Athol-Royalston school seen as model for success
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
By Jason Feifer
December 11, 2005
BOSTON— In the drive to improve schools through cooperation between unions and administrators, education supporters are touting a surprising success case: Athol-Royalston Middle School.
It’s a high compliment for the school, whose district has long suffered from financial restraints and low student test scores, but the praise is well earned. Earlier this year, the school became the only one in the two-town district to not be labeled underperforming by the state.
School improvement is typically measured in numbers, and the middle school’s statistics have significantly gotten better. In 2001, for example, only 19 percent of sixth-graders performed at sufficient or advanced levels on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System math tests, and 45 percent failed. This year, those numbers practically flipped: 49 percent scored sufficient or advanced, and 17 percent failed.
“I’ve never seen a faculty work as hard and be so committed” as the current staff, said Grade 8 social studies teacher Patricia A. LaBombarde, who has worked in the district for 35 years.
The school was held up as a success case during a conference last week in Boston on how unions and administrators can work together to help lagging schools. Ms. LaBombarde and others were there to explain how the agreement came together and its immediate effect on the school.
It’s a story educators would like to see repeated.
Unions and administrators in schools across the state have a tendency to develop acrimonious relationships, and that has hurt the students they’re both trying to help, according to S. Paul Reville, president of the Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy in Cambridge.
The nature of collective bargaining sapped many schools of their flexibility, creating a rigid, one-size-fits-all workplace, he said. That has hampered their ability to meet the individual needs of a district, and it’s something his center, which hosted the conference, is trying to change.
By holding up the Athol-Royalston case as an example and a few similar cases across the state, he said, he hopes to create a dialogue in which unions and administrations are reminded that both are working toward the same goal of educating students.
At the conference, speakers on both sides acknowledged the differences they must put aside.
“The union can’t just be about the contract and finances,” said Paul Toner, president of the Cambridge Teachers Association.
Athol-Royalston Middle School Principal Chris Collins said administrators need to relinquish more control to teachers, because it will empower them and allow them to find new ways to help students.
“When someone’s always looking over your shoulder, who’s going to take risks?” Mr. Collins said.
At the middle school, the union initiated the new, touted relationship. It began when the district teachers’ association president, Robert Harris, learned about a school improvement program available from the Massachusetts Teachers Association. He brought it to administrators two years ago and suggested they pursue it.
With an all-around agreement that the program could be beneficial, teachers followed through with the application process and got the project started. Last school year was the first with the program, and surveys show that almost all staff members at the school support it.
The program bridged numerous gaps in the school, according to the staff present at Wednesday’s conference. Among them were basic school elements such as building a standards-based curriculum and aligning its improvement plans with its professional development offerings.
The union also recognized that its contract contributed to a weak, sometimes useless professional development schedule, so it revised the contract to allow for more flexible and defined blocks of time, Mr. Harris said.
The teachers mapped out what every student achieves academically from Grades 6 through 8. That allowed them to see what other teachers were doing, and rework their classes to complement lessons in other classrooms, according to Ms. LaBombarde.
“This was the first time the whole faculty got to see what their colleagues were doing, and it was an eye-opener for them,” she said.
Last spring, at the end of the program’s first year, students met the annual requirement of the federal No Child Left Behind Act and was relieved of the state-given underperforming label that had dogged it for years.
The improvement has been noticeable, according to two Athol mothers whose children attend the school and who sit on the parent advisory council.
“I believe they’re doing the best that they can with what they have,” said Vicki L. Johnson, whose son is in Grade 7. “I haven’t had any issues with any of the teachers. I believe they’re all there working for our children, and they want to make it better, too.”
Brenda L. Anderson, who has children in Grades 6 and 8, agreed. She said she’s also noticed a change in the last few years.
When her older child entered the school two years ago, she said, the school seemed less organized and not as communicative with parents. Now, though, she said, things run very smoothly.
Next up: the rest of the district’s schools. Superintendent Anthony T. Polito said he wants to spread the collaborative effort across the district and is working to shore up enough support to do it. To him, it’s the solution to getting his schools out from under the state’s underperforming label.
“It’s the only model that works,” he said.
