Southwest school national exemplar for bilingual education
Story and photos by Joshua Cole
(originally published in Feb. 11, 2010, Denver Herald-Dispatch)
What is the sound of a second grade learning to read?
Would you guess a room quiet except for the regular pfft of a turning page, an occasional moan or grunt or sigh induced by moving into a more comfortable sitting or lying position, the constant hum and inconsistent pangs from a heater or air conditioner, or the mumble from moving lips across a passage?
If you would guess that, you might be wrong. At Goldrick Elementary School, the sounds of second graders learning to read is much different and much louder.
But it isn't chaotic. At Goldrick Elementary School – which had high growth and high status on the district's School Performance Framework – second graders learning to read sounded like this in one classroom, Feb. 3:
• gasps from students at the front of the room, raising their hands, eager to answer a teacher's question about vocabulary
• scritch-scratch of students on the opposite side of the room writing suggested strategies to pay attention to as they're reading, such as focusing on keeping flow consistent, pausing at punctuation and adding emphasis where needed
• the shuffling of papers, folders and notebooks being stacked and unstacked around desks in the middle of the room. While holding books in front of them, students check and recheck a standing notebook with the reading strategies and a folder with vocabulary words. Meanwhile, under all of these papers, another sheet lists books that a student has read, which is moved in front of another notebook for students to write their reactions to what they just read.
• And, at all the different stations, many children are talking to each other, explaining how their strategies are effective, examples of vocabulary and good books to share. These conversations are in both English and Spanish.
Photo caption: Students at Goldrick Elementary School welcome to the lobby, on Feb. 3, Dr. Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana, assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Education. The assistant secretary visited the school while in Denver for a bilingual education conference. Students from left: Parween Arbeen, Alejandro Lopez, Nadia Williams, Roubatou Alassani and Miguel Barrios.
Another thing that students, teachers and other observers heard Feb. 3 was praise from the U.S. Department of Education. While visiting Denver for a bilingual conference, Assistant Secretary Dr. Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana talked with Denver Public Schools central administrators, Goldrick's leaders and students so that the assistant secretary could observe and learn about schools that are successful with mostly poor and non-English children.“The biggest challenge is how we clone this school across the nation,” Melendez said. “How do you find principals, teachers and parents committed to high standards? Using assessments the way they need to be used? Ensuring that every student is taught, that they learn?”
Denver Public School Superintendent Tom Boasberg recommended Goldrick for the assistant secretary to observe due to the school's success with non-English speakers. Two-thirds of the 600 students at Goldrick are designated English Language Learners, and more than 90 percent qualify for free and reduced lunch – a federal measure of poverty. Last year, the percentage of students who scored proficient or above on the state test for reading was 73 percent while writing was 60 percent. The percentage of kids scoring so well had nearly doubled, with an increase of 32 percentage points in reading and 25 in writing. This was for students taking the test in Spanish.
“We are looking for promising practices across the country, and that's why we are at Goldrick and visiting this district. DPS is doing an excellent job with its English language learners. And Goldrick is a model of that success,” Melendez said. “I have visited similar demographics, and by all accounts this school could have been low-performing, but in contrast it is very successful. Its great teachers and leaders ensure their students are fully engaged and are learning.”
Despite high improvement among Spanish-speaking students, Goldrick Principal Maria Uribe said that her regular English-speaking students have improved at a much lower rate. English scores jumped up only six percentage points.
“My English language learners are doing fantastic work, but I need to work on my English speakers,” Uribe said during an hour-long presentation of how Goldrick is organized.
Photo caption: Dr. Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana (fourth from left), assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Education, observes a group of second-grade students at a vocabulary station with their teacher at Goldrick Elementary School. The assistant secretary visited the school because of its success with Spanish learners. Students on the ground, from left, Abigail Dominguez, Amy Luna, Cristian Iturbe and Pilar Salazar.
Students impressed Melendez from the moment she stepped into the school. With boys dressed in pressed pants and buttoned-down shirts with ties hanging straight under their necks, and girls in full-length dresses of bright colors, 10 students handed Melendez a rose and said hello to her in a native language. Standing in front of a poster that students school had made welcoming Dr. Melendez – the accent correctly above the second “e” in her last name, unlike another school Melendez noted she once visited – Parween Arbeen, 10 with glittering, small mirrors on her dress and head covering, said hello in Farsi, the language of her family's native Afghanistan. Roubatou Alassani said hello in Ana, the language of Togo. Miguel Barrios 6, just barely three feet tall and dressed in a dark gray shirt and a black vest, was last to shuffle to meet Melendez, handing her a clock and saying, “Buenos Dias.”Students' eagerness to learn gave Melendez an even bigger smile as she toured the school. In second grade literacy classes, students rotated among various stations. Grouped in small, homogeneously skilled sections, students can move at their own paces, can get more individualized attention when they need it, and can work and practice independently while other students are learning something that is either too far ahead of them or something they already know.
“I saw effective teachers in the classroom working with students, really focusing around their craft and making their craft better,” Melendez said. “I saw a principal who was the catalyst for change who was committed to students that are successful. I saw a school that by many counts could have been a low-performing school. This school is successful, and they don't allow themselves to have any excuses.”
In fifth grade math and science classes, students were given freedom to come up with solutions in small groups rather than having the teacher give specific directions. In science lab, fifth graders were given a battery, a copper wire, a nail and paper clips and had to figure out how to make an electromagnet and write their results. In math class, groups had to figure out why racers at the Olympics – such as in running or skating – start at different points of the track when they're in different lanes. In the math classes, on a paper that spread across four desks, some groups drew a circle and labeled it with numbers to represent a circular track, while other groups started writing equations.
“In asking the students what they were doing, they all could tell me exactly what they were doing, what they were going to learn, what they were learning and how they were going to show what they were learning,” Melendez said. “The teachers were fully engaged with the students. I saw every student engaged.”
Melendez's goal is now to get other schools to be just as engaged to be successful.
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