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Looking For Opportunity
Steve Gering was sick and tired of watching some of his best teachers leave the Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools for more lucrative job opportunities. “We were losing some of our best and brightest, losing our investment,” said the deputy superintendent.
Earlier that day Gering had received a call from the director of human resources, telling him another outstanding teacher was leaving the district. The teacher was Cecil Cristwell, a high school math teacher. A local employer had courted Cristwell, along with his former teaching colleague and KCKPS graduate, Jarius Jones, who left the district the previous year. Neither teacher wanted to leave KCKPS, but the new employment opportunity was too tempting.
“With the birth of my fifth child, and my current salary, I couldn’t afford to keep my family on the district’s healthcare plan,” said Jones.
The Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools found themselves in the same situation faced by urban schools districts across the country: every year they were hemorrhaging some of their best teachers. They knew they needed an innovative approach to stop the bleeding.
Retain and Train
Gering approached PREP-KC President & CEO, Susan Wally, to seek advice on how to retain more of the district’s most promising teachers. Together they crafted the idea of the PREP-KC Fellows. As a Fellow, selected teachers would receive scholarships to complete doctoral degrees and an additional stipend to extend their work beyond the classroom. In return for the scholarship and additional opportunities given by the district, Fellows agreed to remain with the district for six years after completion of the doctorate.
On behalf of the KCKPS, Wally approached KU School of Education Dean Rick Ginsburg, who agreed to pilot two Fellows scholarships.
“Everyone saw it as a win-win scenario,” said Wally. “The district could begin to retain some of its most promising teacher/leaders, and KU’s School of Education added teachers with extensive urban experience to its doctoral student body.”
With a plan in place, Gering contacted Cristwell and Jones to offer them the first PREP-KC Fellows positions. Both gladly accepted these new positions.
There’s No Place Like Home
Jones and Cristwell are both happily employed within the KCKPS as math teachers and are in their second year of doctoral course work. In addition to their classroom teaching responsibilities, both hold the title of Embedded Instructional Coach, which allows them to affect district change beyond their individual classrooms. Cristwell provides coaching to middle school math teachers implementing math benchmarking this year and Jones teaches a student leadership course focused on preparing students for college.
The KCKPS is already seeing the benefits of retaining more of its most promising teachers. Cristwell and Jones provide critical instructional and coaching support for the district’s math benchmarking work, which has helped increase the percentage of high school students scoring proficient or above on state math tests by 12.5 percentage points in just the last year.
Cristwell and Jones couldn’t be happier with their decision to return to the KCKPS. Their return has given teachers across the school district a renewed feeling of appreciation and respect. Jones knows he made the right decision for himself, and for the district that gave him his educational start.
“Coming back to KCK, working in the district I love, was a dream and an opportunity I couldn’t ignore.”
Growing More Great Teachers
The KCKPS, with PREP-KC’s assistance, continues to create innovative ways to recognize and cultivate its most promising teachers. In June 2008, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, in partnership with the KCKPS and PREP-KC, will begin offering a new Master’s degree tailor-made for KCKPS teachers: The Urban Teacher/Leader. This new Master’s degree will support advanced implementation of the FTF strategies: Small Learning Communities, Family Advocacy, and Academic Rigor. KCKPS will hand-pick emerging teacher-leaders for this cohort degree program, and PREP-KC will fund a scholarship for each in return for additional years of service in the district.
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