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Kindest cuts

Jun 8, 2006 1:23 PM

Now 5 academies, increased staff collaboration at Graphic Arts HS is enriching education for students

Patricia Crispino, the UFT chapter leader
and a CTE teacher for 19 years, finds the
increased level of information sharing
particularly valuable when she confers
with other teachers who have taught
the same students.

Before the High School of Graphic Communication Arts was restructured under a Department of Education reform initiative known as “Small Learning Communities,” teachers at the Midtown Manhattan-based school tended to talk only to colleagues in their department. This was especially evident in the teachers’ cafeteria where all the math teachers sat at one table and all the English teachers sat at another.

“You didn’t dare sit at the wrong table,” recalled Judith Allainer, a teacher at the school for 10 years and one of many who find its recent restructuring invigorating.

The walls of isolation began to disintegrate about three years ago when Graphic Arts was picked, along with six other large Career and Technical Education (CTE) schools, to participate in the SLC initiative. The program has been advocated by the UFT as an alternative to chopping up large high schools into smaller ones.

With its more than 2,000 students and staff of 160, Graphic Arts was divided into five equally sized SLCs — or “academies,” as they’re known at the school — which provide a more personalized school environment. Each academy operates as an autonomous unit of the school and is devoted to the study of a particular aspect of graphic arts, including photography, printing, visual arts and journalism.

One of the primary tenets of SLC reform is ongoing collaboration between teachers and administrators as a way of enriching education for students.

So central is collaboration to the new approach at Graphic Arts that weekly meetings are held in each academy to facilitate it. Academy meetings are run by an assistant principal and a “teacher-coordinator,” both of whom work with other teachers to track students’ progress and provide the proper supports.

“Sometimes when things are stressful [at the weekly meetings] there’s a lot of venting in a healthy way,” said James Harrington, teacher-coordinator of the school’s Visual Arts Academy.

Teacher-coordinators volunteer for the job and are selected based on seniority. They’re given three periods a day to meet with students, administrators and other teachers in order to track students’ progress.

The increased collaboration has been a boon in more ways than one. No longer are teachers left alone to figure out how best to help struggling students. They are encouraged to work with their academy colleagues, as a team, to address such issues.

“There’s not only more community among the teachers because we see and talk to each other more, but we’re able to help each other out in the classroom,” said Harrington. “There’s more of a family feeling.”

Patricia Crispino, the UFT chapter leader and a CTE teacher for 19 years, finds the increased level of information sharing particularly valuable when she confers with other teachers who have taught the same students. She said she can give those students much better individual instruction now because “I’ll know — without having had them for a long time — where their strengths and weaknesses lie.”

Judith Allainer said the academy structure also encourages teachers to develop interdisciplinary lessons, a framework that didn’t exist before. As teacher-coordinator of the Photography Academy, Allainer has spearheaded a cross-curriculum project comparing and contrasting historical photographs of Times Square. The school is just a few blocks from there, at 49th Street between 9th and 10th avenues.

Meanwhile, Harrington is helping students design and publish a school magazine with the help of English and journalism teachers. He noted that, under the new structure, teachers are also encouraged to use their professional connections to bring in scholarships and similar opportunities for students. He has helped students win summer scholarships to study at the Art Students League, while Allainer has worked with a student who won a citywide photo contest at the Jewish Museum.

If SLC reform has empowered teachers at Graphic Arts, it has certainly also opened up avenues of support for students.

Bilingual students no longer work with just the same four or five teachers but also with others. This has made them feel more involved and therefore more interested in schoolwide activities, according to Llermi Gonzalez, teacher-coordinator of the Journalism Academy. Sixty-one percent of the students at Graphic Arts are Hispanic.

Special education students had previously been taught in self-contained classrooms but are now team-taught in general-education inclusion classes. A special education student is even on the student council in the Photography Academy, said Assistant Principal Lantigua Sime, who taught special education at the school for a number of years. Student government has been expanded so that there are councils in each of the new academies.

“There’s a whole new level of pride,” said Allainer, adding that increased camaraderie among teachers and students has raised school spirit. Students’ work is constantly being exhibited on school bulletin boards, she said. Plus, kids have more opportunities and greater enthusiasm to participate in activities that help them learn, she said.

The original seven CTE schools that took part in the SLC reform initiative have all increased graduation rates and Regents performance, according to UFT Vice President for Career and Technical Education Michael Mulgrew.

As an increasing number of CTE schools look to bring in SLC reform, Mulgrew said it’s important for administrators and teachers to know that without “real collaboration,” the program doesn’t work.

Teachers understand what their students’ needs are and the SLC structure gives them a greater “buy-in,” more power essentially, to do something about it, he said.

“It helps teachers feel like they’re getting to do what they had envisioned when they got into teaching,” Mulgrew said.