School Collaboration Pays Off at Pittsburgh Liberty K-5
Students at Liberty are not just learning to read, they are reading to learn.
Liberty staff work together to develop engaged readers and encourage students to read more every day. Liberty restructured the school day so students read and study novels for thirty minutes, independently as pairs or with a teacher. All teachers are involved, from the reading coach to the gym teacher.
“At first, non-reading teachers were apprehensive about their ability to support students to become more engaged readers but we embraced the goal,” said Michelle Roesch, Literacy Coach. “We provided professional development to the entire staff. The training gave everyone the tools they needed to speak a common language when it came to reading.” That language was also provided to students.
This collaboration has deepened the relationships between students and their teachers. “Students stop me in the hallway to tell me what’s happening in the book they are reading,” 5th grade communications teacher Jennifer Caprara added. More proof that collaboration can yield promising student results, Pittsburgh Liberty made AYP in 2010-11.
Pittsburgh Liberty is making progress in student growth and shooting for the STARs. STAR schools are PPS schools in the top 15% of all PA schools for student growth.
Beginning in September 2011, the District launched STAR – Students and Teachers Achieving Results – an opportunity for school teams to be applauded for the hard work they do to accelerate student achievement. The first STAR schools will be announced in 2012-13 based on this year’s results. You can read more about STAR by clicking here.
Thanks to our collaborative efforts to develop multiple measures of school and teacher effectiveness, we are now able to more consistently and accurately identify the great work our principals and teachers are doing in their schools every day to make extraordinary impacts on student growth through opportunities like STAR.
In the New Year we will be working to highlight more of these success stories. Stay tuned.
*The District’s STAR Rewards and Recognition opportunity is funded by foundations and state and federal agencies that believe Pittsburgh Public Schools is leading the way to transforming urban education
