3 posts tagged “education reform”

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KIPP and Me

Jun 3, 2009
7 comments

Next school year (2009-2010) I'll be teaching at the KIPP Delta College Preparatory School based in Helena, Arkansas. After two years of teaching at Humphreys County High School I decided that I needed a change. I fully think that KIPP will be a good fit for me since in Humphreys County I often felt like like the outcast OCD teacher working 12-hour days, actually analyzing test data (or even grading tests...I've been laughed at by colleagues for even grading tests or classwork on a number of occassions) and targeting special skills for improvement, and trying unconvential things in the classroom beyond the standard worksheet/comprehension questions classwork and homework model. At KIPP Delta, everybody's like that. At least seemingly.

I'll be teaching two sections of 7th grade social studies in addition to one section of high school journalism. I'll be based at KIPP's middle school under a school director (principal, essentially) who definitely seems like someone who has a potent mixture respect and reverence amongst teachers, staff, and students alike as well as a heartfelt connection to his job coupled with know-how of what everyone under his leadership should be doing to give students the best education posssible. I'll be sending off my signed offer letter today or tomorrow and one part of it that made me a little nervous reads:

                                     "...KIPP Delta may terminate your employment at any time, without
                                      notice, and...you may similarly terminate your employment with KIPP
                                      Delta at any time."

Not that I plan on getting fired from KIPP or that I plan to quit mid-year but since all KIPP schools operate as charter schools seeing the often talked about flexibility that charter school leaders enjoy in black-and-white on something I'm signing is a little scary. When I visited KIPP Delta last Thursday all of the teachers seemed to be enjoying their job, all of the students seemed to want to be there, and academic activities were going on in every classroom I entered. Mind you, it was the LAST DAY. I thought about the differences between the last day there and the last days of school at my alma mater, Trenton High, and how essentially the last three weeks of school attendance would drop below 25% and the last few days of school easily less than 100 students (out of nearly 3,000) would be in attendance. Even at Humphreys County High most students essentially had a free day the last day as most teachers shunned the school's exam schedule and had already given their exams earlier in the week or prior as oppose to on the last two days of school as directed. These were only a few of the differences I noticed.

Another differences I noticed on my visit included how respectful students seemed towards adults and each other. The KIPP motto of "work hard, be nice" seemed in effect all around. Additionally, every student was in uniform (including shirts tucked in and nothing on their body or head that shouldn't be). I can't tell you how much of a problems our uniform policy (more like "suggestions") are at Humphreys County High and how so many of our faculty meetings turn into griping sessions about something needing to be done about students coming to school out of uniform. It may seem minor but students coming to school out of uniform (very often purposely to dress similar to a friend, family member, or signficant other...or just to see what a teacher or administrator will do on THAT day) undermines the concept of having standards, whether behavioral or academic, at school. When this dies down we are on the road to destruction as students know what they can get away with an develop precedents to cite in the old "well, last week ____ didn't wear his or her uniform" that teachers and administrators rarely prevail against.

I'm sure that for now I'm in my honeymoon phase with KIPP and that in time I will develop a more holistic and, potentially (at least in part), critical perspective on the school but I'm happy where I'm at now. Further evidence that KIPP Delta is a real school was revealed when I called my school director yesterday to accept his offer of employment and he started listing things that I should do, documents that I should expect through postal mail, and other things that I should be mindful of immediately. He also told me that he'd need to have weekly, half-hour long phone meetings with me even though I was at home in New Jersey and the first one is today in about...nine minutes. Thus, I will have to cut this post off here and edit it/spice it up later. 'Til then, comrades!