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"One of the things we have going for us is that each staff development builds on the last one. They all fit together." Woodrow Wilson Elementary School and its mostly veteran faculty members had a long association with Kansas State University well before the new state math assessments left their students high and dry. That connection continues now that the school and university have restructured professional development so that not only math, but also reading, writing, and science scores have shot up. "It goes back to the '80s," reports a teacher who's been there long enough to know. During that time many Wilson teachers took courses at the university and participated in university projects and summer programs. One of those projects was to help the university restructure its program for preservice teachers. "It was very motivating," says this same longtime Wilson teacher,"going to the university, meeting with educators at that level, and being empowered to be experts." Following the evolution of the university's preservice program, Wilson was tapped to become one of its professional development schools, and the association with KSU deepened. As another Wilson veteran observes, "Being a PDS school provides us with a lot of opportunities – to take classes for credit or stipends, to go to workshops, to participate in grants." But it wasn't until she and two of her colleagues took an action-research course, that the university-school relationship really took off. The "course" coincided with the embarrassing math problem-solving scores for Wilson students, and it led to a new approach to professional development for the whole school. "Those three [teachers] focused us in," acknowledges one of their colleagues. "They were in the math area, looking at the state assessment, and they identified some areas where our kids needed to improve. They were the pioneers." Originally, the principal gave up two faculty meetings a month for the whole staff to participate in the math action-research effort. Teachers took the math assessment themselves, figured out what their kids were going to need to know, wrote practice math problems for students to work with, and scored and analyzed real student responses to real test items. "I don't think of it as having to teach to the test," one teacher says. "It's caused our teaching to be what it should be." Teachers still meet twice a month, in addition to their district staff development days. The focus for these meetings, which are faculty-led, is decided at the beginning of the year by a faculty committee in response to colleagues' suggestions and student needs. As one teacher explains, "Now all these things are in the fire, inservice-wise. People say, ‘Maybe we need that kind of emphasis in reading or social studies.' The whole staff is infected." But it is the structure of the professional development, more than any particular content area, that really seems to make the difference for Woodrow Wilson teachers. "Before," a teacher admits, "you could go to an inservice and not really do anything because there was no follow-up. Now we're always back talking within a month because of something we did together. Sometimes I get disorganized, but this kind of inservice drives you, keeps you on course." Another teacher concurs, "One of the things we have going for us is that each staff development builds on the last one. They all fit together." For one of the few new teachers to join the Wilson faculty, this structure proved especially helpful. "The inservices had a momentum, it was ongoing learning. I just glided in," she says. In addition to the learning that teachers do with their colleagues, over 50 preservice students are in the building each semester, with about 10 of them doing their student teaching, while the others come in with a specific content-area focus. This level of interaction with teacher candidates makes it easy for even the most jaded of teachers to embody the adage that the best way to learn is to teach. "We've changed the way we see preservice teachers here," one of the senior staff members explains. "Our teachers don't just turn their class over. We've really pushed the team-teaching, cooperative approach. Our teachers explain what they're doing to the preservice teachers. And while they're doing that, they're thinking through and justifying what they're doing. The preservice teachers are very open, like sponges, about learning. But because they're also in some ways critiquing what they see, the classroom teachers are doing their best job every day." Despite frequent turnover in the principalship at Wilson, the staff has moved ahead, taking responsibility for its own professional development, working with the university, and implementing a number of curricular and instructional changes to support increased student achievement. Notes one teacher, "We've had a rotation of principals through here. I have to give a lot of credit to the staff."

Grades K-6 Number of Students 320 Student Ethnicity 80% White 15% African American 3% Asian 1% Latino 1% Native American English Language Learners 1% Free/Reduced Lunch 44% Special Needs 30% Measures of Success increased student performance in math increased student performance in science increased student performance in reading and language arts 312 N. Juliette Avenue Manhattan, KS 66502 913-587-2170