Mandy Early Fort Wayne

LEADing with optimism | The Journal Gazette | Fort Wayne, IN

Change is tough anywhere but especially so in public education, where years of tradition, bureaucracy, long-held expectations and teacher autonomy combine to preserve the status quo. But changes have come to the 11 schools singled out by Fort Wayne Community Schools in its LEAD program. The struggling schools haven’t been transformed overnight into top performers, but new approaches that put student learning first have turned them in the right direction.

Visits to North Side High School, Northwood Middle and Abbett Elementary schools show signs of fundamental change:

•Once-skeptical teachers have embraced new ways of teaching. At North Side, half a dozen teachers were attending an optional workshop during their prep period to learn new technology. Abbett teachers Jennifer Dinet and Mandy Smith teach different groups of first-graders, but work closely together, sharing ideas on what works.

•School principals work as instructional leaders, continually dropping in on classrooms in “snapshot” visits to see how students and teachers are interacting. “You don’t see teachers lecturing a lot,” Northwood Principal Adam Swinford said. “The days of standing up and lecturing for 54 minutes don’t work anymore.”

•High school classrooms find every student fully engaged in discussion or activities – no daydreaming or goofing off. Middle school students speak confidently of the expectations and their own role in helping their school succeed.

“I see kids rushing to class,” eighth-grader Emrah Omeragic said. “The way they are teaching us is better.”

Impetus for change

Early 2010 held bleak days for Fort Wayne Community Schools: Budget cuts, teacher layoffs, two schools marked for closing and two others facing state takeover if they didn’t improve. The faint hope of federal Race to the Top cash was crushed and nearly a dozen schools were falling behind in accountability demands.

In most districts, targeting the takeover threat would have been the expected course – addressing problems at North Side and South Side high schools and hoping everything else fell into place.

But FWCS officials took a wider, longer view. The budget crisis and accountability demands combined to fuel the urgency for comprehensive changes. Reform efforts that began as early as 2002 – administrative training, reading instruction reform, full-day kindergarten and more – became the foundation. From those efforts, LEAD – Leading Educational Achievement with Distinction – was born.

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