Tucson's Billy Lane Lauffer Middle School Leverages Power of Collaboration to Help it Beat the Odds!

TUCSON - February 2, 2010 - Billy Lane Lauffer Middle School has discovered the power of collaboration and is leveraging it at the student, teacher and administrative levels to develop a more rigorous curriculum actively engaging students in learning.

As a result, Lauffer's AIMS and school benchmark scores have continuously improved since the school opened in fall 2004. The road to success required six years of dedication, focus and teacher support.

Lauffer Middle School, part of the Sunnyside Unified School District, serves 580 students in grades six through eight. The student population is 90-percent minority and 75-percent low-income.

Instructional challenges include motivating students to take responsibility for their own learning and meeting the needs of a diverse group of students. A seventh grade science classroom, for example, may include a gifted student reading at the freshman or sophomore level, a special education student reading at the first grade level and a student who doesn't speak English.

"Collaboration was a really big challenge when the school opened," Lauffer School Principal Bob Miranda said. Fortunately, he had previous experience creating successful, collaborative environments resulting in better than expected academic performance, based upon demographics.

Previously, Miranda was principal of Tucson's Sierra Middle School, one of the success stories reported in the Center for the Future of Arizona's 2006 "Beat the Odds" research study. The study found that schools that perform better than expected practice six common keys to success. The findings are currently being implemented in 84 Arizona K-12 schools, including Lauffer Middle School, through the center's Beat the Odds School Partners Program.

One of Principal Miranda's first steps was to let Lauffer staff know there was a strong expectation of collaboration and to back it up by dedicating time each Wednesday for grade-level and subject-level collaboration.

"It is essential to let teachers meet to plan strategies, especially to implement project based instruction and learning," he said.

Seventh grade science teacher Noah Mickey-Colman called the cross-content project approach, "...a huge eye-opener as a way to increase student buy-in and allow for a lot of differentiated instruction."

In addition to working on their project in Mickey-Colman's science class, the students graph their data in math class, and write their abstract and conclusion in the language arts class. Students work in collaborative teams, allowing them to learn not only the instructional material, but also life skills such as communication, delegation and holding people accountable.

Since projects have multiple components requiring different skills, students can work on project assignments playing to their strengths. Mickey-Colman said he sees the biggest jump in student scores (five percent to 30-percent) following his astronomy unit, which utilizes project based learning.

"Even kids who don't turn in homework get really excited when they do these projects," Mickey-Colman said. "For them, the success is being involved in something from beginning to the end."

Collaborative problem-solving also plays a vital role in addressing issues and challenges identified in the school improvement plan. Teachers bring their ideas to the school's leadership team where together they brainstorm, plan and implement solutions.

"We are in the first year of implementing a classroom behavior management program called Rattler Pride that teachers brought to the meeting," said Assistant Principal Donna Samorano.

Beginning in January 2010, eighth grade teachers will implement a research-based, teacher-driven curriculum called Success Highways. It helps students realize that education is relevant to their goals, with the anticipated outcome of better test scores and increased graduation rates.

"They (the eighth grade teachers) came up with an implementation plan and presented it to the school leadership team, which approved it," she said. "We listen to what our teachers have to say. We encourage them to come up with solutions to fix a problem and go with their plan. It's not as much a top-down thing," she concluded. "It's a bottom-up leadership philosophy."