is absolutely essential to what we've done,'' Spilman said. Science/math specialist Camille Smith said teachers really value having time to focus on writing curriculum and planning for the next year. "For my teachers, it is such a joy. During the school year, they just have to teach. To have everything planned ahead of time makes their jobs so much easier,'' she said. Teachers have three 90-minute class periods each day. Each teaching team has a daily 70-minute planning period to use to integrate curriculum, adapt and modify instruction, regroup students, and meet with parents. Four department heads do double duty as instructional specialists. During the summer, they work closely with teachers as they write curriculum. During the school year, they monitor teacher performance and facilitate the staff development. The four observe classrooms, model lessons, watch for teachers who need extra assistance and then provide it. "When the test scores come in, we'll change midstream if we have to in order to address a need,'' said Nina Parish, the language arts specialist. The department heads also share a large open office. "Before we were isolated from each other. It was just as bad as teachers being isolated. We can't think in isolation anymore. We have to work together,'' Parish said. Training New Teachers Today, of 38 teachers, 27 have been teaching for less than six years. In the last five years, only three teachers from other Baltimore City Schools have been transferred into Canton all of them recruited by the school. Instead, Canton has hired from such programs as Teach for America, Recruiting New Teachers, Peace Corps, and Resident Teachers Program, an in-depth certification program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.Canton's department heads work as a team to train the new teachers in the school's expectations. Each new teacher is assigned two mentors, one to guide curriculum issues and another to provide general support. Canton also provides a three-credit graduate course on-site for all first-year teachers to teach them the basics of school organization, process, and instruction. Spilman acknowledges that such an approach is a risk, but he and his SIT believe it's a worthwhile risk. "We specialize in bright, inexperienced people who have the talent and potential to be successful urban teachers. Then we train them right from the beginning in our model, rather than re-training them later,'' Spilman said. Reflecting on what makes "the Canton way'' so unique, special education department head Cathy Rosensteel said the spirit of risk-taking pervades the building. "In this school, you have permission to fail. What you don't have is permission not to try something that might work,'' she said.
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