A big, red Merriam-Webster dictionary... (COPY)
A story of success at Carl Wunsche Sr. High School
April 17, 2023
A big, red Merriam-Webster dictionary...
A story of success at Carl Wunsche Sr. High School
April 17, 2023
A big, red Merriam-Webster dictionary...
A story of success at Carl Wunsche Sr. High School
April 17, 2023
Of all the strategies the Wunsche High School leadership team tried in their quest to help 42 bilingual students pass their state-mandated English 1 exam, a dictionary turned out to be the tipping point.
When taking the state’s end-of-year course, students shared a collection of five dictionaries per class, which meant they had to raise their hand and take turns in order to use one.
The result?
Students just weren’t using them. For those who needed help with vocabulary and grammar, it was like taking an advanced math test without a calculator.
After the school bought more dictionaries for testing and teachers showed students how to use them, 35 of 42 bilingual students (83 percent) passed the state test.
Of all the strategies the Wunsche High School leadership team tried in their quest to help 42 bilingual students pass their state-mandated English 1 exam, a dictionary turned out to be the tipping point.
When taking the state’s end-of-year course, students shared a collection of five dictionaries per class, which meant they had to raise their hand and take turns in order to use one.
The result?
Students just weren’t using them. For those who needed help with vocabulary and grammar, it was like taking an advanced math test without a calculator.
After the school bought more dictionaries for testing and teachers showed students how to use them, 35 of 42 bilingual students (83 percent) passed the state test.
While the solution may seem simple, the real story is in the journey that a group of educators at Wunsche took to get there, and how it changed much more than one test outcome.
While the solution may seem simple, the real story is in the journey that a group of educators at Wunsche took to get there, and how it changed much more than one test outcome.
'I knew I was a leader'
The journey began in 2020, when Wunsche - located in the Houston area - began The Holdsworth Center’s Campus Leadership Program.
For one year, Dr. Alfred James, the school’s principal, and Vivian Oliver-Hernandez, the school’s digital literacy coach, spent time at Holdsworth strengthening leadership skills – connecting to their purpose, cultivating trusting relationships and building high-performing teams.
For Oliver-Hernandez, the year was an awakening of her potential, and a time to build trust with her principal.
Improving student outcomes
In the second year of the Holdsworth program, it was time to put James and Oliver-Hernandez’s leadership skills to the test by finding an area where they could focus on improving student outcomes.
They added three colleagues to the team attending learning sessions at Holdsworth and engaged eight other teachers and leaders on campus in the problem-solving process.
Wunsche is a career-focused high school with 13 different learning pathways and 1,500 students. It’s an A-rated school where students generally perform well.
But there are performance gaps, especially when it comes to students whose second language is English.
Guided by Holdsworth faculty, Wunsche leaders chose to focus on a group of 42 students who had not passed their state-mandated English 1 end-of-course exam, setting a goal that 75 percent would pass on the second try.
In the Campus Leadership Program, teams learn to use continuous improvement methods to solve problems. They explore root causes, identify promising solutions and test those solutions in quick cycles to see if they work before applying them more broadly.
Teams are encouraged to “think big but act small.” That means choosing a manageable test group to allow for pivoting.
This approach isn’t the norm in public education. Often, leaders throw everything they can at a problem and hope something works. This exhausts educators and grows resistance to trying any new idea, no matter how promising it seems.
Starting small allows the team to experiment without the heavy lift of rolling something out to the entire school. Once teachers see that a strategy is really working, even with a small group, they will get excited about the possibilities.
Helping teachers find joy
James entrusted Oliver-Hernandez with more responsibility and influence. In 2021, he offered her a new role as the school’s digital literacy coach.
Going from a technology coordinator to focusing on literacy was a huge shift. At first, she resisted.
“Dr. James said, ‘I believe in you.’ He didn’t even know what I was going to do, but he believed I would do amazing things for the school. Those words touched my heart,” she said.
In her new role, Oliver-Hernandez observes teachers and coaches them on how to build students’ literacy skills.
“I get to see the joy in classrooms. If there is not joy, I get to help the teacher find and bring that joy,” she said. “’Little Vivian’ is now a confident leader that strives to help other educators and students find their own purpose through creative avenues.”
The right tools
Initially, the team focused on strengthening literacy strategies such as building academic vocabulary, learning good discussion habits and editing and revising skills.
When Oliver-Hernandez observed classrooms, she discovered teachers were already using the right strategies. But it wasn’t enough to help students pass the test.
That’s when a teacher brought up the big, red Merriam-Webster dictionaries.
They are great references for vocabulary as well as rules for grammar, editing and revising. Students are allowed to use them during testing, but they weren’t doing it.
“They’re kids – they don’t want to stand up or raise their hand and ask for it. But if it’s accessible, they will use it,” said Aufegger, the bilingual specialist.“We advocated during the Holdsworth meeting that each student needed to have their own while testing.” said Aufegger, the bilingual specialist.
James and Oliver-Hernandez were convinced.
The school bought 258 dictionaries and teachers delivered a review before the test to go over the kinds of questions and prompts students would encounter and show them how to use the dictionaries to help them succeed.
Initially, the team focused on strengthening literacy strategies such as building academic vocabulary, learning good discussion habits and editing and revising skills.
When Oliver-Hernandez observed classrooms, she discovered teachers were already using the right strategies. But it wasn’t enough to help students pass the test.
That’s when a teacher brought up the big, red Merriam-Webster dictionaries.
They are great references for vocabulary as well as rules for grammar, editing and revising. Students are allowed to use them during testing, but they weren’t doing it.
“They’re kids – they don’t want to stand up or raise their hand and ask for it. But if it’s accessible, they will use it,” said Aufegger, the bilingual specialist.“We advocated during the Holdsworth meeting that each student needed to have their own while testing.” said Aufegger, the bilingual specialist.
James and Oliver-Hernandez were convinced.
The school bought 258 dictionaries and teachers delivered a review before the test to go over the kinds of questions and prompts students would encounter and show them how to use the dictionaries to help them succeed.
By May of 2022, 35 of the 42 students
had passed the English 1 exam, exceeding
the original goal of 32.
Additionally, 52 percent of the group went
on to pass the English 2 end-of-course exam
on the first try.
Teachers felt empowered
While this simple solution impacted 35 students’ lives, the journey leaders took to get there unleashed something even bigger: a vision of what they could achieve by working together to solve problems.
“The whole process was an amazing opportunity for everyone to understand what our students are going through, what our teachers need and how we can work as a team to make that happen,” Aufegger said. “Teachers felt empowered. Their voices were heard.”
Voices like Cesar Alcaraz, an English teacher who worked with the 42 students in the Holdsworth test group.“It’s always nice when leaders take a step down and say, ‘I am on a team with my teachers.’ I have seen Dr. James’ mentality change in that way, and I really like that about him,” Alcaraz said. “You can grow at any age and in any position.”
Bowden, the bilingual specialist, said Holdsworth helped push them all to try new things, even if they didn’t work out.
“To innovate, you have to have the freedom to make mistakes. And to do that, you have to have leadership with the mindset that failure is OK because it’s a step in the right direction. Chaos is where the work gets done.”
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