Success Stories: The Whole School Is My Classroom
One of the schools I had the pleasure of working with this spring was Barron Park Elementary School in Palo Alto, California. What impressed me the most about this school was the thoughtful and organic process they have followed since the school opened its doors in September 1998.
Principal Cathy Howard explains: "As a new principal I thought of the whole school as my classroom, and was eager to involve all staff members and all parents and families in working together to build a community of learners."
Barron Park is one of 12 elementary schools in the Palo Alto Unified School District located about 30 minutes southeast of San Francisco. The school is ethnically diverse, and 28 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. English language learners make up a quarter of the student population, and 17 percent are involved in special education classes (including two special day classes).
Core Values
One of the first things Cathy did with her staff, families, and students was to create a set of core values for the school. These agreed-on values included respect, a sense of belonging, safety and responsibility, and learning.
Cathy believes that before real learning can take place, students and staff members have to feel respected and safe and also feel a sense of belonging and responsibility for themselves and one another. One of the keys to success is making sure that every adult in the school community upholds and models these values consistently. And it starts with respect.
Respect
According to Cathy, "As adults, we teach and model the acceptance and celebration of the many ways we are different from each other, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, language, religion, age, gender, economic class, sexual orientation, abilities, and physical characteristics." Using regular observations, staff meeting reminders, and ongoing education through in-service sessions, Cathy makes sure her staff upholds this core value of respect.
This sets a powerful example for the students, since they see adult-child interactions on a daily basis. Modeling acceptance and respect is a perfect foundation for learning, and it's a formula that is working well at Barron Park. According to one student as reported in the school's 2005–2006 Final Report, "At this school kids are nicer. Even if they're not my friend they treat me with respect, not like at the school I went to before."
A Sense of Belonging
A challenge many schools and teachers face is making sure every child feels included and accepted at school. To address this, Cathy instituted a "you can't say you can't play" approach. Simply put: any child who wants to participate in a game must be included.
While the concept was coined by noted author and teacher Vivian Paley, Barron Park has adapted it and made it their own. This approach is working so well that the challenge the playground supervisors now face is making sure children have a right to decline to play since fellow students have become very diligent in including others in games.
Keeping families informed about the inclusiveness of the school is critical. In a letter home to families at the beginning of every year, Cathy instructs parents: "We ask that children share food either with the whole class or not at all—sharing with just a couple friends leaves other children out." In addition, parents are instructed to send birthday invitations (or other similar communications) outside of school, unless the invitations include the whole class.
Finally, Cathy encourages parents to "reach out to new children and help your child make play dates with children he or she may know at school but have not played with outside of school." Parents are kept informed of goings-on through the school Web site, frequent letters home, and family sessions.
Safety and Responsibility
Two other core values the Barron Park community stresses are safety and responsibility. One of the ways they maintain these values is through the Barron Park Site Council. The Site Council is a California state-mandated group of elected parents, teachers, and staff who help create, approve, and oversee the school's improvement plan and budget. It also serves as an advisory council to the principal on key issues.
One event that the Site Council sponsors throughout the year is the Community Conversation. The Barron Park Community Conversation topic for fall 2006 was "The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander: Building a Caring School and Involved Community." More than 60 teachers and community members attended this session, which gave everyone an opportunity to learn more about bullying prevention from a keynote speaker and share ideas of how the school can address the needs of students and parents proactively.
This community dialogue led to the school's implementation of the STEPS TO RESPECT PROGRAM. Read all about it.
Learning
All of these things Barron Park's school community has done and continues to do have had an impact on school climate and students' perception of the school. In a schoolwide survey conducted in May 2005, 97 percent of students agreed that they "like" or "love" going to Barron Park Elementary School. I imagine this percentage is growing still.
What we know from the research is that "schools that create socially and emotionally sound learning and working environments, and that help students and staff develop greater social and emotional competence, in turn help ensure positive short- and long-term academic and personal outcomes for students" (from the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning). In fact, Barron Park reported substantial improvements in the California Standards Tests from the 2004–2005 to 2005–2006 school year in their yearly report.
Steve Plunk, Trainer
Committee for Children
