Why the Virgin Mary Left NOLA and Other Lessons from a Turnaround School
I spent much of the past week in Louisiana, working with the teachers at a turnaround school there. I've written about this school before--their struggle to build genuine trust and teamwork when a brand new staff is constructed of enthusiastic beginners, battle-weary returnees who know the community well and skilled veterans looking for a challenge who volunteered to transfer in. When I was there last summer, the school was uninviting (to say the least) and the staff was sticking a tentative toe into honest collaboration.
What a difference five months makes. The most obvious evidence is shiny floors, new window blinds, student work on the walls, and people who call each other by name. In fact, the teachers use an automatic honorific in addressing each other--Ms. Thompson calls her colleague Ms. Adams, even in a two-day, adults-only
