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When Melissa Glee-Woodard became principal of Maryland’s Lewisdale Elementary School four years ago, it was struggling. The school was in the dreaded “school improvement” process because of the performance of multiple subgroups of students, and it needed change.

Change is what it got. But not the dramatic “fire-all-teachers” change that has been making the papers. Rather, Glee-Woodard inspired teachers, parents and students with a new vision. The staff began focusing on student data in a meaningful way. Targeted professional development addressed areas of weakness in the instructional program. And new summer programs ensured that students kept their academic success going even when school was not technically in session.

As a result, Lewisdale has made AYP every year Glee-Woodard has been principal. The National Association of Elementary School Principals recently honored her for her transformational leadership.

She joined us for a conversation about the school and its journey.

Public School Insights: How would you describe Lewisdale?

Glee-Woodard: Lewisdale Elementary School is located in an urban setting in Prince George's County, Maryland. We are in the backyard of the University of Maryland, College Park. It is a working-class neighborhood. 80% of our students are Hispanic. 17% are African-American.

All of our students walk to school each and every day, and we are a neighborhood school. Our parents are very actively involved. Anytime that you are outside in the morning, you will see a lot of parents either walking their children to school or dropping their children off in cars.

Lewisdale is also a Title I school. 84% of our students qualify for free or reduced meals. And 54% of our students speak English as their second language. So that gives you a general idea of the demographics and the type of community that we serve here at Lewisdale.

We also have a very good teaching staff. 98% of our teachers stay at Lewisdale Elementary School. We do not have a high turnover rate. So we have a lot of veteran teachers who have a lot of skills and talents to bring to our school.

We also have very, very active community partnerships that provide resources for our students. We have a very strong partnership with the University of Maryland, and one with Kaiser Permanente. So we try to bring as many resources as possible to the students of Lewisdale.

Public School Insights: I understand that since you came to Lewisdale, the school has greatly improved and there has been a big shift in its culture. What was the school like when you arrived?

Glee-Woodard: The shift in culture had to do with the vision that I brought to the school and changing the mindset of 1) students, 2) parents and 3) teachers.

I can distinctly remember at one of my first staff meetings someone saying that, “Well, our kids speak English as a second language, and our kids come from poverty.” And just changing that mindset to one of, “No matter the type of background that our kids come from we can help them achieve academically.” Also, imparting this vision to the parents and letting them know that we think that their child can succeed, no matter what the obstacles are. And letting the students know that, too. I constantly tell the students, “You are going to college.” Many of them do not have that kind of encouragement at home, so I feel that at the school we have to provide it to them.

There was also a shift in looking at data. Before, data were not made public. They were not shared openly. But now we have data charts across the school and in the cafeteria. We have individual student data conferences with parents from pre-K all the way up to fifth grade—“This is your child's reading level. This is the number of kindergarten words that your child knows. This is your child's math assessment score. This is where they are and this is where they need to be.” And when we have our staff meeting, the cafeteria workers, the custodians and everyone else knows where we are and where we need to go as a school.

Public School Insights: What was student achievement like?

Glee-Woodard: Lewisdale was in school improvement, which means that the school had not made AYP for multiple years. The school had missed making their AMOs [annual measurable objectives] in several different subgroups. But we have made AYP each year that I have been at Lewisdale. The kids have not changed. The teachers have not changed. But the way that we teach and the way that we look at data have changed.

I think that the biggest piece in moving the school forward was providing professional development that was able to look at some of the areas of weakness within our instructional program and being able to fine-tune them. And also getting everybody on board and looking at, how can we help each child achieve? And when they don't know what we want them to know, what are we going to do to ensure that they learn it, so they can be successful?

Public School Insights: That raises a couple of questions for me. At the national level there is a lot of talk right now about how when schools are not performing well the best thing to do may be to clean house and get rid of the existing staff. But that does not sound like it was the case at your school.

