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A School Raises its' Community's Expectations

Type: Example from Schools Author(s): Kathleen Cushman Source: Performance. #6. May 1994.

May, 1994 - No. 6

THAYER Jr.-Sr. HIGH SCHOOL
43 Parker Street, P.O. Box 7
Winchester, NH 03470
(603) 239-4381 or 239-4588

Principal: Dennis Littky
350 students, 30 staff
65% go on to college, of whom 90% are first generation to do so
Rural comprehensive high school

Education was not seen as important in this rural community ten years ago. Now the focus is on what students can do, and the high school has made learning central to town life.

IN THE SMALL NEW HAMPSHIRE town of Winchester ten years ago, when kids went to Thayer High School they were headed nowhere, fast. Vandalized and shoddy, the school building displayed the signs of their indifference and contempt. Fights broke out frequently. One out of every five students dropped out before graduating; only one out of ten went on to college. From this tough student body with its terminal attitude problem, asked many of Thayer's ill-paid and discontented teachers, what could one expect?

Plenty, it seems. Ten years later, as one of the charter members of the Coalition of Essential Schools, Thayer enjoys a national reputation as a place of pride and success. The dropout rate hovers between two and five percent. (One student can double it in a school of only 350.) Sixty-five percent of graduates go on to college. Both teaching staff and student body exude a new confidence in themselves and in each other?as independent learners in school and out, and in their impact on the community where they live and work. Thayer hosts so many visitors that the school now charges them a fee with which it supplements staff development funds. And 1,000 townspeople and relatives gathered to witness graduation ceremonies for the 40 members of the Class of 1993.

"Our problem was not just a school problem but a community one," says principal Dennis Littky, a grey-bearded dynamo with a doctorate, whose entry onto the scene in 1981 polarized this conservative town for a grueling two years of controversy described in both a book (Teacher, by Susan Kammeraad-Campbell) and an NBC television movie ("A Town Torn Apart"). "We had to reframe and raise everyone's expectations?to let go of blame. Every problem is an opportunity."

Thayer's new vision, Littky pro-posed, would put student engagement before a narrow focus on subject areas; would come up with real problems on which students could take action; would ask teachers to think, plan, read, and reflect outside the classroom; and would involve parents more closely in their children's schooling. Nearing the end of his tenure at Thayer, he describes the school as far closer to those goals.

All Thayer teachers now work in grade-level interdisciplinary teams, which take joint responsibility for coaching students in the 19 skills they must master to graduate. Together they devise curricular projects and forms of assessment that develop and describe the abilities of each student. The attitude has spread: When one Thayer mother asked her eleventh-grader what subject she was writing a paper for, the girl replied, "Team."

Teachers meet daily to discuss their classroom practice, work out new ideas, and come up with ways to help students with problems. They videotape classes to critique their own work; they keep up a running conversation with the principal via written journals. They use the summer months for planning, and before school starts each year they meet for an intensive staff retreat. They visit other Essential schools to glean ideas and share their own insights.

Some such efforts reach far and wide: a homegrown interactive TV workshop called "Here, Thayer, and Everywhere" broadcasts discussions of educational innovations nationwide, and a companion program called "Mathwatch" explores new methods in that field. Articles by Thayer teachers about their educational practice roll regularly off the desktop printers here.

Student work has changed dramatically as a result, most Thayer faculty agree. In longer blocks of class time, kids are working on collaborative projects that cross disciplinary lines and tie in directly to community issues. Outraged that a minority of Winchester residents were making decisions for all, Thayer seventh-graders initiated a successful voter registration drive; the next year they explored town resources to feed the hungry. A team of older students met voters at the polls in the New Hampshire presidential primary, handing out cards that outlined key issues. For a project focusing on minority voices, students charted historical events from Civil War battles to civil rights confrontations on a large-scale map, pictorial display, and timeline.

A thriving apprenticeship program places Thayer juniors and seniors in jobs with some 30 local businesses, and students perform volunteer service in parks and nursing homes. The community connections do not end there; parents and townspeople view student work at a yearly open house, and during the year teams hold parent meetings to introduce or exhibit integrated coursework. Ten years ago, Littky estimates, perhaps one in ten Thayer students exhibited their work before the public; now 100 percent do so.

Thayer's advisory system, in which each student has an adult advocate on the school staff for a three-year stretch, extends the link even further. In conferences and by phone, the advisor keeps in close contact with parents, and daily advisory group meetings ensure that no student slips through the cracks. Academic progress has been steady: the average number of names on the school's honor roll increased from 38 in 1981¯82 to 102 today. In the same period, the percentage of seniors taking math more than tripled (from 23 percent to 75 percent); in science, the figure went from 31 to 55 percent; and in social studies, from 10 to 100 percent. Littky estimates that time spent working on integrated projects has gone from 5 to 75 percent.

A sense pervades this school that students can make a difference not only locally but as part of a wider discourse. In Tom McGuire's Networking class, students talk about how Thayer is changing both with newcomers to the school and by electronic mail with peers around the country. These students know they have a voice; they use it to organize national student conferences, to travel to Essential School forums, and to argue for their own centrality to issues of school reform.

Improving the educational climate in this school and community has restored the faith that students at Thayer are going somewhere these days. Now teachers must grapple with the difficult issues of coaching students to meet even higher standards. Does their work hold up not just to subjective measures like commitment, engagement, and good faith, but to the harder questions of quality, independently evaluated? How can the whole school define and communicate such standards?

Thayer has worked hard to cast success in new, more personal ways, refusing to categorize students using standardized criteria from a colder context. In a community that has transformed its attitudes toward learning so thoroughly, the question of raising expectations another notch or two in the next decade of change merely presents another challenge for everyone to meet together.

This resource last updated: May 14, 2002

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