June
2002
Leadership
Trenton: Education and Child Development
By Pamela Sims Jones
The third seminar for the Leadership Trenton Fellows was held
April 25. It focused on education and child development and other
issues such as dropout prevention, school funding, and school
choice. It was a highly anticipated seminar
We met at the Trenton Board of Education's Central Services Building
and were honored to have Dr. James Lytle, Superintendent of Trenton
Public Schools, join us for the entire day. He gave an overview
of the day, prepared us for the site visits, and later generated
some very positive group discussions and fielded questions from
the fellows; with his expertise, we were able to constructively
debate some pertinent education issues facing the district. We
thank him for his hospitality and leadership. Sharon Taylor, Personnel
Technician in Human Resources for the Trenton Board of Education,
gave an overview of teaching certification in New Jersey.
Of the more than 25 schools in the Trenton School district-which
includes the Bellevue Daylight/Twilight High School Adult High
School, and the High School for the Foreign Born - each has adopted
a Whole School Reform Model: Success For All, Modern Red Schoolhouse,
Accelerated Schools, Comer, Alem, Co-Nect, and Coalition of Essential
Schools (Trenton Central High School).
The site visits were an invaluable way of obtaining a richer
sense of schools as communities, principals and teachers as leaders,
and resources to enrich the learning environment. We were able
to tour the schools and observe students and teachers' participation.
Six teams visited six specific schools: Puerto Rican Community
Day Care Center, Inc. (preschool); Granville Charter Middle School;
Woodrow Wilson Elementary School, Hedgepeth-Williams Middle School,
Bellevue Daylight/Twilight High School, and Trenton Central High
School. Each team met with the principal and some teams were able
to talk to students and teachers at length.
Key questions asked by the teams were: Does the school monitor
students' progress toward meeting the standards? What has the
school accomplished recently? What are some of the biggest challenges
facing the school? How is technology used to support teaching
and learning? What is the total student population? What is the
school's approach to student discipline and safety? How does the
school support students who have academic, social or emotional
difficulties? What strategies are used to teach students who are
not fluent in English?
After lunch, the teams presented an overview of their site visit
followed by summary discussions. Overall, the site visits were
very enlightening and informative. There were more pros than cons
reported by each team about their respective school visits. The
Puerto Rican Community Day Care Center, Inc., received a glowing
report. The team was very impressed with the teachers, the student
diversity, the bilingual abilities of the teachers and students,
the curriculum, and the colorful, inviting facility.
Trenton Central High School is a beautiful edifice, with a large
student population split into "small learning communities."
The principal, Patricia Dawson, is very excited about the positive
climate for active learning at the high school. She realizes that
the student test scores have to improve, which is a measurement
of success for any school.
Granville Charter Middle School is a beautiful facility with
the resources to enrich, but is experiencing growing pains in
its infancy. The Woodrow Wilson Elementary School and Hedgepeth-Williams
Middle School have enthusiastic principals and teachers, and like
all elementary and middle schools, are focusing on providing core
curriculum and monitoring students' progress appropriately so
that they can matriculate to the next level. The Bellevue Daylight/Twilight
High School is new and provides a "second chance" for
those individuals in all age groups to obtain their GED.
The future of education in Trenton will definitely depend upon
its ability to attract and retain quality teachers. One of our
group exercises was to design and develop recommendations on ways
to address recruitment challenges. Some of the recommendations
were to recruit prospective teachers from other professions, offering
housing incentives, scholarships and/or tuition reimbursement,
better pay, and a revamped alternate route certification, to name
a few. A national statistic reflects the urgency of recruiting
new teachers: some 2.2 million teachers will be needed in the
next ten years.
We then had a group discussion on the Abbott School Construction
Program for New Jersey's Urban Communities led by Thomas O'Neill,
Executive Director of The Partnership for New Jersey. The goal
of the Abbott Pre-K to 12 programs and reforms is to close the
achievement gap between urban students and their suburban peers.
More than 300,000 school-aged children and 54,000 preschoolers
in thirty communities are entitled to the Abbott programs and
reforms, including Trenton.
After dinner, we had a lively group debriefing. Dr. Lytle continued
to answer questions and give insight into Trenton's educational
issues and outlook for the future.
# # #
Kudos as always to our Leadership Trenton staffer, Nelida
Valentin, and to everyone who assisted her with the organization
of April's seminar particularly the following Fellows: Ana Berdecia,
Executive Director of the Puerto Rican Day Care Center, Inc.;
Paula Bethea, fourth-grade teacher at Thomas Jefferson Elementary
School; Deborah Giddens-Green, Whole School Reform Facilitator
for Joyce Kilmer Elementary School; Oona Augusta Jackson, Whole
School Reform Facilitator/Coach at Woodrow Wilson Elementary School;
Jermaine Kamau, educator at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School;
and Thomas Moore, President of the Trenton Education Association.
Pamela Sims Jones is Deputy Director of the Dept. of State's
MLK, Jr. Commemorative Commission.
