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their sleeves, tackle challenges, and do
what was needed; and we had District
support, in addition to state support.
When you receive a D grade for the 2nd
year in a row and you’re in turnaround
status, you have to have reviews and visits
from the state. So, that provided additional
resources that we utilized.”
“It truly was a collective effort,” she
continued. “I was very blessed to be able
to have this opportunity. Everybody was
willing to work together. That’s probably
the best part. There wasn’t any one
isolated thing that worked. It’s multiple
things – and it’s all-hands-on-deck.”
That said, Principal Johnson came in with
a vision for helping the students of Palm
View succeed. “Number one: we had
clear goals from the beginning. We know
what our school grade was; we tore our
data apart; and we made goals based on
our areas of need, as well as our areas
of strength that we could play off of and
make stronger. And then, we made sure
that those goals were consistent and
communicated across our whole campus
and throughout the District”
“Another thing that we did was to focus
a lot on collaborative planning,” she
explained. “Bringing everyone together
and focusing on learning the standards
and making sure that the instruction that
we’re providing is standards-based.
My leadership team also plans with my
teachers. We set-up a calendar and every
week I paid my teachers two additional
hours of planning outside of the day. They
rolled up their sleeves and did it!”
Those collaborative planning sessions
and conversations led to a focus on
small group instruction. “What does
that look like in the classroom? How can
we support them in the classroom with
that small group instruction?” Principal
Johnson recalled asking her team.
“Because when you get to small group
instruction, then you’re targeting individual
needs and you’re differentiating. And so
that’s where a bulk of our learning gains
come from and that’s where we had the
most gains - in the bottom quartile for ELA
(English Language Arts) we went to 92%,
which is crazy!”
And finally, Principal Johnson made sure
to focus on data: “From the beginning,
my teachers knew who their students
were; they knew where they were at when
they came in, where their needs and
where their strengths were. We focused
our collaborative planning sessions
around using our data and our formative
assessments. Are students getting it?
Who is getting it and who isn’t? Where
are they struggling? What do I need to
re-teach? Where do I need to support
more? And what do we need to change
or tweak? So, we really let data drive our
instruction and our decisions.”
Asked what this achievement means for
her students, Principal Johnson reflected
for a moment. “For Palm View, number
one, helping our students understand that
they can be successful, and that failure is
not final. We learn from our mistakes. We
want students to know that they can be
successful, and we want them to come to
school and love learning. We want them to
be lifelong learners. That’s huge.”
“Proficiency is something we’re striving
towards. But at the same time, you don’t