It's been three years since I have taken on the adventure of leading Vero Beach Elementary. I wanted to share the reflection that I was recently asked to do about my purpose. I apologize that it's so long, but it's been quite the journey.
Once Upon a Time…
I never thought that I would enter the world of being a Principal in the fashion that I did. In January of 2016, the Superintendent of Indian River County schools, Dr. Mark Rendell, made an unannounced visit to Sebastian River Middle School, with an urgent request. I was tasked with making a split-second decision that has forever changed my role in both my family and my district; I accepted a Principal position at Vero Beach Elementary, home of the Little Indians. There was no sugar coating the reality of the school. It was in dire need and serious action was required to turn the school around. The school had over 90% of the students on free or reduced lunch, 22% were students with disabilities, 18% were second-language learners, 64% of the student population were minorities, and over 1,000 discipline referrals had already been accumulated in the first semester of the school year. To be honest, the data wasn’t what scared me – Title I is where my heart is – but I was nervous taking on the challenge. I had heard stories from local educators, warnings from colleagues about gangs, and horror stories of what to expect; let me just tell you... they were wrong. This school was home to some of the most amazing little humans that I have ever met. It took just one day to realize that this would become my passion and my mission. To help create the environment and belief in our TRIBE that we can and we will turn Vero Beach Elementary from a school of transformation, to a school of innovation.
If you can dream it, you can do it…
It would only make sense that I became a principal through unique circumstances, as nothing in my life has been “by the book.” The truth is, I never intended to get into education in the first place. I didn’t “play teacher” growing up; I didn’t have dreams of grading papers or pretend my stuffed animals were my students.
Going to the University of Florida as a Political Science major, I had big dreams of changing the world as an attorney. I even spent time while growing up in North Lauderdale, Florida investing in law enforcement as a police explorer on the weekends during high school I spent time riding along with officers so that I had a perspective that I thought would support my career as a defense attorney. However, while at UF, I had a course requirement of tutoring under-privileged children in Alachua County Housing Authority. It only took one math problem to change my entire vision for my future.
Through the course of my career as an educator, 11 years as a middle school teacher, 2 ½ years as an Assistant Principal at Sebastian River Middle School, and 3 years as the Principal of Vero Beach Elementary School, I have realized that my idea that I can change the world has never been abandoned – it’s just been modified through the career and relationships I’ve been fortunate enough to build.
I won't pretend that there weren't many moments from January through June of 2016 that I didn't seriously contemplate, "What did I get myself into?" and "Am I really the right person to lead this journey?" Several days I envisioned a camera crew jumping out and saying, "just kidding, you're being pranked." From students eloping from class, to nonstop calls for assistance over the radios, no clear tiered process of support for behavior at all, to walking into a kindergarten class and seeing students sitting on the bookcases as they waved down, I had my work cut out for me. There were the nay-sayers who felt that I was probably too young, inexperienced, and lacked an elementary school background. However, I had one thing going for me, the Superintendent believed in me and my vision. He was whole heartedly supportive of the direction of changing the school from a traumatized environment into a school of innovation. Despite hearing that our school was a “lost cause” I never lost hope in the potential I saw in the school. I have always loved the kids that others feel are "challenging." I've never felt a kid was "too far gone" or "unreachable." Now, I just needed to take that sentiment and multiply it times 760 students. What they couldn't have understood is that I'm a mama bear, and these were all now my cubs. Watch out.
The good news is, those days of chaos were limited. It's hard to immediately change an adult-centered environment into a student-centered one. Sometimes tradition can be great and sometimes it can be something that people hold so tight to that they forget to look at what's best for children. We are now proud to share that we have dropped our discipline 98% over the past three years and have become a culture of accountability and kindness, one that others look at as a model of what can be done when students are at the center of every decision being made.
I think it all began with setting the highest expectations for our staff when I came in. I opened the door to anyone who wasn't 100% committed to the hard work that would take place over the course of the turnaround. There was complete transparency as to what would be required and the reality that the school was in and where it was headed. I met with every single staff member and asked them what they would change if they were in charge, what expectations they felt every member of the team should be held to, and what was tradition that they felt should remain. It set the tone and showed the team that I value them and their input, but I didn’t shy away from the fact that second order change was necessary to not only improve the school, but the perception in the community.
