The Answer - A blog about Education, Preparation, and Commitment.

YES Prep Visits Teach For America Jacksonville For Summit on Transformational Public Education

February 27, 2011 by Jeremy Jones

A group of YES Prep leaders recently visited Florida to work with first and second year TeachForAmerica Corps Members working in Jacksonville. Our ties with TeachForAmerica run deep. We were founded by Chris Barbic who was a 1992 TeachForAmerica Houston Corps Member, more than half of our staff are TeachForAmerica affiliated either as corps members or alums and eight of our ten school leaders are TFA Alums. Clearly, TeachForAmerica has had a significant impact on the composition of our teams. We work hard to continue building our partnership with TeachForAmerica in creative ways. We thought that visiting a region outside of Houston might accomplish three things, 1) spread the word about the transformative work that we are doing in Houston, 2) share resources and expertise with first and second year teachers from some of the best educators in our organization, and 3) network with and learn more about the work being done to close the academic achievement gap in Jacksonville. I certainly think that we accomplished all three of those goals!

Attending from YES Prep were Senior Director of Academics and TeachForAmerica South Louisiana Alum Kari Thomas, Senior Director of College Initiatives and former TFA Staff Member Donald Kamentz, newly promoted Dean of Instruction (YES Prep SW) and TFA Houston Alumna Sally Houston, High School ELA teacher (among other roles) and TFA Houston Alumna Lindsey Windham and High School Biology teacher and TFA Houston Alumna Reem Semaan.

Each of us were inspired by the work that Corps Members are doing with their students in Jacksonville. The level of professionalism and grit that we saw from these young teachers was inspiring for each of us. We were able to lead content sessions that focused on specific strategies for corps members to use in their classrooms this week. For instance, the math session that Kari and I lead centered on creating great introductions to new material to engage students and prime them to learn rigorous mathematics. In the social studies session, Sally Houston led corps members to think about how to incorporate DBQ (Data Based Questions).

Along with content sessions, Corps Members were able to attend “Transformational” Sessions. Because we seek to transform Houston by preparing 10,000 students for college graduation, Corps Members in Jacksonville wanted to learn more about how they could be transformative in various ways for their students. The following is a summary of each of these sessions:

Being Transformative in your classroom:

• Kari Thomas led a session on transforming how teachers use differentiation strategies to reach every learner.
• Donald Kamentz’s session focused on how teachers might work to prepare students for college acceptance and graduation through rigorous instruction and “college knowledge”

Being Transformative in your school:

• Reem and Sally provided some insight to corps members about how they might do small things in their classroom that will expand their area of influence in their schools as well as giving strategies on how to influence others to join in transformational efforts in a school.

Being Transformative in your community:

• Lindsey Windham, who also serves as the Service Learning Coordinator for YES Prep East End, built the knowledge, skills, and mindsets for Corps Members to get their students invested in community service with some tangible strategies on how they might accomplish building a service learning program at their school.

We ere honored to have the chance to work with Corps Members and the TeachForAmerica staff in Jacksonville. I think we all are leaving inspired that people all over the country are doing the hard work it will take to ensure that students from all neighborhoods and regardless of race, income or background will have a chance to attain an excellent education! Keep it up Jacksonville!
 

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