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Like Hogwarts, Cross Now Has 4 Houses, Too
by Allan Appel | Jul 19, 2010 7:57 am
(9) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author
Posted to: Schools, School Reform
When Wilbur Cross student Rachel Markey returns to school this fall, she’ll find a new “house” awaiting her, as the city’s largest public high school begins undergoing its own version of dramatic reform.
As part of a package of reforms planned for the fall, the school will be divided up into four new houses, or smaller learning communities.
Markey (at right in photo) and her fellow students won’t put their names in a sorting hat to discover what house they’ll join. But like the characters entering Hogwarts in the Harry Potter series, they’ll be assigned a group of students with whom they’ll form an identity over the years at Cross.
Principal Rose Coggins and her staff unveiled the plans to 100 students, teachers, and parents in the sun-lit foyer of the school at a meeting last Thursdy night.
Cross was not among the initial group of schools that were graded in the spring and will pilot specific reforms as part of the city’s school change campaign.
With the help of a state grant, Coggins and her staff are getting a head start on transforming their school in a different way.
The changes come at time when Cross parents and students have been up in arms about overcrowding at the high school, which served 1,385 students in the academic year that just finished.
Although Cross’s honors and Advanced Placement courses are well respected, schoolwide academic scores are low.
The “house structure” reflects an attempt to remedy this. Breaking up the school into four houses is similar to the approach Hillhouse High began doing years ago and is developing further in the fall. One difference is that the houses at Cross won’t have names or identities or themes as separate schools, at least for the first year, Coggins said. At Hillhouse, the houses reflect different educational tracks, like media studies or business. That may happen eventually at Cross, but not the first year.
Each Cross house will be in a different wing of the school’s second and third floors and have about 330 kids across grades 9 through 12. Core classes will be clustered in the house. For specialized classes like shop, science, gym, or technology, all students will go where the equipment is.
Instead of hanging out just with their peers, ninth graders will now share their house with upper classmen.
Coggins said she hopes a house’s older kids will serve as role models for the younger ones. “Research shows that large schools don’t work,” added the principal.
Coggins (on right in picture) was set to retire in June. However, when a search produced no successor, the longtime school leader agreed to stay on at least until August. She said she will mentor her successor in the new house model.
Each “house” of 330 kids will have approximately 30 staff members. They will be led by an administrator, a dean in charge of curriculum and discipline, two guidance counselors, and a lead teacher. Dean and lead teacher will be in the classroom three periods a day, and know the kids.
The single feature that caught parents’ attention most at last Thursday’s meeting was the “advisory.” In addition to instructing, each teacher in a house will take on ten to 15 students, whom he or she doesn’t teach, but advises.
Elite private schools run on a similar system. The hope is it will allow kids to become known and supported by adults other than guidance counselors. The latter are universally acknowledged to be overwhelmed at Cross.
Rachel Markey (in photo at the top of this story) said she likes the advisory idea. Of her relationship to advisors or guidance counselors over the years at Cross, she said, “They’re there when you need them, but no bond” is formed.
The idea is that more adults will know more kids emotionally as well as academically, and fewer will fall between the cracks.
Markey’s mom Janice is a teacher at Truman. She noted that most of the kids at Thursday’s Cross briefing were in the well-respected honors and A.P. track. The reconfiguration is “a good way to engage kids who are not performing,” she said.
For example, Markey said that of the 600 kids she began with as a freshman, only 300 are still at Cross.
The house model also pleased Christine Beagle (pictured), for a different reason. She identified herself as a parent who lobbied in 2003 for the first anti-bullying laws.
“The smaller areas will enable students and teachers to see more,” she said.
Funding for the reconfiguration efforts is coming through a state school reform grant that was written in April by a team led by Assistant Principal Michele Sherban-Kline (pictured with Coggins). The money will be paying for at least three professional development coaches to come in, and for some equipment.
The key thing is teacher “buy in,” said Coggins.
Half the teaching staff has been attending early morning meetings since graduation, she said. Planning will continue throughout the summer.
The schedule and identity of the “houses” will all be uniform for the first year. Valencia Goodridge, a mother of 11th and 12th graders, said she hopes that will change.
“I’d love to see specialized houses [in the future, like], health,” she said.
She added that a “house” developing in effect its own identity would provide “stronger alliances with Pfizer,” and other corporations.
“Our kids’ careers depend on internships,” she said.
Rachel Markey, who plans to study biology in college, didn’t buy into the “house” idea. When she returns as a senior, the new “house” structure will have less impact on her because many of her classes are one-of-a kind A.P. courses, and she’ll take them in whatever classroom they’re offered, no matter the house.
But she wouldn’t want to sacrifice the great mixing of kids that she likes about Cross, she said. If the new houses become separate, “you don’t get to meet kids with other aspirations,” she said.
