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Maintaining Excellence during a Demographic Shift
Story posted June, 2008
Results:
• Proficiency level grew to 96% over a five-year period during which the school became economically and racially more diverse
• Out-of-school suspensions have dropped every year since the school began professional development on poverty issues
Kernodle Middle School opened in 2000 in a solidly upper middle class neighborhood with little diversity in the school population. About 85% of the students were white and less than 10% participated in the federal lunch program. In our state-mandated testing program over 90% of the students scored at proficient levels. There was no distinct achievement gap between our white and non-white students.
Our challenge was that as the school community grew, our student body also grew and became much more diverse. The school population grew from approximately 760 to 1015 students from 2000-2001 to 2007-2008. The demographics of the school changed as well. Currently, 17% of our students participate in the Federal Lunch Program and 32% of our students are non-white. Yet this this demographic change, we have maintained our status as a North Carolina School of Excellence--a distinction given schools where at least 90% of students score at the proficient level on our state-mandated testing program). We have also had either the lowest or second lowest out-of-school suspension rate among the 22 middle schools in the school district.
Maintaining our performance required a collaborative effort on the part of school staff. By providing targeted data to our School Leadership Team I was able to show a change in school demographics and how this change was slowly affecting our student achievement. I emphasized the need to create a shared vision for our school. At the time we had a mission statement, but no "shared vision".
Additionally, I recognized our need for targeted professional development to help us understand the challenges faced by students in poverty. Working through our School Leadership Team, we decided to use Dr. Ruby K. Payne's book A Framework for Understanding Poverty as the basis of our professional development. We invited one of the "Ruby Payne" trainers to work with our staff in an all-day professional development activity. Reading the book and going through the training helped our staff understand the challenges that students who are not white or upper middle class face in school. We also learned that poverty is not just about a lack of financial resources, but is broadly defined as "the extent to which an individual does without resources". Some of these resources, according to Payne, are financial, mental, emotional, and physical. Others include spiritual relationships and role models.
As a result of our participation in "A Framework for Understanding Poverty" our teachers gained new insights into the challenges many of our students face on a daily basis. We continue to work on building positive relationships with students while maintaining high expectations for every student, regardless of background. Student achievement has continued to rise (from 2000 to 2005 our proficiency level grew to 96%) while out-of-school suspensions have dropped every year since the training. The "icing on the cake" was our selection as a "School to Watch" in February of 2007 and an opportunity to attend the National "Schools to Watch" conference in Alexandria, Va., where we were selected as one of the presenters.
Throughout this process we learned that poverty exists in many forms and that it manifests itself differently in different children and their families. We learned to be empathetic with our children, while still maintaining high expectations for every student. As clichéd as this may sound, we recognize that all children can indeed learn, if we take the time to build positive relationships with them and really get to know their individual situations.
Further details about Kernodle can be found at: For additional information, please contact:
Kernodle Middle School
Charles Burns
Principal, Kernodle Middle School
cburns44@triad.rr.com
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