Glee-Woodard: No, not at all. But I'll be honest with you. When I came into the building, there were certain teachers about whom I said, “They cannot teach here.” They were not delivering quality instruction. And that is when as an administrator, you have to have those courageous conversations. And so when I told you about the 98% that are here and the 2% that are not, the 2% are the ones that I had those courageous conversations with. I stated to them, “You are not delivering the best instruction,” and I gave them the tools to improve. When they did not improve, I had to have another courageous conversation with them. Those individuals have moved on to do other things. But like I said, we had, and continue to have, great teachers. We just had to fine-tune instruction. But there were some teachers here who did not meet the standards that I felt should be met, and those are the ones who are no longer with us.

Public School Insights: And speaking of that teacher retention rate…It seems from the demographics of your school that it would typically be described in national policy discussions as “hard-to-staff.” But you have retained most of your teachers. What do you think are some of the factors that make teachers stay?

Glee-Woodard: I think one of the biggest factors is the camaraderie among the staff. I have worked at all levels—high school, middle school and elementary school. And I have never seen a group of individuals who work so well together. Whenever we have a new staff member come on board, they are always willing to assist in any manner that they can. And I think that helps with retaining teachers, because there's a sense of family within the building.

Also, as a building administrator, you have to constantly be the cheerleader for your staff. You have to constantly recognize small accomplishments as well as large accomplishments. So in the afternoon announcements I say “Today I was in so-and-so's classroom and I saw kids doing XYZ and that is great. And we want all of our kids to do that.” I just publicly let the staff know that I appreciate what they do.

Public School Insights: Getting back to some of the ways Lewisdale has changed over the past few years, you have talked about a new vision and improving instruction using student data. Do you think there were other major components to the school’s turnaround?

Glee-Woodard: Yes. One thing is that instead of giving teachers staff development kind of randomly, I started giving them a needs assessment and asking them, “Where do you see your staff development needs?” And actually went into the classroom and observed teachers to find out where our staff development needs were.

Another big component was that I started providing a half-day of collaborative planning each month for teachers during the school day. That is a time for them to really look at student work, to do long-range planning and to look at data. They were already sort of doing the data thing, having a quarterly “data utilization meeting.” But now we take a different look. We have developed a template that the teachers actually fill out to become more accountable for individual student data. In the very beginning, we just glazed over data, but now we are looking deeper into it to see how we can really help our students.

Also, prior to my tenure here, Lewisdale only had summer programs for students in pre-K through second grade. Since I have been here, I have pushed to make sure that we have a summer school program for all students in our building. Each year I've been at Lewisdale, we've had three summer school programs. I think that that is a critical, key component of our success. Some of our students, realistically, do not get that support during the summer.

And my first year here we literally had school every single day of the week except for Sunday. We had an afterschool ELL program, a Saturday ELL program and a student learning opportunity program.

Public School Insights: Earlier you mentioned some of your community partners, including the University of Maryland, College Park and Kaiser Permanente. What are some of the services that those partnerships provide, and how did you form those partnerships?

Glee-Woodard: I formed a partnership with the University of Maryland because I am an alumnus. They have a Maryland Day every year in the spring. They have booths all across the campus. I went to the education booth and told them that I am an alumnus and wanted to start a partnership. They gave me someone to call, and then the next year we developed a partnership with their Department of Education. We have Maryland students who come in to shadow our teachers as a part of one of the courses for education majors. And we're trying to become a school that will host student teachers for the University of Maryland.

We also have a partnership with “Partners in Print.” University of Maryland students come out and do evening programs with our primary school parents. They talk about strategies parents can use to help their children learn to read, and our students leave with a free book to help build up their home library.

We also have a program called “Math Counts” through the University of Maryland. Maryland students come out twice a week to work with our fourth grade students on math skills. At the end of the program our students actually get to spend a day at the University of Maryland. That is exposure to the college campus that I feel is really critical for students here.

The Kaiser Permanente partnership was here before I came to Lewisdale. They provide nutritional information to our parents and students. They also provide staff development on nutritional information.

