Winona Middle School 1 of 5 schools in USA to win excellence award
WINONA, Texas (KETK) – Winona Middle School is one of five campuses nationwide and the only campus in Texas receiving a $10,000 award for excellence in teaching.
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The principal spoke with KETK about why their school was selected, learning it took a shocking amount of change and improvement for this campus to be noticed nationally.
“It means so much to us that our hard work is being recognized even at the national level,” said principal Johnny Walker.
According to Walker, it was just five years ago that the middle school was rated an “F” on an A to F scale given by the Texas Education Agency, mostly due to students test scores and culture.
“The community, sometimes they can lose trust in a school who is considered an F,” Walker explained. “We knew we had to make some changes to turn things around for our students, to turn things around for our community.”
When Walker joined their team in 2020, he decided it was time to ask for some help and he turned to the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching.
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The National Institute for Excellence in Teaching gives out the Founder’s Award to one of five finalists who get $10,000 each, win or lose.
“We had to do a lot of work to be sure that teachers felt safe here, that teachers were not just working in silos in their room doing their own thing,” he said.
That’s where he met Joshua Barnett, who helped make some changes on the campus.
“We believe that inherently the most powerful lever of change is the teacher and the leadership teams that support them,” said Barnett.
He brought so much change to the school that the rating was bumped up to a “B” in 2022.
“We’re looking at student achievement scores. We’re looking at district assessments. We’re also visiting the schools,” Barnett said.
This improvement stood out nationwide, and Barnett said it was easy to choose Winona Middle School to be one of the finalists for their award.
“I think we’re seeing the fruit of that because of the investment the district and the school is making, as well,” Barnett explained.
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However, for Principal Walker, this is just the beginning of the improvement. While the $10,000 award will help their campus make more changes, he is continuing to work on what made them better – increasing communication between teachers and making sure each student improves daily.
“Every student grows. No student falls behind. That’s one of the biggest structures we put in place to help turn this campus around,” Walker said.
The winner of the $50,000 grand prize will be announced on Feb. 29.
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