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PrintWill Rogers High School follows the Carousel learning program
With their school on the state’s “Needs to Improve” list, English teachers at Will Rogers High School came up with a plan.
“Collaboration was our genesis of innovation,” says Brian Grimm, Oklahoma’s Teacher of the Year.
Grimm, as department chair, and other teachers created Carousel, a program designed to bring students up to grade level in English II.
A speaker at an education conference inspired them.
“Why can’t we identify every student’s deficit in English II and specialize in what teachers do best?” was the challenge behind Carousel, Grimm says.
Each English teacher became a master teacher in one of four aspects of the curriculum: grammar and composition, literature, research and information, and vocabulary. They worked with students in small, focused groups, using innovative, student-friendly lessons. Every few weeks, the groups would rotate. When each group had worked with each master teacher, that group was ready for testing.
For the first time since No Child Left Behind legislation became law, the school made “adequate yearly progress,” the index by which schools are measured. If those scores repeat this year, Will Rogers High School will (proudly) lose its “Needs to Improve” distinction.
If Grimm had the power to change one thing about education, it would be “marketing, marketing, marketing,” he says.
“We have to sell it to the kids, engage them,” he says. “They’re our clientele. We’re not serving them if we can’t draw them into our lesson.”
Learning, he says, influences other aspects of education as well.
“Discipline problems are the result of kids not wanting to look like they don’t know the answer,” he says. “It’s easier to look like you will not answer rather than admit that you cannot answer.”
Lyda Wilbur, principal at Will Rogers, is eager to expand the program.
“Because we’ve seen success in the English department, math teachers are eager to find ways to reach out to their students,” she says.
That should happen in the next school year.
CHART:
Reading State Reading AYP
Year All students Target Yes, No, Safe Harbor
05-06: 481 768 NO
06-07: 375 914 NO
07-08: 569 914 SH
08-09: 1069 914 YES