Public School Insights: You have mentioned a few ways that you get parents involved here at Lewisdale—the reading program, the nutritional information. Are there other things that you do to help get parents involved and connected to the school?

Glee-Woodard: I am very visible as a principal. And so I know my parents. I talk to my parents. I think that you have to build those relationships. I think that is the biggest piece, and I've been told by parents that the school has really changed since I've been here.

We do callouts whenever we have afterschool activities. We have reading night, math night, science night. And these nights are standing room only. Our parents come out. I think it is because of the community feeling and knowing that we are all on the same page to help our kids. And they leave with so many resources that our teachers give them, from “Make and Take” to strategies on how to work with their child on reading or math. The information is very valuable, so the parents know that if they come out they are going to receive information that can really help them.

I think it is also critical that I can able to provide translators for each session. If we do breakout sessions in classrooms, each classroom has a translator to ensure that parents understand what is being said.

Public School Insights: What would you say are the major challenges you face at Lewisdale?

Glee-Woodard: One of the biggest challenges would be—and I still have this challenge, this is my own personal challenge—trying to get all students to believe that they can achieve. I look at my African-American subgroup in comparison to my English language learners, and I have to admit that they are still not performing as well as I feel they should be. So looking at particular subgroups and asking, “How can I get this group on board? Why isn't this particular subgroup performing as well as another subgroup?”

I know that we have quality instruction. I know that we look at data. But I still believe that motivation is half the battle. If you can get your kids motivated to learn, they will achieve. So we do all kinds of crazy things at Lewisdale to try to get our kids motivated [In 2009 The Washington Post covered one particularly unusual motivational technique]. And I think that works as well as providing quality instruction for our students. So I guess one of the biggest challenges would be just trying to figure out how to help particular subgroups.

Another challenge is getting my primary teachers examining rigor. Some teachers think, “Oh, MSA [Maryland State Assessment] is a third through fifth grade thing.” No, MSA is a pre-K-through fifth grade thing. And even still this year I am thinking of ways that I can help my kindergarten teachers increase rigor and let them know that the basic foundation they provide is going to help those kids when they take the MSA—that it starts with them and not just with the intermediate teachers.

Public School Insights: I am also interested in hearing a little more about the strategies that Lewisdale uses with its English language learners. You have mentioned summer school, afterschool and parental involvement programs. Are there any other strategies that you use when focusing on that group in particular?

Glee-Woodard: We have changed the way that we deliver instruction to our English language learners in two ways. First, there used to be a lot of pullout sessions, where the English language learners were pulled out for ESOL instruction. Now we do more co-teaching, and we have found that to be very, very successful.

We have also implemented the Comprehension Toolkit, which is a reading instructional program where kids actually do a lot more dialoguing with their peers—what is called “Turn and Talk.” This allows them to express themselves much more than in traditional instruction. And between the Comprehension Toolkit and the fact that we do not pull kids out in isolation as much we used to, we saw a great increase in scores, especially in fifth-grade reading.

Public School Insights: As I'm sure you're aware, the Obama administration has called for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, currently known as No Child Left Behind. Are there any changes that you would like to see made to that law that would help it better support the work that you are doing at Lewisdale? Or are there any components that you think are essential and should be maintained as is?

Glee-Woodard: That is a difficult question. I firmly believe that all kids should obtain 100% proficiency. But there is not a level playing field. There really isn't. That is my personal belief.

Even with our own county…A large percentage of my kids do not have Internet access at home. Their parents may not take them to the local library or take them to a museum. And I truly believe that exposure has a big correlation to academic achievement, so to compare Lewisdale to another school in a different part of the county that has different economic status...It is not an even playing field. I do think that all kids should achieve, but we are not all on the same playing field. And I think that more resources need to be given to schools that may not have the same sort of economic background as other schools.

I just find it so interesting. When I've gone to conventions and conferences I have talked to principals who are complaining because now they have 40 English language learners, and what are they going to do? And I'm saying, “Look at Lewisdale. Look at how many we have and the challenges we have.” But we still make AYP.