Leaders of two public charter schools say professional development is the key to success with special populations

A photo from Leadership Prep shows students raising their hand during a classroom discussion. 

Noting growing numbers of students learning English as a second language and students from low-income backgrounds, schools like Leadership Preparatory Charter School in Memphis and KIPP Antioch College Prep Elementary (KACPE) in South Nashville have invested heavily in professional development efforts to better prepare teachers for working with special populations.

According to a recent case study from the Tennessee Charter School Center, KIPP Antioch College Prep Elementary (KACPE) has ranked in the top 25 percent of all schools in the state for English language arts (ELA) achievement and the top 10 percent for math proficiency among traditionally underserved student groups. Most notably, the case study said, KACPE scored in the top 5 percent of all schools in ELA achievement among multilingual learners, which make up about a fourth of the school’s student body.

KACPE Principal Brittnee Kennedy, who joined a webinar last week with other educators from KACPE and Leadership Prep to discuss their schools’ teaching strategies, said her school’s success with multilingual learners is largely due to a culture of coaching and feedback for teachers.

“We are heavily invested in making sure our teachers are well-equipped with coaching and support,” Kennedy said.  

Ashley Thompson, a multilingual instructor at KACPE, said one of the ways the school works to support multilingual instructors is “listening tours,” where administrators and educators can gauge educational challenges and develop strategies to address them.

“When it comes to investing in our people, we have things called ‘listening tours,’ and it’s a monthly meeting where the principal will allow all teachers to come in and talk about things we are doing well and things we need improvement on,” she said.

Meanwhile at Leadership Prep, the school’s students have consistently performed at levels “far above the state average,” despite the challenges that come with teaching economically disadvantaged students, who make up a majority of the school’s student body.

Similar to KIPP’s emphasis on training teachers to work with multilingual learners, the school moved away from a one-size-fits-all approach in favor of a more flexible instructional model. The school has also placed more emphasis in recent years on “data-driven instruction,” particularly for strategies to improve and maintain student performance among economically disadvantaged students.

According to a TCSC case study on Leadership Prep, that emphasis on data-driven instruction has resulted in “exceptional performance for economically disadvantaged students.” The case study added that in English language arts (ELA), 42 percent of Leadership Prep’s economically disadvantaged students meet or exceed standards, placing the school in the top 9 percent of Tennessee schools. What’s more, 37 percent of its students meet or exceed math standards, ranking it in the top 19 percent statewide.

“I think sometimes in education, we get into a ‘one-size-fits-all’ thought process related to students, and in particular students who are low income and of color. We really went through several phases of making sure we were being intentional about what our students needed, and also giving our teachers as much autonomy with structure as possible,” Valissa Allen, founder and CEO of the Leadership Preparatory Academy in Memphis, said in last week’s webinar.

 “For the past two or three years, I think [teachers here] just continued to take off and take the lead with the autonomy and power we’ve given them, and that in turn has supported our students’ growth.”

To read both case studies, visit tnchartercenter.org.