We started by creating an atmosphere that encouraged collaborative planning to take the forefront of professional learning. No more teaching in isolation. No more departmentalization. The students needed a person, and the school needed consistency and fewer transitions. While pockets of innovation were extremely impressive, we needed to shift our mindset to create a school and culture of innovation. Our students all deserve to come in and feel loved and challenged. We were no longer happy with "good enough" or simply "keeping kids safe." 100% of our teams collaborate now on Tuesday and Thursday every week in our media center, which allows for accountability and vertical planning. There is evidence of collaborative planning in the walkthroughs that take place weekly on our campus by our coaches and administrative team. Our teachers use pineapple charts to share the strategies with other grade levels and we have full school implementation of interactive student notebooks, so students learn the expectations in kindergarten and have a stable platform to showcase their learning throughout their experience at VBE.
To keep the initial progress going, I must be honest, the single most important thing I have done at Vero Beach Elementary is bring the right people to the tribe. I ended up with 17 teaching spots to hire for during the summer after my first six months on campus. Nine spots were positions needing filling from our substitute positions, while the remaining were staff members that were either asked to leave or needed a change to a more compliant environment. What I will say is it gave me an advantage to hire first. I scoured through applicants across the nation focusing on inclusive hiring practices; which lead to bringing in a diverse staff that more mirrored the demographics of our school. This lead to an increase from 3% of our teaching staff being Hispanic or African American, to now 35% of our teaching staff. Beyond being culturally responsive in hiring practices, I also had to recognize that it truly takes a very special person to work in a school where 90% of the students live at or near the poverty line. It takes an even more incredible person who will take this on when the principal tells them that although there are some challenging behaviors, our first intervention will not be suspending our students. Mindfulness, restorative practices, and counseling became a part of our tiered approach to behavior. As a staff, we agreed that we will not have students missing recess due to misbehavior, we will not allow public discipline with behavior charts, and embarrassing tactics would not be tolerated. We agreed that if we show our students that we respect them and we model de-escalation strategies as part of our daily brain smart start, we will make gains in our tier one behavior. The result, the most amazing group of tribe members to join our staff of already committed educators, one of which even made it as a top 5 finalist for Florida Teacher of the Year, Kate Fiori.
The next step was creating a culture of buy-in. A huge data wall takes up the entire front of the administrative office. This data wall holds our entire staff accountable. It requires us to throw out old practices and prioritize high-yield strategies that will help us make the learning gains our students
deserve. It empowers us to fail forward and to also look at areas of success and ask the right questions to figure out how to multiply that across grade levels. It’s a way to open conversations about best practice and create a culture where we are begging to get into each other’s classes to see what is working for our students. Thus, our teachers have now taken ownership over professional learning at our school. We now have a Teacher Leadership Committee, a strategy I heard about after attending the Model Schools Conference, that allows our teachers to organize and facilitate weekly professional development that stems from what is needed from the trenches of our classrooms. It built trust and focus for our tribe.
