No More Revolving Door, Part 2
Spinning Straw into Gold

The tug-of-war for students' time was resolved three years ago by intensifying and consolidating literacy instruction. Four days a week, every teacher and staff assistant is enlisted to work with kids on reading and writing during two 90-minute literacy blocks (one for lower grades and one for third through fifth grade). The plan has paid off handsomely. Reading scores are climbing, and more kids are meeting state benchmarks.

On a typical morning, first-grade teacher Marion Lei leads a Junior Great Books discussion group during literacy block.

"Why did the miller's daughter promise to give her first child to Rumpelstiltskin? Why do you suppose she did that?" Lei asks. Hands shoot up furiously. "Cassidy?"

"She had no other valuables to give him," answers Cassidy.

Like the miller's daughter, Grout's classroom teachers are giving away their kids. But they're happy to do it. Of Lei's 26 students, five are attending an ESL literacy group, two are at a drama workshop, and three are with a special-ed instructor. Because all staff teach during the literacy blocks, student-teacher ratios drop dramatically. Many specialized groups contain only five to eight students. Classroom teachers' class loads dip to an enviable 16 or 18.

Depending on grade level, other literacy options include one-to-one tutoring with volunteers, small-group instruction with the Title I coordinator, Young Authors groups for advanced writers, and Internet exploration with the librarian. There's even a group for chronic classroom disrupters.

The multiple groupings also allow classroom teachers to send kids across grade levels to better meet their needs. "I can send some of my lower [fifth-grade] readers to third grade, and it doesn't have a stigma—it's a literacy group," says Neal.

While no bargains with Rumpelstiltskin were necessary to achieve the highly prized smaller class sizes, changes in staff roles and relationships were essential. "The teachers really had to trust that another staff person could actually teach their kids," says Title I Coordinator Sharon Himes.

That's because literacy-group instructors are not treated as add-ons. In all but first grade (where the literacy block is shorter), if a student has a special instructor for reading and writing, that instructor—not the classroom teacher—gives all instruction and assigns the grades in those subjects.

"Before I came," says McCullough, who teaches a literacy group herself one day a week, "there were several staff members—very qualified teachers—who really did not want to let go of owning their own kids. They chose to go to another school."

ESL teacher Bauer initially opposed the plan. "To me it felt like jumping off into black space," she says. "For years and years, I'd been sort of a supplemental program and never the one signing the bottom line for this learning. I was out of practice, and it was frightening to think I was really the person responsible for this." This early doubter is now "a real convert" and a member of the school's literacy committee. "I am a part of a team, and I feel valued," she says.

The literacy program is a watershed for increased professionalism and collegiality, the teachers agree. The literacy-resource room is an example. "Instead of everyone hoarding their own materials, we have put them together and we are sharing them," says Bauer. "Building this together really has made a wonderful atmosphere in the staff." A similar room for sharing math materials is in the works.

All staff take part in twice-yearly student testing and quarterly discussions to assign students to literacy groups. All staff attend important trainings. Because they share such experiences, staff also share students with confidence. "I can trust that they will be looking at a whole student, knowing what they need at that grade level," says fifth-grade teacher Ginger Leffal-Husak. "I feel that I can send my children off and I won't be getting back a child who's studying Brazil when we're studying the United States."

The literacy-program kickoff in fall 1996 coincided with McCullough's arrival at Grout. It also marked the school's conversion to a Title I Schoolwide program. The "schoolwide" designation lets schools use funds to improve instruction for all kids, not just targeted students. "Being schoolwide gives you so much more flexibility," says McCullough. "It's an ideal way to start reform."

The literacy program takes advantage of this flexibility. If, for example, a high-achieving student runs into a writing problem and needs extra help, a teacher can place that student in a small group or tutoring program run by the Title I coordinator.

Under McCullough's leadership, school reform has continued to evolve beyond the literacy block. "She kind of empowered them to keep going," says Carolyn Moilanen, a Portland Public Schools Title I specialist. "She doesn't ever take credit."

In 1998, the Grout staff heard about the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) program—like the Title I Schoolwide program, but more rigorous. CSRD requires schools to develop a detailed, comprehensive plan for reform, including specific goals for student achievement.

Because Grout was more ready than most to move ahead with school reform, Oregon's Department of Education approved a $25,000 "early bird" grant (out of other federal funds) before actual CSRD money was available. Only three other Oregon schools were awarded these funds.

Most CSRD schools are adopting existing whole-school reform models, such as Success for All or Coalition of Essential Schools. Not Grout. "It would have been weird for them to go out and find a new (whole-school) model," says Moilanen, who helped the staff develop their CSRD proposal. "For this school, it would have been nuts because they already had an underlying structure to push reform. They knew where the holes were in literacy."

Those "holes" are what the staff found when they took a critical look at their program and achievement data. They saw two glaring needs: to intervene early with failing readers and to develop higher-order thinking skills.

To fill these holes, the staff selected two research-based skill-and-content models: Reading Recovery for struggling first-graders and Junior Great Books to promote reading comprehension, speaking skills, and critical thinking. McCullough hopes that indepth discussions of literature will help fill in gaps for kids whose home lives lack family outings or dinner-table conversations. The Junior Great Books "shared inquiry method" is an approach teachers can use in all content areas with kids of all ability levels and English-language skills.

While continuing to hone their skills with the Junior Great Books questioning strategies, the Grout staff are gearing up to match their literacy achievements in the area of math. The school will create a math block and adopt the Woodlawn Math Model, a very successful teaching approach developed at another Title I school, Portland's Woodlawn School. Like Grout's literacy program, Woodlawn Math focuses on early intervention and higher-order thinking skills.

Money from more than 10 different pots—including Goals 2000, Portland Public Schools Foundation, and gifted-education funds—is paying for the ongoing transformation at Grout. The school is moving toward full-day kindergarten—an essential piece in the literacy puzzle if more students are to meet third-grade benchmarks. After-school tutoring in reading and math for students within 10 points of meeting benchmarks is another emerging piece of the school-reform picture at Grout.

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