Tulare High shows how it's done

In the town of Tulare, the smell of cattle hangs as heavy in the air as the "tule" fog that frequently blankets the valley. The community is on the outskirts of Fresno, surrounded by farmland, dairies and an outlet mall. But don't be fooled by the "cow town" demeanor. Tulare High School makes high school reform look easy.

The school ranks 8 out of 10 on the Academic Performance Index among demographically similar schools in California. When the school was listed on the California Department of Education's website as being "on the right track," teachers were pleased to finally get some recognition.

"We're different here, but you won't see anything different than you do at other schools," says math teacher Kathy Landon. "It's internal, I guess. I suppose you could say that we're a little town that's on the cutting edge. We're very progressive here."

"I guess we're ahead of our time," says math teacher Gary De Foe. "A lot of schools come to us and say, 'We want to be like you guys and do what you've done.' And I'm glad to tell them how it happened."

What made it work was that teachers were part of the decision-making process and they were given the time to get it done. It helped that the principal, Howard Berger, was a positive leader with a vision that teachers shared.

"He had a clear vision of what he wanted us to accomplish," explains social studies teacher Mark Reindl. "Essentially, he shared this vision of success, gave us the things we needed to accomplish the vision and said, 'How you go about implementing this vision is up to you.'"

When given the time, resources and independence to implement schoolwide change, teachers valiantly rose to the challenge. They worked together as a school, and also within their individual departments. Fortunately, say teachers, the school culture is extremely positive, or it would not have been possible.

During the 2000-01 school year, teachers were granted "release time" from the classroom to align curriculum to the state standards. This happened for all classes, not just core subjects.

"When we first started aligning standards to curriculum, we worked on weekends, after school, on winter break and during the summer," recalls De Foe. "Given our druthers, we would have liked doing something else, but we all pitched in and got it done." Teachers received a stipend for their efforts. Still, it was challenging for the first few years, he recalls.

"We sat down and went over the standards, tearing them apart, and looked at what was essential for students to know," says Reindl. "We created what we call 'essential learnings' for each course. And we've been refining and defining these every year. My social studies department still gets together at least once during the summer. We ask, 'What are we doing right? What do we need to alter?'"

Time is set aside for teachers to collaborate from 8 to 9 a.m. every Friday. Depending upon what is needed, the time might be used for a schoolwide meeting, a department meeting or a course meeting, at which, for example, all algebra teachers would meet to work on calendars, quizzes and benchmark tests.

Teachers in every class let students know ahead of time what "essential learnings" they will be taught over the next six-week period. At the end of the time, students are given a "benchmark test" on the material. The tests are the same for each course offering.

"We are networked and we are connected," says Landon. An advanced computer system that is maintained by a full-time "tech" person allows teachers to collaborate without holding meetings. Each department has a shared drive, and teachers for each subject share a common assignment calendar, and common tests, quizzes and worksheets. "For example, let's say I'm going to make up a midchapter quiz for algebra. I would send it out to all of the algebra teachers, who would look it over and give me input. I would finalize it and post it on that drive for everyone to use."

"We will e-mail each other if we change a homework assignment or if students are having trouble with a concept," says Landon. "After a test, we might say, 'How did your kids do?' If they did better than my kids, I might ask, 'What are you doing differently?' We talk all the time, checking to see what's going on and how we can help each other. We are working together. This probably doesn't happen at other schools. It doesn't feel forced, and it doesn't feel like we're lock-stepped. If my kids need an extra day to learn something, I take it. We're flexible that way."

Now that teachers are collaborating on assignments and tests, Landon finds it amusing that students no longer "shop" for an easy teacher. "Before we started doing this, they would go to the counselor and ask for teachers that assigned less homework. But now that we are showing a united front, some of the students have come up to me and said, 'You finally figured it out.'"

Teachers throughout the entire school also communicate on a "teachers only" shared drive. They take turns posting seven new vocabulary words per week that are used in every class. "The words are even used in foreign language," says Dennis Borges, who teaches Portuguese. "We might do translations or write the word meaning in Portuguese using simple sentence structure. When students hear the same vocabulary words in each class, they become in tune with them."

Communication via e-mail and website is also helpful to students. On days when the fog is so thick that the school buses don't run, students can get their assignments online.

Teachers at Tulare decided traditional 50-minute class periods weren't necessarily the most effective use of teaching time. The school switched to a block schedule with two-hour classes held every other day.

