District welcomes leader in education reform

By Matt Nagle

Fife Free Press
mattnagle@tacomaweekly.com
Published on: May 08, 2008

On May 20, Fife School District will host one of the nation’s leading minds in education for “An Education Summit in the Valley: An Evening with Best Selling Author and National Speaker Dr. Phillip C. Schlechty.” The event, which will be held in the Columbia Junior High Performing Arts Center, will be both a celebration of the district’s successes in its partnership with Schlechty Center for Leadership in School Reform and a community engagement forum intended to inform the public about the work the district has been doing for about the past eight years based on the center’s uniquely comprehensive and systematic approach to school improvement.

The public is invited to attend this event by picking up a free ticket from any of the sponsors: Fife Lions Club, Fife Milton Area Rotary, Fife Regional Chamber of Commerce, Fife Education Association (teacher’s union), Fife Kiwanis, Discovery/Endeavour PTA, Hedden PTA, Surprise Lake Middle School Partners in Education (PIE), and the Columbia Junior High and Fife High School Boosters. Seating is limited and only ticket holders will be admitted.

Schlechty launched the private non-profit corporation Center for Leadership in School Reform in 1988 to provide high-quality and responsive support to those who are leading school reform efforts across the country. Based in Louisville, Ky., the Schlechty Center, as it is now named, works with public school districts and their leaders to transform existing systems of rules, roles and relationships that govern the way resources are used in schools to a system focused on creating challenging work for students with which they will persist through difficulties and ultimately gain that sense of self-satisfaction that comes from a job well done.

The Fife School District has seen some remarkable changes stemming from its long-term work with the center and its learned founder, who has written several books on the subject of creating great schools. Fife has now become a national example of the center’s excellent track record and superintendent Dr. Steve McCammon travels the country speaking about it at conferences and workshops. The district’s story is laid out in a 35-page case study the center published titled “Changing the Quality of Student Experiences: The Fife Way.”

Schlechty called Fife’s efforts “an unusual story of persistence and continuity of direction” and one of the most advanced districts among the nearly 90 the center works with.

“They’re one of few (school) systems that really got on board with the superintendent, the school board, the teachers union and the teachers all headed in same direction,” he said. “They really hung in there and they’ve done a great job.”

Schlechty noted that Fife’s achievements are “their invention, not ours. We provide the tools and they’re the craftsmen.” During his talk May 20 he will elaborate on this and why other school districts are turning to Fife as an example of success.

The result of the district’s partnership with Schlechty Center shows in the students’ work, McCammon said – that they understand concepts and get excited about learning. Rather than molding students to fit standard lessons and focusing heavily on test scores, the students, teachers and staff, principals and school board are all on the same page with the superintendent leading the charge to craft academic challenges that engage the young learners. For example, instead of giving teachers half-days for planning, Fife Schools regularly gives them two full days to get together and plot their course as a team in what are called WOW Academies, an acronym for Working on the Work.

“What we’ve evolved to in our district, instead of looking at what kids are failing the WASL, we look at the concepts the kids are struggling with and give our teachers support of collaboration time around how kids learn. We are one district that said if we focus on the right things about what kids need to know…the test scores will take care of themselves.”

The community can see the work teachers and students are doing via the “WOW Refrigerator” on the district’s home web page (www.fifeschools.com/wow) where examples are posted with pride like the students’ parents would do on their own refrigerator at home. There is also the “Walls That Teach” display in the district’s administrative offices where visitors can see students’ work with a brief note from their teachers explaining the lesson.

Elaine Smith is WOW coordinator, a full-time position that stemmed from the district’s alignment with Schlechty Center. “I remember back as a teacher when it was first presented to us,” she said. “The thing that I think was impressive to teachers was that, while there are a lot of programs that come and go, this was about our entire system. Everyone, from central office people, to the principals, to the teachers, to the school board, was rethinking their roles.

“We can’t change the standard – the state gives us that. But we have a lot of creativity and the district is allowing us freedom to figure out how we’re going to engage kids in that.”

“An Education Summit in the Valley” begins at 5:30 p.m. For more information, call (253) 517-1000.

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