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Comments
posted by: Teachergal on July 19, 2010 8:26am
Advisory groups should begin in seventh grade whe kids start switching classes. This way one teacher could serve as the liaison between student, home, and school. Students and parents could form relationships with one teacher. This teacher could be there throughout the year to help students out. Some teachers see up to 140 kids a day. It is hard to build relationships with that many students and parents. Additionally, most parents don’t want calls from
6 or more teachers when problems arise. Advisory teachers would be responsible for knowing their students and parents on a more personal level, having correct contact information on them, so that if and when problems or concerns arise they can be available for support.
posted by: Wag on July 19, 2010 9:27am
Another year, another gimmick. Slap ‘em upside the head and teach reading, writing and math. No excuses-no nonsense-no gimmicks.
posted by: Paul Wessel on July 19, 2010 12:36pm
As a proud 1977 graduate of North House at Lee High School (now the Yale School of Nursing), the “house” concept rings some bells.
For an amusing reference to house model, see the Lee High School description from the classic guide to New Haven’s redevelopment era architecture by Elizabeth Mills Brown.
posted by: ACrossTeacher on July 19, 2010 2:32pm
Just one point of clarification: The actual grant was written by Eleanor Osborne, the former NHPS assistant superintendent, not by the team of teachers. That group was merely consulted a couple of times regarding initial ideas and a first draft, but it had no input into revisions or the final product. The actual grant was a top-down initiative, not one spearheaded by teachers.
posted by: Teacher on July 19, 2010 3:29pm
ACrossTeacher, do you mean top-down by the central office administration, by the school administration, or both? Is the actual implementation being run that way? Since your principal has retired, who is in running this?
Do Cross teachers have confidence that this can make a significant difference?
posted by: eve on July 20, 2010 7:14am
Wasn’t this grant money contingent on replacing the leadership of the school because the school was low-performing? How can Coggins be the captain of the ship and the mentor for the new principal if the school was so dysfunctional last year, and again, if the grant money was applied for saying the school had new leadership? Why is the Hillhouse house model so much more interesting than Cross’s? How can teachers properly blend as a house faculty when there has not been planning time, as a house, prior to the start of the school year? How is this system heterogeneous when one house has 7 or 8 AP teachers ( and the Honors students that take these classes)? Most other houses have 1 or 2 AP teachers? Teachers at Cross still do not know the specific classes they are supposed to teach in the Fall.
posted by: Vladamir on July 20, 2010 8:32am
Another gimmick,I want to invite every body who believes this to come to Wilbur Cross when school starts in the fall, you,ll see what really goes on here. You will think your at the milford mall
posted by: ACrossTeacher on July 20, 2010 8:46am
@Teacher, I meant the downtown administration. They were the ones who decided to pursue the grant and who wrote the application. The impetus did not come from within the building. However, faced with having change imposed upon them and no leadership to guide the process, the teachers within the building have been doing a remarkable job trying to figure out how to transform the school. Many of them have been working all summer. It is far from ideal. We ended the year having no real idea of what we were teaching in the fall, nor a sense of how the new structure would work. But, the group working on the plans has been good about communicating with the rest of us, and things are moving forward. I think the process has given rise to a new sense of optimism and hope, not just that Cross can be better than it is (I think most teachers at school have always believed that) but that teachers can actually have a say in making it better (it has been hard to hang onto that belief over the past few years).
@Eve. Yes, the grant requires a change in the principal. Here’s the link to the CT Dept. of Ed site with information about the grants: http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/cwp/view.asp?a=2703&Q=322312
I imagine that a new principal will have to be named before Cross opens at the end of August.
Hillhouse seems to have had the advantage of knowing, albeit informally, that Kermit was going to be principal all along. That allowed them to move forward more rapidly. Everyone should know that we first were told the city was applying for the grants the week before April vacation. And we didn’t find out we got them till either the end of May or early June.
Finally, the concern about AP is warranted. Cross’s AP students have consistently performed well at rates comparable to many suburban and private schools where, unlike at Cross, students are not all required to take the tests. My understanding is that students will be allowed to take classes outside of their houses when it comes to AP. Personally, I think all parents should have taking an AP class as a goal for their child and should push the school to provide the rigorous preparation at all grades and levels to make that possible. I think that will transform Cross even more than any restructuring.
posted by: Barbara Lucibello on July 20, 2010 6:36pm
I still feel the city is loosing out by not having Dr. Michele Sherban-Kline as principal. All the interviews in the world won’t give the true ability of the candidate. As an employee of Cross, I’ve seen Dr. Sherban-Kline in all situations and I know she can handle anything that comes up. As I stated before Cross would be lucky to have her.
I feel the people in charge should listen to the people who know what goes on in the trenches. We at the bottom know a lot more than we get credit for. We could tell you a lot if you really want to know about the employees both in charge and not in charge.