"Block scheduling has helped a lot," says science teacher Susan Silva-Treadwell. "Biology is pretty difficult reading, so with more time we can do a lot of classroom activities that have to do with the topic."

Teachers agree that block scheduling allows more time for creative, hands-on activities that reinforce standards and encourage critical thinking skills.

On one recent day, block scheduling allowed students in Reindl's American Government class to split into groups and act as U.S. Supreme Court justices ruling on the case of a Japanese-American citizen who refused to report for relocation during World War II. Students engaged in a spirited discussion of racism, how the Constitution can have "flexible" interpretations, and whether the internment of U.S citizens could ever happen again, for example, with people of Middle Eastern descent.

Meanwhile, Borges' Portuguese class was rooting for "Swat Teams" who stood in front of the class with fly swatters and tried to whack the projected image correctly representing the word spoken by the teacher.

And, thanks to block scheduling, there was time following a biology lesson on pollution and environmental dangers of acid rain, global warming and the deterioration of the ozone layer for students in Silva-Treadwell's class to draw "creatures of the future" that might evolve from these changes. Some of the animals drawn by students had scales to prevent skin cancer, and webbed arms and legs to adapt to flooding from the melting of polar ice caps.

When Algebra I was recently made a requirement for graduation by the state, the school decided to eliminate all math classes below that level. For struggling students, there is a "Success Math Lab" for two hours on a day when they don't have regular math class. The lab provides intensive intervention and assistance to bring students up to speed. "It's almost like a study hall, but it's more than that," says Landon. "When they come in, we review the assignment they had in algebra the day before, help them with the homework, give 'practice' tests and preview the lesson for the next day. This couldn't happen without block scheduling."

Because many students read behind grade level by the time they get to high school, there are literacy classes for freshmen and sophomores. Approximately a quarter of all students take literacy as freshmen. English language learners attend the classes once they're declared "fluent" in English.

"It's very unique to have high school reading classes, but we feel it's necessary here," says Juan Alvarado, a literacy teacher. "Tulare County has one of the highest pregnancy rates and one of the lowest literacy rates. We have brought up some students by two, three or even four grade levels."

When the school was going through the Immediate Intervention/Underperforming School Program (II/USP), it hired part-time reading specialist Jennifer Moshier, who helped create a sophomore-level reading class. "We realized that the sophomore year was when many of them would drop out," says Moshier. "We decided that one year of intervention just wasn't enough. We've seen a lot of students who've taken the sophomore course show improvement in test scores and pass the high school exit exam."

The school uses the Reading Renaissance program, which tests the reading ability of students and assigns each a "reading level." Students pick a book at that level, read it and complete a five-minute quiz, collecting "points" for each book they read. They're promoted to new reading levels on the basis of the points they accumulate.

One of the reasons the program has been such a success is that the school has a full-time library media teacher who collaborates with teachers on books that tie in with classroom curriculum. English classes include "silent sustained reading" for 20 to 30 minutes.

Library media teacher Nancy Matz is proud to show off the school's library, which is amply stocked with books. "We want students to have a love of reading here," she says. "It may not start out that way, but it becomes that way."

"Every kid on campus has a novel all the time," says English teacher Mary Haven. "When you tell the kids it's time to quit silent reading, they say, 'Can't we have another 10 minutes?' It does the heart good. Sometimes, 45 minutes before school starts, you'll see a group of boys sitting on a bench, and they are reading. It's a wonderful sight."

"I believe one reason we are successful is that we have high expectations for all students," says math teacher Choon Nam Chao. "Every one of us here strongly believes in the students. Some of them come from harsh backgrounds, but they still do really well. We convey that we are here to help them and to set goals for them."

As part of the higher expectations, a D is no longer a passing grade for math. "But high expectations alone are not enough," says Chao. "You also have to have a plan. I think that students appreciate the fact that teachers have a plan to help them achieve these expectations."

Brooke Martin, a senior at the school, agrees. "The teachers are really organized here. Everything has a purpose and an outline. And they have boundaries, too."

"They push us and push us when it comes to tests and stuff, but it really pays off," says sophomore class president Larissa Maichrowicz. "And the teachers are really helpful. If you ask for help, they will give it to you."

Chao says that when expectations are high, the students work harder to meet them. "I can see that it's definitely happening here at Tulare High School."