Pflugerville ISD June 2007
Pflugerville ISD June 2007
Thursday, 07 June 2007
Program builds new leaders
by Beth Wade
Westview works with UT Principalship Program to host interns
Westview Middle School is partnering with the University of Texas for a new program that will put UT graduate students at the school’s helm.
UT principalship students will spend a year as administrative interns at Westview learning the ropes of the job. The goal is to bring future leaders to the district and engage the community.
“There’s a little bit of anxiety at the school because this represents change, and any time change happens it’s a little bit disconcerting but I’ve really only heard positive feedback about the program,” Pflugerville ISD Superintendent of Schools Charles Dupre said. “Anytime you can partner with a world class university like UT, which has one of the most rigorous and well-known principalship programs in the nation, that’s a great partnership.”
The partnership is funded through the approximately $650,000 Central Texas Leadership Development Alliance Grant awarded to UT Austin by the US Department of Education and will create a Leadership Development School at Westview.
“We realize that we can no longer afford to work in isolation to prepare students for working as school leaders and administrators,” Juanita Garcia, program director, said. “We must work with the district to ensure that we are creating the right types of leaders.”
The district will create an administrative internship position at Westview and a graduate student will fill the role for a year. In the coming years, Westview could see up to four administrative interns working together to support the program.
The district will provide the position and a salary to the program, but the student will be chosen by UT, Dupre said.
During the process, UT will bring staff to the school to complete research, interview students and do a survey of the school, its dynamics and how instruction works, Dupre said. In support of this aspect of the program, UT Austin will provide over $100,000 worth of evaluations and research.
The school is the first middle school to participate in the program. Garcia said she hopes someday to have the funding to include an elementary feeder school to Westview and Connally High School in the program to observe students and their growth as feedback to the programs successes.
Currently, UT Austin is partnering with Austin ISD and supports programs at Allison Elementary and Akins High School.
Specialty language programs
iPod program
Last year was the pilot year for this program issuing iPods filled with English lessons to students at Connally High and Dessau Elementary. Families signed a translated contract of responsibility for the MP3 player, and students were allowed to take it home with them through the week. ESL teachers met with the students’ other teachers to find out what lessons were being taught and then loaded videos and audio onto the iPod that matched what was being taught in the classroom.
No iPods were broken or lost, and the district plans to continue the program next year. One of the next goals is to begin taping teachers’ full lessons so that ESL students can watch them at their own pace.
Parent education
After seeing two Vietnamese parents walk into the front office of a school and ask to learn English, ESL teacher Donna Layton was so moved by their bravery and desire to learn that she helped to start free English lessons for the parents of ESL students.
Parents are evaluated and then taught to their skill level. Tutoring is provided for the children while their parents learn, so both benefit simultaneously.
Bilingual and newcomer campuses
Bilingual campuses are offered up to sixth grade and teach in both English and Spanish. Six different campuses are classified as bilingual.
Newcomer campuses are for those students who have just arrived from non-English speaking countries.
Special busing is provided to these campuses.
Spanish speakers a focus for Pflugerville
by Rachel Youens
Rather than confiscating iPods from students, at Connally High School teachers are handing them out. The MP3 player has turned into a way for non-native English speaking students to take English lessons home, where they may not be exposed to the language.
This program and many others are how Pflugerville ISD is coping with the growing number of students who need English as a Second Language classes.
PISD has over 3,000 students who are non-native English speakers. PISD provides more funding than required by the state to support specialty and after-school programs.
At a bilingual campus, ESL students are taught in both English and their first language, with the amount of English gradually increasing each year. Bilingual education continues until middle school, when students begin learning entirely in English.
The curriculum for an ESL student is the same as a normal student, according to the district’s bilingual and ESL coordinator Armando Sanchez, but it is sometimes hard to find equivalent material in both languages.
“The students in ESL are just like students anywhere else,” Donna Layton, an ESL teacher at Connally High School, said. “Some are gifted and talented, some have learning disabilities and there are some who have issues at home.”
The district’s other specialty language program serve’s newcomers. These classes focus on students just arriving to an English-speaking school system.
“Newcomers can get instruction for up to two years, but as soon as they’re acclimated, they are put in regular classes,” Sanchez said.
In these regular classes teachers modify the curriculum slightly to help the ESL students.
“It’s not that these kids aren’t smart, they just have to take it slow,” Sanchez said.
At two of these newcomer campuses, Dessau Elementary and Connally High, students are being issued iPods as part of a new program.
After witnessing the Seguin and San Antonio schools using iPods Sanchez purchased sets for these two campuses.
“Those iPods are a status symbol, so the kids were really excited to have one,” Sanchez said. “One time a student kissed and said goodbye to his as he was turning it in to the teacher to be charged.”
Although technology is bridging the gap between home and school for these students, Layton feels it’s the human attention that PISD gives that makes a large difference.
“One of PISD’s strong points is that we have good, caring teachers who look after the students as they’re acquiring English, and even beyond that,” Layton said. “Our relationships with the students build trust, and because they trust us they are willing to take risks as they learn.”
Leadership Development School and Principalship Program
- Founded in 1930, the master’s degree program is in the department of educational administration in the College of Education.
- The program is aimed at developing instructional leaders through an emphasis on accountability and social justice.
- The selection process includes an orientation, portfolio and site visit. During a site visit, applicants and their principals are interviewed, and the applicant is viewed in an instructional setting tailored to their current work.
New Westview principal
A new principal has been appointed to Westview specifically to oversee the principalship interns.
Gonzales was principal at AISD’s Kealing Middle School for 2006-2007. He began his teaching career as a math teacher at Mendez High School and has served as an elementary principal and principal of McCallum High School.
Bonds for growth
by Beth Wade
The district has seen between a 1,000 to 1,200 increase in student growth for the past three years, and a recent demographer’s survey estimates the numbers of students in the district could double within the next ten years.
The 2005 bond package still has funds available that will finance another elementary school, which the district hopes to open in fall 2009, but PISD Supt. Charles Dupre does not believe that will be enough.
The school district is working with a citizen’s bond committee on a three-year bond proposal that could possibly build a high school, middle school and three elementary schools. It also addresses other issues, including major renovation projects and technology improvements.
The bond committee has met with the Board of Trustees and will provide an update for the board on the bonds progress July 12.
Dupre and PISD spokesman Randy Reese hope to have a finalized bond proposal to bring to the board in late July or early August.
Once approved, the board would call for a bond election Nov. 6.
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