State representatives visit VHHS, tour classrooms

One of Alabama Teacher of the Year Jennifer Brown’s goals is to have teachers be open to visitors at any time. The Monday after Spring Break, a few Vestavia Hills High School teachers opened their doors to Brown, state representatives and Superintendent Sheila Phillips.

Brown invited Rep. Jack Williams and Rep. Jim Carns, R-Vestavia Hills, to visit the school so that they could understand what goes into an average school day.

“There are so many education bills right now, and I feel like the legislators don’t really know everything that’s going on with schools,” Brown said.

Brown said visits could encourage legislators to talk with teachers about potential legislation.

Williams and Carns visited several classrooms during the day, seeing the technology and programs used by students as well as participating in class discussions. Brown also encouraged them to ask students questions about what they preferred.

Another legislator has tried, and continues to try, to get a bill to increase the emphasis on cursive writing passed, Carns said, so he polled students on the skill. In multiple classrooms, he asked students if they knew cursive, how often they used it and how often they thought they would use it.

One stop was in history teacher and Vestavia Hills City Schools secondary Teacher of the Year Lauren Dressback’s classroom. Dressback has a “Leading by Learning” poster outside of her room, which Brown said means she is open to visitors at any time of the day.

Brown said she hopes to have most teachers be open to visitors so that other teachers can learn from their methods. Overall, teachers sharing would be positive for education, she said.

“The best professional development is just down the hall,” she said.

In Dressback’s class, students were learning about John F. Kennedy and the “package politician.” She discussed how television and media access influenced citizens’ views on Kennedy and his family, and she asked the representatives to enter the conversation.

Williams said each politician has their own policy and chooses when they want to speak with media, but he tries to open up conversations through social media and other tools.

“We’re in a time where people expect greater access,” he said. “…I think it’s important for the public to know what we’re doing.”

Following classroom visits, the group sat down with VHHS Vice Principal Phillip Holley to discuss standardized testing.

Rather than rate teachers based on test scores, Brown said they should be held accountable for helping students succeed overall. She said that is one reason she has been working with other educators to create an educator accountability system.

“Our primary focus should be, how can our students grow?” she said. “Are we teaching students to learn or are we teaching them to take tests? And there’s a balance [with that].”

Another issue with holding teachers accountable to test scores is some students know they will not go to college and therefore do not care about their performance on tests such as the ACT.

Brown also showed Williams and Carns a list of several classes and teachers that would be displaced during testing and noted the other disruptions to teaching that testing can cause.

“My point is we don’t need any more testing,” she said. “We have enough testing.”

Williams said the reliance on standardized testing bothers him, and he would prefer students develop problem-solving skills rather than focus on tests.

“I don’t think we teach children how to think, I think we teach them how to pass a test,” he said. “And I think that’s problematic for kids later in life, when they’re confronted with issues and there’s not an A, B, C or D.”

Holley said many changes with the ACT are moving away from questions that require memorization and moving toward more problem-solving-focused questions. “That’s why the shift in [teaching] standards was crucial and needing to change,” Phillips said. “I am a definite supporter of the college and career-ready standards.”

Teachers can build lesson plans and expectations around those standards, Phillips said, and students will learn the skills they need to analyze and interpret information.

Brown said it is not possible to teach to the ACT because of its focus on analytical skills, and students end up benefitting standards that are aligned with the ACT. Work VHHS does to prepare students for the ACT has also paid off, Phillips said, with students receiving an average score of 25 in 2015.

“That is huge, and that speaks volumes about the things you saw today,” Phillips said. “And to me it even speaks to the standards.”