Pineview's recipe for success: Dedicated teachers, student-centric focus | Carmen Conner
Over the past week, I have received congratulatory messages and calls from friends, family, and colleagues regarding Pineview Elementary School’s most recent accomplishments — in 2019 we improved our school grade from an F to a C and now Pineview has a solid B grade for the 2021-22 school year.
However, the recent messages and calls are different. In addition to the inspirational words of encouragement for Pineview, the reoccurring question is “How did you do it?” So, I wanted to share how “WE” did it in a way that shares my gratitude to the people that I work with each day.
The answer is high quality teaching and sacrifice. Our school’s success does not depend on a computer program or a curriculum promising student growth and success. The reason why our students’ performance has increased is because Pineview teachers are using data to tailor their instruction to meet the needs of each student.
This process is tedious and takes a great deal of time to plan and implement and that is where the sacrifice comes from. Most of our teachers work beyond the school day and stay after school to tutor their students and on Saturdays—all of this to ensure that our students get the extra time that they need.
This sacrifice of time is necessary when the vast majority of our students start kindergarten without any prior schooling, or when our students miss dozens of days of school due to a myriad of reasons that plague working class families living each day to just survive.
Pineview teachers providing the space and “extra” time to grow at a student’s own pace is what makes the difference. This creates an environment where students and families are committed to self-improvement, and where learning skyrockets.
The teachers at Pineview Elementary go the extra mile to ensure that their students succeed. This is how you know our efforts and sacrifice of time is working. Almost 75% of our lowest performing students made a learning gain in both ELA and math on the FSA, while our overall learning gains in ELA and math were comparable or exceeded state averages. That’s evidence of quality teaching at Pineview.
And then there is our Assistant Principal, Oronde McKhan. He is the person that does his job so well it gives me the space to focus on curriculum and instruction. This makes all of the difference for so many reasons.
In closing, I would be remiss if I didn’t express my gratitude to Superintendent Rocky Hanna and School Board Chair Darryl Jones for trusting and valuing my leadership and providing much needed support. Their support and the dedication of our faculty and staff is priceless.
Carmen Conner is principal of Pineview Elementary School and a member of the Children’s Services Council of Leon County.
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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Pineview's recipe for success: Dedicated teachers, student-centric focus | Carmen Conner
