In the middle of the 2006–07 school year, Kepner began working with us to implement the Payne School Improvement Model (PSIM). Through the dedication and persistence of two Framework certified trainers, Jackie Arriaga and Carrie Olsen, as well as the interest and commitment of Principal Frank Gonzales, technical assistance was brought to the campus. While Jackie and Carrie trained the teachers in the Framework for Understanding Poverty and Learning Structures curricula, I provided an overview of the Meeting Standards training, and teachers received the background they needed to begin implementing the strategies. Through the openness and willingness of the staff, progress was definitely made with the technical assistants, who provided content-specific training in the four core areas, as well as in non-core areas, in the second semester of that year. So much progress was made that Kepner was recognized as a Pro-Comp Distinguished School based on the academic achievement of the students.

As the school has continued to work with us, we would like to recognize Jack Thompson of the Kepner Educational Excellence Program (KEEP), a nonprofit organization that supports the school in numerous ways, including providing funding for continued professional development with aha! Process. We are so excited about the staff and its commitment to work with students on a daily basis to help them build their resources and improve their achievement. For more information about what is happening at Kepner, watch the video and visualize the endless possibilities that exist for your school, your staff, and your students.

Read the entire post here.  Thanks Donna!

by Erika Gonzalez

Carrie Olson can size them up pretty quickly. The teachers who will last just a few weeks. Those who will struggle for years, frustrated by why their well-crafted lesson plans aren’t making a difference.

Olson, a teacher at Denver’s Kepner Middle School, was once one of them.

She remembers walking into her first urban classroom more than two decades ago, astonished that none of her impoverished students had a library card. Why not take advantage of a free service located just three blocks away, she thought.

Today, she says, many of her colleagues seem just as puzzled about how students come to school sporting trendy tennis shoes, yet don’t have enough money for pencils.

The problem, Olson learned, is that many educators teaching in poor, urban schools don’t understand what’s important to the population they’re serving. In other words, Olson’s Midwestern, middle-class upbringing wasn’t the best training ground for learning how to teach inner city kids living in poverty.

“I was perplexed by the mismatch,” says Olson. “I had these amazing kids, but they weren’t learning in my classroom. I cried every day.”

Read the entire KEEP article in EducationNews Colorado