Uncommon Schools and NYC DOE Building Bridges for Brooklyn Kids

Charter and district schools are often portrayed as adversaries, especially when it comes to co-location or sharing of buildings.

But on a recent Saturday in the large cafeteria of Uncommon Charter High School in Brooklyn, some 130 educators from both district and charter schools found common ground in a professional development workshop designed to raise student achievement in all of their schools.

The workshop is part of a series offered by Uncommon Schools, which operates 22 public charter schools in Brooklyn, for district teachers from Community School Districts 16, 18, 19 and 23 in Central Brooklyn.

“It’s all about good teaching and making it work for our students,” said Stephanie Martin, a District 18 Teacher Development and Evaluation Coach, who attended the daylong session this month. “We can pull the pieces of what we are learning from Uncommon and implement it in traditional public schools.”

Uncommon has been partnering with the New York City Department of Education teachers in such collaborations for several years.

“It is essential that we share best practices and the Uncommon Schools teacher feedback model is done particularly well and is something we’re learning from,” Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña recently said.

Uncommon, which graduates students from college at five times the rate of low-income students nationally and has some of the highest student achievement results for low-income students in all of New York, values this partnership to share effective practices, and also to learn from district schools.

Melissa Harris, the Senior Executive Director of the Office of School Design and District Partnerships at New York City DOE, said she was thrilled that both novice and experienced teachers participated. A significant percentage of the teachers had over 15 years of experience.

“These experienced teachers took time out of their busy Saturdays just to learn,” Harris said. “We encourage teachers to be lifelong learners in our school system so it’s great to see so many teachers in Brooklyn voluntarily come to the workshop to learn from Uncommon some of the practices that are being used in the classroom.”

The day opened by showing a video of an Uncommon teacher greeting students individually before class who were coming back from lunch. Very quickly, the educators in the workshop identified the benefits of the technique the teacher was using.

“The teacher is building connections with students,” said a NYC DOE teacher in the audience.

“The teacher is making each student feel wanted and important,” said another NYC DOE teacher. “He was getting students ready for work for those who looked like they were coming back from lunch in a bad mood,” another said.

They concluded that this “threshold greeting” after lunch and before class was an impactful way to affect the instruction that would happen next in this teacher’s classroom by setting the right tone for students.

Bonnie Bonjen, a teacher at PS 214, said she learned from watching and listening to other teachers as they performed various drills.

“We grow from each other,” Bonjen said. “This shows power and unity- we serve together and it's the best for our kids.”

Martha Mancini, an assistant principal at PS 214, said she already discussed one classroom technique called tracking with two teachers at her school who also attended the workshop.

“We’re going to turnkey the information and ensure that it is used in our school,” Mancini said.

The day was so successful that already 150 teachers are signed up for the January workshop. For more information contact Crystal McQueen-Taylor at crystal.mcqueen@uncommonschools.org.