The second largest school district in Alabama, the Jefferson County school district near Birmingham, has 57 schools, and when Angela Bush took the helm of Erwin Middle School in 2019 it was at the very bottom of that list.
"We were leading the district for the worst of everything," Bush told a CivicCon audience at the REX Theatre on Thursday night. "We had the worst school attendance, worst teacher morale, the worst student performance on our states tests. And then we had the most major infractions ... so, imagine this one middle school leading for the worst of everything."
But four years later, Erwin Middle School is a rising star, having earned its first ever passing school grade, leading the district in attendance, and having dramatically increased academic performance and decreased misbehavior through a combination of innovative programs, community support and hard work.
Under the leadership of Bush and her team, the school has been removed from the Comprehensive Support and Improvement oversight list for the first time, received its first passing school grade, decreased student discipline incidents by almost 43% within two years, reduced chronic absenteeism by 37% over two years and decreased the academic deficit of students performing below grade level by 24%.
Bush described how they got there during a CivicCon event Thursday and shared some best practices that can be applied to help other struggling schools climb out of low performance.
Here are five key lessons on how Bush and her team turned things around:
School improvement starts with purpose
When Bush first arrived at Erwin, she built a leadership team that included administrators, teachers, counselors, coaches and support staff ranging from cafeteria workers to custodians.
Together, they identified specific, attainable goals − things such as ensuring 80% student attendance − and met every 30 days to discuss their progress. They used a "stop light" system where each team member had specific goals and tasks, and a score sheet where progress toward the goals was tracked as red, yellow or green.
"Everybody on our leadership team had access to this tool. And so, they were able to look on the tool and see, 'Hey, where am I? Where am I on my goal? Am I completing my action for this month?' but also it became a point of collaboration where everybody on the team was able to look and see, 'Hey, Miss Diller, she's still in yellow. What do I need to do to help her so we can push this action item on?'"
Members of the team began meeting informally outside of the scheduled 30-day huddles, and they were able to communicate goals and strategies to their peers outside the leadership team so that everyone was rowing in the same direction.
And as they gradually crossed tasks off the list, celebrated small milestones and moved along to new goals, the team was surprised to learn that Erwin Middle School was named the No. 5 (of 15) middle school in the district by the U.S. News and World Report because of the school's growth.
"So, the first thing was to create a purpose, so that everybody understood the purpose," Bush said. "Because we wanted everybody to understand that the work that they were doing was worthwhile. And then ultimately, we want everybody to know that what you're doing is making a difference."
Make sure everyone knows - and understands - the numbers
Keeping results, good or bad, front and center was key to Erwin's growth.
"We always keep the data visible," Bush said. "Oftentimes people don't really like to look at the data because it doesn't reveal what you want to see. But we have to be honest with ourselves and look at that data."
That even included having conversations with the students and helping them understand why their scores on state assessment tests mattered not only to them and their futures, but how it reflected on their school and their community.
"In our conversations with the students, what we learned for those state assessments, they didn't understand the relevance of it. They did not understand what those scores indicated to the public so they would just go in and just 'click, click, click, I'm finished with the test,'" she said, pantomiming a student indifferently tapping random keyboard keys.
"But once we had those genuine, honest conversations to tell them that, 'Hey, you are telling the world that you're not capable of learning.' So, once they were able to see that, and then we showed them what the numbers actually meant, 'You're in sixth grade, but this indicates that you're performing on a second-grade level,' that was an eye opener. It was a game changer for us."
Give students agency in the school's success
Building relationships with students and their confidence in themselves was also critical to the school's improvement. During monthly huddles, the leadership team began to look not just at the metrics for absences, academics and suspensions, but the reasons behind the metrics.
"As we started to dig deeper into our work, we started to remove those numbers and look at the faces, and when you do that you truly get a picture of who you are serving," Bush said.
"So, during our leadership huddles, we had conversations like, 'What are some barriers? Well, this child isn't eating before they come to school. Well, they don't have proper or adequate shelter, or their lights are out.' Whatever the needs were, the teachers communicated those needs in the leader huddles. So, those were the barriers that we were initially trying to remove or help eliminate for the families. Because we learned that once you meet those basic needs, then students can learn. No one cares what's in a book if they're hungry."