One part of the story and transformation of Vero Beach Elementary has been listening to the staff. We have made the commitment as a team to focus on our VIBE: Visualize Success, Inspire Learning, Believe in the Tribe, and Exceed Expectations. The “vibe” sentiment is something I recently shared as a featured speaker at the Association for Middle Level Educators conference in Orlando, Florida. “Your vibe attracts your tribe,” has been our mantra and has inspired every action I have taken with our school. If we want to be a high-performing learning environment we must look and act the part. One thing that I found that had been most difficult in breaking bad habits, surprisingly, is that our staff was not believing in the tribe. What I noticed is the narrative in the community was coming from negative talk our teachers were doing about the school. We had to confront and address the realities, create the plan of action together, and then focus on showcasing the positive changes of the school in a public way. I began blogging about the school transformation and our staff started a relentless social media presence so that, as a tribe, we can share the new chapter of VBE. Our community, families, and the public can watch the innovation taking place in classrooms day to day, including project-based learning, robotics, collaborative activities, and literacy practices. The community always has a pulse on the school by following #vbevibe on twitter, instagram, or our facebook page. The parents were so overwhelmingly supportive that they requested our entire school join class dojo so we can also have a private platform to share the amazing stories of our campus as well. In fact, our social media presence has become a resource for other schools across the country that follow our “vibe” and use what we showcase to inspire their staff. Our entire school was asked to participate in a #kidsdeserveit six month long slow chat on twitter last year, working with three other schools form around America that also believe in a student-centered approach. This PD allowed our staff to be open and vulnerable as we read the book, “Kids Deserve It,” we shared how we were using the strategies in the book to improve our pedagogy and craft through this platform. One of the things other schools seem to respond most positive to is how we listen to the needs of our students. Voice and choice are two key elements to moving a school forward. I got tired of hearing people say that elementary students, "don't know what they want." Yes, they do. They want to be heard. Thus, we completely revolutionized the students’ "specials" in 5th grade. Noticing spikes in behavior, it was clear that the students had certain days that they would "act out." The previous model required our students to do a day of each special, each week. It was very traditional and it was not giving our students a chance to become experts in an area. I asked for approval to change the model for VBE, and we have had electives for 5th grade ever since. The students were ready to CHOOSE what they want their enrichment experience. We now have the only 5th grade band program in Indian River County, an advanced science elective where students design, build, and race box cars, advanced pottery, sports programs, and an innovative Media Maker Space. They love it. The students needed their voices to be heard and the data has supported this position as well. By having a STEAM elective, we have seen a steady progression from only 24% of our students showing proficiency in science in 2016 to 39% of our students proficient in 2018, a gain of 15 overall.
Voice doesn’t end within the walls of VBE. I had to honor and respect the voice of the community, many of whom were ready to abandon the school before I came. I started a coffee-talk with our families and community, I call it the "fam-unity." The truth is, our school was an "F." As a tribe, we had to embrace where we were if we were ever going to move forward. That "F" created a sense of urgency that I had to acknowledge as a leader. I wanted to hear and address their concerns and share all the innovative programs that we planned to take place at our school. My coffee talks have focused on many different topics over the years, from enrichment opportunities, data share-outs, vision and mission building, literacy engagement at home, and parent and community involvement.
By involving the entire community, we have received so much support. The local Elks write a $10,000 grant each year to support and run our PBIS store that takes place each Friday. The members of Pillar Church and the First Methodist United Church mentor our students and do weekly “high ‘five” greetings on Tuesday. The Winners Walk Tall Program has grown to where every single classroom has a mentor, mostly made up of local retirees, who comes in to work with the class each week on a character trait to help build our social skills. I have written and received grants to our school that support project-based learning and STEAM projects as well. I don’t believe we would be in the position to receive all this support if we didn’t engage them in the conversation first. We do tours of our school and showcase the magic throughout our school. I guess I just always like to push the envelope when it comes to creating a culture of excellence. As a tribe, we took on the Walt Disney philosophy that “If you can dream it, you can do it.” This can be seen radiating through our hallways that are filled with our own students’ pictures on canvases. I believe that to create a thriving culture, I must take every possible opportunity to celebrate and recognize the incredible accomplishments at VBE, and share that message. Whether I’m loading a limousine with students who made the biggest gains on unit assessments, or serving pizza to students who earned Positive Principal Referrals, or acknowledging the hard work my 5th graders have put into our lunch bunch book group, it’s always about what is best for kids. Kids deserve to feel welcomed, respected, and celebrated and we love sharing that belief and sentiment with our community.
Data, Data, on the Wall…
Data is sometimes thought of as a "dirty" word in education. I am one of the weird ones who loves looking at data as an incredible source to help make informed student-centered decisions. I'm lucky to have a tribe that also feels that accountability and transparency are important to make decisions that are best for our students. Coming into a school where only 29% of students were proficient readers, data became the driving force of second-order change. The sad truth is that our current 3rd-5th graders didn’t all get the foundational learning experiences they deserved due to the number of substitutes, departmentalization, and instability of the school. We don’t allow this to be an excuse. We still expect that these students have opportunities to do grade level tasks and activities with demonstrations of learning each day, however we did create a team of interventionists that are here to support them with accommodations and deep foundational learning experiences. We have a true walk-to-intervention model in every single grade level from second through fifth grade. What this means is that, “all hands are on deck,” at VBE. This allows us to get our groups needing support small enough to do progress monitoring and differentiated instruction, but it also allows for us to create enrichment studies as we dive into rich novels, science units, and project-based learning opportunities. I still see some evidence of the early year impact on some of our students that are in the upper grades, but I have spent a lot of time building resources and interventions for these kiddos, including an after-school program for our retained third graders and our bottom quartile fourth and fifth grade students. I used grants to create the, “helping improve performance,” (HIP) club and we partnered with a local organization, the learning alliance, to strengthen a program called the “moonshot academy,” which focuses on STEAM learning after school with our first through third graders on the verge of proficiency. Data drives every intervention.
