2013 Pathways to the Prize - School Winners | Page 10

Pathways to the Prize
Lessons from the 2011 SCORE Prize School Winners

Pathways to the Prize
Lessons from the 2011 SCORE Prize School Winners

Cultivating strong leaders
Ms. Cupples characterizes herself as a patient administrator who capitalizes on the expertise of her staff. She recognizes that people need to see the value in change and then be provided with the necessary skills to change before
new practices are embraced. She has an approach that prioritizes collaboration and continuous improvement.
While sensitive to the needs of the staff, she tackles issues head on and balances the need for buy-in with the drive
to implement best practices. “It is my aim to make this the best place to work and to provide you with the very best
tools and support that is humanly and financially possible,” she said in remarks to the instructional team. “The
workplace should be as stress-free and productive as possible. Teamwork is essential. Together we can
make all the difference.”
Nurturing a positive school climate for change. Shortly after coming to the school,
Ms. Cupples observed some tension between the experienced and novice teachers, with each
group believing that their teaching strategies were best. Ms. Cupples recognized the value in
both types of teachers and worked to find ways to help them learn from each other, honoring the
strengths of the experienced teachers while promoting the “new way” of standards-based teaching
that the novice teachers had learned.
Departmentalization. Ms. Cupples also approached the tension among teachers directly

by reorganizing the school to maximize teacher strengths. In her second year as principal,
she reorganized staff assignments, looking at each grade level and matching assignments to
teacher strengths. She departmentalized the fourth and fifth grades so that teachers with the most
expertise were teaching the critical content in mathematics, reading, and writing to all students
in those grade levels. She put most of her experienced teachers in the upper grades and reassigned the least experienced to the lower grades where their enthusiasm would be well-applied
and their new knowledge of what works, particularly in reading, would be put to good use.
She asked the experienced teachers to help novice teachers and asked the novice teachers to stick closely to the
district’s balanced literacy approach. Informal mentoring occurred both during professional learning community
meetings, and by request of the teachers.
Common curriculum through balanced literacy. Ms. Cupples took steps so that all teachers strengthened their

skills in balanced literacy through school and district training and received consistent training and coaching to
use running records and othe