Additionally, the leadership team identified the 45 most at-risk boys and the 45 most at-risk girls using metrics such as disciplinary incidents and chronic absences. They were all dubbed "ambassadors" for the school and entered into a pair of mentorship programs, the "Young Kings of Erwin Middle School" for the boys and "Aerie Girls (Girls Empowerment Club)."
The mentors helped students with their studies, taught them life skills like tying a necktie, and became trusted resources the kids could go to with their problems in and outside the school.
"Now these mentoring programs, they are the most sought out programs in the school," Bush said. "Everybody wants to be a Young King of our middle school, and everybody wants to be an Aerie Girl. That was good because what it did, it forced more teachers to get involved because then we have every student in the building that wants to be a part of this mentoring program. Teachers had to become sponsors."
Parents do care, you just have to meet them where they are
Bush said one of the things she hears all the time with struggling students is that their "parents don't care."
"I don't think I've met a parent yet that just truly does not care, however, there may be life circumstances or situations that prevent them from providing that adequate parental support for their child," Bush said.
Bush had her teachers begin conducting home visits with parents before the school year started to start building relationships with them. The school also organized a parent university where adults could come in to get assistance and information while teachers volunteered to care for their children.
Students truly began serving as ambassadors for the schools, and with incentives like gift cards, meals and pep rallies, began telling their parents about the importance of regular attendance, state testing and academic performance.
"The child, we've learned, has more influence on the parent than we do at the school," Bush said. "So, when they hear their kids coming home every day talking about all the fun things that we're doing at the school, they're talking about the numbers, we're getting ready to take our state assessment, the parents are like, 'OK, what's going on?'"
That opened the doorway for teachers and administrators to start spreading the message as well, creating awareness, buy-in and support for the school, the students and their mission.
"We have been very intentional and engaging all voices that includes students, parents and community members," Bush said. "Again, school improvement, it's an uphill journey, and it's not something that someone can do alone."
Relationships, relationships, relationships
Bush emphasized over and over that is was relationships that brought everything together. She made contact with every business and organization in her community she thought might support Erwin, from the owners of the local pharmacy to the mayor in city hall.
Everyone she approached stepped up, volunteering time and mentorship, donating gift cards, providing meals, sponsoring events and supporting the school however they could.
Bush said by her calculations, school support funding from the community − which was used to fund everything from field trips to dinners for the mentoring groups − increased 1,100% during her four-year tenure at the school.
Everyone who contributed to the school got access to a regular report card on the school's progress, and though the numbers were not always ideal, people could see the growth and know they were a part of it.
"Building relationships, that's the common thread that actually runs through our school − relationships, relationships, relationships ... just building those relationships, being transparent in the conversation and being boots on the ground," Bush said.
"Oftentimes people will say, 'Well, how did you get the community involved?' For us, we had to actually go to the community, we had to find out what was going on in the community in order for us to remove or eliminate barriers. We have to go to the community, otherwise you don't know what's going on. For us that was important because the more that we were visible in the community, the more that the community were able to buy into what we were doing.
"They were establishing trust with us, they started to trust what we were saying and what we were doing. Again, and I preach this all the time, people plus culture plus strategy equals results. We did a lot of empowering people that were involved."
Next up at CivicCon: right-sizing Pensacola's homeless shelter strategy
CivicCon is a partnership with the News Journal to help empower citizens to better their communities through smart planning and civic conversation.
The next CivicCon event Monday, May 13 will feature Jon DeCarmine, founder of the Grace Marketplace in Gainesville.
Grace Marketplace is a low-barrier shelter that serves as a one-stop center to bring essential services to those experiencing homelessness. Since the shelter first opened its doors in 2014, the community has seen a 40% reduction in the number of people living on the streets.
DeCarmine also serves as a homelessness consultant in communities around the country. The city of Pensacola recently hired him to consult on creating the right solutions in Pensacola that fits our population and budget.
More information about the event, as well as stories and videos featuring previous CivicCon speakers, is available at pnj.com/civiccon.
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