Campus Spotlights

See the Effective Teachers Initiative in action at these HISD schools:

Pin Oak Middle School - Building a Great Instructional Team

As the principal of one of HISD’s top-performing middle schools, Susan Monaghan has always prioritized building a great instructional team.

She views every hiring decision as an opportunity to select a highly engaged teacher who challenges students and holds them to high standards. Once teachers are hired, she uses the teacher appraisal and development system to zero in on the core principles of great teaching and have regular conversations with teachers about how to better meet students’ needs.

“Through the Effective Teachers Initiative, we’re doing so much more as a district to define effective teaching with clarity so we can help teachers reach their goals and be the best they can be,” Principal Monaghan explained. “That’s a win for everyone—especially our students.”

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Osborne Elementary School - Focusing on Student Learning

Located in the Acres Homes community, Osborne Elementary School serves some of Houston’s most at-risk children. To help her students succeed, Ms. Parnell prioritizes finding and keeping excellent teachers such as pre-kindergarten teacher Ms. Alicia Hermosillo and Mr. Adrian Ortiz, a four-time bilingual teacher of the year.

“I’m 100% committed to rigor,” Ms. Hermosillo explained. “For instance, under the state’s Pre-K standards, kids are supposed to be able to count from 1-30. My students learn that in the first three months. Now we’re working on the 100s. Likewise, my pre-kindergarteners can’t read, but I don’t tell them that! I label everything in the classroom and pretend they can read the labels. If you have high expectations for kids, they rise to meet them.”

Mr. Ortiz agrees. “I work to make sure that my kindergarten students are able to read high frequency word lists for First Grade, so they can concentrate their efforts on more complex tasks. I also tell my students every day that I expect them to be engineers, architects, lawyers, teachers, and doctors—and when I tell them again and again, they begin to believe it.”

As student outcomes are included in teachers’ appraisals, Ms. Parnell has begun working with teachers to reinforce best practices for increasing student learning, such as setting individual student goals based on their starting points, crafting high-quality assessments, and using data to drive instruction.

“The system is fair because every teacher has the opportunity to show growth,” said Ms. Parnell. “It’s a big change, so of course it’s not going to be easy. But now that we’ve had our Goal Setting Conferences, I’m feeling confident that paying attention to student outcomes is helping our teachers meet their students’ needs.”

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Berry Elementary School - A Culture of Feedback and Trust

teacher and student In her five years as Principal at Berry Elementary School, Deborah Silber has done a remarkable job instilling a culture of feedback and trust with her teachers. As a result, her teachers have been able to take advantage of the power that can be achieved through HISD’s new appraisal and development system for teachers—and they’ve seen an immediate impact on their students’ progress.

When she arrived at Berry, Principal Silber began revitalizing the school’s original mission as an environmental science magnet school initially by building vegetable gardens and launching environmental programs, then culminating this year with the construction of a brand-new, Silver LEED certified building designed to reduce the school’s impact on the environment. Berry’s renewed mission helped drive student engagement in science, enabled collaboration between grade levels, and energized faculty.

In addition to reshaping Berry’s mission, Principal Silber was determined to empower her teachers to get the strongest results possible from their students.

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Dowling Middle School - Revitalizing A School's Mission

Before Principal Kenneth Davis arrived two years ago, Dowling Middle School regularly failed to meet academic standards and grappled with a host of other issues, including gang violence, teenage pregnancy, and truancy.

Since then, Principal Davis and his administrative team—Assistant Principals Rosemarie Cumings, Jerald Montgomery, and Tara Scott—have succeeded in raising academic standards at Dowling while also increasing student safety, raising attendance rates, and decreasing suspensions. They’ve done so by relying on two core beliefs about school improvement: an unshakable belief in the ability of all students to achieve academically despite challenges they might experience outside of school, and a faith in teachers’ desire and ability to improve their instructional techniques.

“Our kids can learn,” Principal Davis explained. “They are just as capable and just as intelligent as any other group of students. We just need to teach them better.” These same values are at the heart of HISD’s new teacher appraisal and development system—so it’s not surprising that the new system has already become a valuable resource to Principal Davis and teachers at Dowling.

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Madison High School - Keeping the Focus on Instruction

As the principal of Madison High School, Sonja Williams oversees more than one hundred teachers, six appraisers, and more than two thousand students. Her days are busy, but the successful implementation of HISD’s new teacher appraisal and development system is one of her top priorities.

“The Effective Teachers Initiative is critical for us here at Madison,” she said. “By helping us keep the focus on what’s happening in the classroom, we’re able to build a solid foundation for our teachers—and our students.”

Principal Williams believes strongly that the success of the appraisal and development system depends on prioritizing trainings for both teachers and appraisers. In addition to providing teachers with a full day of training on the new system in mid-August, Principal Williams also provides additional training and coaching to each of Madison’s six appraisers so that they are consistently interpreting and using the rubric to give teachers accurate and fair ratings.

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Key Strategies

“Formalizing these [teacher leadership] roles is a major step forward. Not just because of my own goals as a professional, but also for our common goals as a school. Together, we’re helping teachers have a laser-sharp focus on the kids who need the most support.”

- Angela Furnari, Teacher, Pin Oak M.S.

“All teachers need to be involved in terms of improving student performance. Now all teachers—regardless of discipline—are being assessed on their students’ progress using an assessment that’s appropriate for what they are teaching.”

- Jacqueline Parnell, Principal, Osborne E.S.

“With the new system, my observations and conferences are much more focused.”

- Deborah Silber, Principal, Berry E.S.

“Teaching here is hard work, but you can’t put a price on the feeling you get when a kid who struggled manages to persevere . . . that’s why you make the choice to become a teacher, and that’s what makes you want to keep getting better.”

- Annika Andrews, 8^th-grade Teacher,
Dowling M.S.

"I wanted to be more effective, but I didn’t know how to get there—what plane, train, or bus did I take? Now I have the Instructional Practice criteria as a guide.”

- Shavara Washington, Business/CATE Teacher, Madison H.S.

“This appraisal system is not about the what, but rather the how. How is the content being delivered? Is a teacher checking for student understanding? Are the lessons centered on students?”

- Sonja Williams, Principal, Madison H.S.