I decided that in addition to English Language Arts (ELA), Math, and Science monitoring, we needed to study our school wide writing data, collaborative units, office discipline referrals, attendance, and AR reading data. These 8 areas are tracked by grade level and are fully visible at all times in a main hallway of the office. I take parents and guests to VBE by the wall to show them areas of growth and improvement we are working on. Our School Advisory Council uses it to help show progress towards our school improvement plan goals each month as well. I also use it to help determine areas that may need additional support, and areas that we can celebrate. It's amazing each month to see our data continue to roll in based on our interventions and tier one instructional support. Through the time that I’ve been able to lead Vero Beach Elementary we have been able to showcase the following increases from 2016 to 2018: a 15 point gain in our Science Proficiency, ELA learning gains increase from 35% to 46%, our bottom quartile learning gains increase from 41% gains to 50% in ELA, our math proficiency jump from 23% to 39%, our math learning gains increase from 29% to 44%. The most exciting part of our data is that our kindergarten through second grade iReady scores are comparative to some of the highest performing schools in our district. We didn’t neglect our primary grades to make a superficial jump for our school. We are truly building a sustainable system that will only continue to improve. We are confident that we are on our way to becoming an “A” school.
“First, think, Second, dream. Third, believe. And finally, dare.” - Walt Disney
At Vero Beach Elementary, we have fully embraced the role literacy plays in changing lives. I made many home visits over each summer, but this summer I took teachers and staff members along, and what we recognized was that our students lacked books at home. I knew this was something that needed to be a priority this year. I partnered with Scholastic to create a literacy explosion on our campus. This was done through a series of surprises to create a magical experience and positive memories that our students will hold and connect with literacy for the rest of their lives. Each class entered our Media Center, which had been transformed into a massive book distribution center, to witness the curtain drop and the big reveal… every single student could select 11 books to establish their own personal libraries at home. The impact that that made on families is something I could have never imagined. Parents came in crying after their children selected books in their home language, allowing them to do their first ever read-aloud as a family. Grandparents sent pictures of their loved ones, thanking us for getting them off video games and into the magical world of Harry Potter. Family members were excited to share that their children chose reading over arguing, and cleaned special areas of their room for their precious, coveted books. It’s a feeling like no other. The magic continued, as teachers were then surprised with a literacy gift of their own. Each educator selected $500 worth of books to enhance their classroom libraries and expand our independent reading conferencing. Little do they know; this is only part 2 of a 4-part magical literacy experience at VBE this year. We are daring to change the norm around literacy. It will absolutely be a game changer for our school.
What we’re seeing as a result of the focus on literacy is that our school, which was once at the bottom of every ELA unit assessment, is now not only competitive; but in some grade levels, exceeding our district average. While we have made steady growth over the last 3 years in ELA, setting the foundation for tier one instruction, we’re finally able to offer differentiated guided reading and enrichment opportunities for our students. Something exciting is that through changing the reputation of the school, I have been able to bring back students from our neighborhoods, and our Kindergarten class is currently scoring among the top of all of Indian River County.
While the data is significant, the most notable change at Vero Beach Elementary is the love our students have for school. Our students show up every day ready for high-fives and fist-bumps, and we’re even recognized nationally as one of the kindest schools in America. The most rewarding moments come when the principals of the middle schools share how my students are thriving in their schools. I sometimes giggle knowing the transformation that has happened with that child over the course of their experience at VBE… things those principals could never imagine. It makes every part of working relentlessly in a Title I school worth it.
“All you need is faith, trust, and a little pixie dust.” - Tinkerbell
It feels great to be supported and have a consistent message from our district. We are kid first thanks to the support.
It feels great to be supported and have a consistent message from our district. We are kid first thanks to the support.
