bto success story: ANDALUCIA PRIMARY SCHOOL

Collaboration is vital to improving student achievement, yet many teachers are reluctant to engage in teamwork. Andalucia Primary School Principal Jaime Camacho has learned how to successfully address teachers' concerns and advance student achievement. She is one of 84 principals participating in the Beat the Odds program during the 2009-2010 school year. Principals are taught how to incorporate into the operation of their schools six elements–including collaboration–that research has shown to be associated with successful minority schools.

School Overview

Prior to becoming Andalucia's principal at the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year, Camacho worked for two years as outreach coordinator at Westwood Primary School, also in the Alhambra School District.

Andalucia Primary School serves 920 students in kindergarten through third grade. The student population is predominantly low-income (95 percent), minority (93 percent) and English-language learners (83%). Despite these challenging demographics, the school has established a track record of academic success. The past three years, Andalucia has received "excelling" and "highly performing" labels from the Arizona Department of Education.

"The previous principal hired well and put a lot of strong programs and expectations in place," said Principal Camacho. "The state labels are evidence of the strength of the programs and teaching."

She said the school's goal this year is to return to "excelling" status. "We want to be an excelling school because we want students to be prepared when they  go to middle school," she said. "It's important that students are reading at a level that they comprehend content, and aren't just decoding, when they leave third grade."

Clear Priorities

When conducting classroom walk-throughs, Principal Camacho expects to see 85 percent of the students engaged 100 percent of the time. "If we don't achieve this level of student engagement, we won't meet our school goals," she said.

In addition, the school is committed to transforming its staff of individual winners into a winning team. "By acknowledging the strength of our colleagues and sharing our personal strengths, every student receives quality instruction, even in cases where one teacher may not be as strong as the teacher next door," she said.

The school has set aside time each week for teachers to work together in professional learning communities or PLCs. Each teacher is designated an expert in one subject area and is responsible for planning and preparing lessons using the state academic standards and the district pacing guide.

"If I'm a first-grade writing teacher, for example, I will develop a weekly lesson plan that I share," said Principal Comacho. "In return, I get five lesson plans from the teachers who are experts in other areas, such as reading, math and language."

With such a good return on teachers' investment of time, Principal Comacho was surprised to find that some teachers were resistant to working in professional learning communities. "There's a lot of competitiveness among teachers," she said. "As accountability for student learning becomes higher and higher, teachers are worried about someone else being acknowledged for their idea or their work."

To address their concerns, she is careful to find out where ideas come from, and acknowledge teachers for their contributions. She ensures there is equal participation and that everyone is accountable for giving quality lessons. In addition, participation in the school's professional learning communities accounts for 20 of the 40 points teachers need to receive additional pay from Proposition 301 funds.

Measuring Impact

There are signs that the school's efforts are yielding positive results for students and teachers alike. Student scores on DIBELS are higher than they have ever been. Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) is a Reading First program that measures students' fluency and literacy.

Also, results of a recent third-party survey confirmed that the school has improved its collaborative skills during the 2009-2010 school year. Comparative results from the spring 2010 National Staff Development Council standards assessment survey and the previous year's survey showed the greatest growth in the areas of collaboration and principal leadership. Staff responses to questions addressing collaboration and the ability to equitably serve students, to being research-based and data-driven have moved from "sometimes" and "frequently" to "frequently" and "always."

Principal Comacho attributes the school's progress to staying focused on becoming a collaborative school in which students graduate prepared for middle school studies. When issues surface, she asks herself, "If I don't address this issue, will we miss the mark? Or is it just a distraction that won't change our outcome?"

She said having time each month to talk and reflect with her Beat the Odds mentor and other school principals in the program has been very beneficial, as well. "I think it is excellent."