INDIANAPOLIS, IN ―Teach Plus Indianapolis T3 Teacher Leaders, who worked during the past year to establish the structures and systems for teacher leadership at the Global Preparatory Academy @Riverside 44, are celebrating the school’s improvement from an F to an A. The A grade that Global Prep, an Innovation School, received is based on student growth: In 2016, the number of students who passed both the math and ELA ISTEP+ assessment doubled, and more students in the bottom 25% moved closer to proficient than during the previous school year. The four T3 Teacher Leaders worked in partnership with Global Prep’s founder and principal, Mariama Carson, to make instructional decisions to drive student achievement across all grade levels at the school.
“During the school year, we made real-time decisions based on our students’ summative and formative assessments, and created action plans that zeroed in on instructional gaps,” said Stephanie Campos-Johnson, a T3 Teacher Leader and 4th grade teacher at Global Prep @Riverside 44. “The T3 coaching that Teach Plus provided was invaluable throughout. It motivated me to stay abreast of current research and best practices and ensured that I led my team forward by meeting not just our students’ needs, but my team’s as well.”
“Teacher leaders play a critical role in advancing student achievement,” said Mariama Carson, the principal at Global Prep @ Riverside 44. “The work that they do setting student-specific goals, keeping an eye on the data and motivating and encouraging their teams is critical. As we launched our school last year, I am convinced that our success was due to the high bar set for all students and maintained by the teacher leaders in their daily work with their teams and their students.“
As part of Global Prep’s T3 work, a Teach Plus coach trained and provided one-on-one support to the school’s T3 Teacher Leaders in leading teams of their peers, developing and executing action plans to improve student outcomes and teacher practice across their grade level, and building their leadership skills. Teach Plus also supported the T3 Teacher Leaders in developing tools to understand and measure the impact of their work. A T3 Teacher Leader led a team at each grade level at the school: Kindergarten, 1st/2nd; 3rd; and 4th grade.
“We’re thrilled and proud of Global Prep’s outstanding improvement,” said Carlotta Cooprider, Teach Plus Indianapolis Executive Director. “The T3 model is focused on turning around student achievement across the entire school. At Global Prep, our Teacher Leaders were able to have a direct impact on the direction of the school and not just on students in their classrooms.”
About Teach Plus
Teach Plus empowers excellent, experienced teachers to take leadership over key policy and practice issues that affect their students’ success. Teach Plus programs are designed to place highly effective teachers at the center of improvements in schools as leaders of their peers and outside schools influencing policy decisions that affect their classrooms. The programs develop excellent teachers into leaders who achieve change and mobilize others in their school, district, state, and across the nation to bring change to scale. Since its inception in August 2007, Teach Plus has grown to a network of more than 26,000 solutions-oriented teachers across the country. teachplus.org
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