"We Think We Can", Part 2
Where Research Reigns

As an early step toward reform, a focus group of Bemiss teachers and administrators started investing time and energy in figuring out how to make change happen. They visited other schools, attended conferences, dug into the research literature, and developed consensus throughout the school community that change would be beneficial. "We looked at the structure of the school, our teaching strengths, the community's needs, everything," recalls Smesrud, who served on the original leadership team.

Every month, the leadership team from Bemiss met with teams from the three other Spokane schools that were also planning for schoolwide reform. "They talked about the challenges of organizational change, how they were involving parents, and other issues they were all facing," says Olsen, who brought more support for their cause from the district level. The four schools "all agreed to go through this process together, and they were ready for the yearlong planning process," Olsen says, remembering what helped make change possible. The four schools "all ended up a little different," she adds, "but they all went through a similar process."

Rather than investing in a packaged reform model, the Bemiss community elected to chart its own course. "We looked for the best available methods to help children learn," Smesrud recalls. In their quest for research-backed strategies to boost math and reading skills, members of the leadership team became convinced that teaching methods needed to change. "We knew we wanted to provide kid-centered, hands-on, active learning," Smesrud says, "and that's pretty different from the way most of us learned to teach. We were used to being the sage on the stage. Suddenly, we wanted teachers to become part of the action with their kids."

To keep the community informed about school reforms, McDonald recruited parents to serve on a site council. When he retired in 1998 after 13 years as principal, Spear was his logical successor. By then, she was already committed to the process.

The most recent evidence of success—so new it's not even on Spear's wall yet—is the third-graders' 1999 performance on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. Although the "Iowas" had not been used as an assessment tool by Spokane schools before this spring, Bemiss third-graders ranked at the 53rd percentile among their peers across the country on a composite score of reading and math. "Any time a Title I school can reach out and touch 50," Spear says, "you're doing great." In specific areas, students scored well above average. Their scores for math problem solving and data interpretation, for instance, put them at the 68th percentile. On a different standardized test back in 1992, Spear offers by comparison, "We were seeing results down in the teens."

Because of her fluency with statistics, Spear's teachers jokingly call her the "Data Queen." It's a title she wears with pride. Barely five-feet tall, with tight curls swept back from her face, 42-year-old Spear is a dynamo. She walks fast, talks fast, and speaks forcefully when the welfare of her students is at stake. "Bemiss kids are smart," she says often, and with pride. "They just need a chance to show it."

This principal also knows that passion alone won't guarantee the extra help her students need to reach their potential. Drawing on local and federal funding and additional support from grants, Bemiss has been able to invest in the components that research proves are effective at raising student achievement: smaller classes, onsite professional development, academic training for parents, counseling, extended-day programs, mentoring programs, summer classes, access to computers, reading specialists, conflict-resolution training, and more. But every extra means lobbying for dollars in a community where other schools also serve low-income, high-need students.

Each new service that Bemiss adds also requires more time and energy from teachers who already stay at school long after the last bell rings. "We're trying to provide at school all the extras that other children (from less impoverished families) have at home," says Spear. While she's working late, her husband is often transporting their 14-year-old son to after-school sports and other activities.

To prove that all the energy and investments are paying off at Bemiss, Spear relies on numbers. "We do tons with data," she says. "We track results right to the classroom level. When our fourth-graders do well on achievement tests, we go back to every teacher they've ever had and let them know they are part of that success." In Washington, where students take achievement tests nearly every year between second and 10th grades, there are plenty of opportunities to crunch numbers. "We call it spreading the stress," Spear says with a weary-sounding laugh.

One question has helped to keep the reform efforts on track over the long run: "What are all the things that have to do with good instruction for kids? That has been our concern since we started," says Smesrud, who is now a member of the Bemiss Implementation Team, charged with putting the reform plan into action.

Every decision about how to improve teaching, adds Spear, has been supported by research about "what's best for kids." While staff members continue to attend conferences and stay current on academic research, the classroom has become the primary site for making change happen.

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