Reshuffled and refocused
By Joey Pitchford
Published in News on March 22, 2018 5:50 AM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Three-year-veteran teacher Stephanie Orosco gives a lecture using a slide show presentation to her advanced placement U.S. history class at Goldsboro High School Tuesday.
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Students are able to follow along with presentations on laptops or review at home using their classroom website.
It hasn't quite been a year since another round of administrative reshuffling at Goldsboro High School, but things have begun to change.
The school has certified teachers in every position, said principal Marcia Manning, one of the goals the school set forth at the start of the year.
A more robust arts program, advanced placement classes and a general focus on accountability and academic rigor have begun to show dividends at the school, even though it is still considered low-performing.
Manning said that, in the past year, Goldsboro High students and staff have worked hard to dispel the often-repeated notion that academic rigor is lower at the school than at others in the county.
One of the hallmarks of this new approach is a series of assessments which takes place every four weeks and is strictly aligned to the state standards which students will be tested on at the end of the year.
Known as Common Formative Assessments, the tests are uniform across subjects -- if multiple teachers teach the same class, they give the same test.
"Our students have become very familiar with the acronym CFA, which means that they're taking a rigorous, standards-aligned assessment," she said.
"The questions for those assessments come from released state exams, they might come from Schoolnet which is where the state test item banks are, they come from CTE exams.
"So there is no perception that you are below grade level so you'll get a below grade test, so you'll get some kind of 'A' that isn't really worthy of a high school 'A.'
"Their grades on those assessments are true assessments of whether or not they're mastering grade-level work."
The idea was novel to students at first, Manning said, but soon they came around to it. Having challenging tests can make students feel like they are being taken seriously, she said, which can help motivate them to keep trying.
Although some students were uncomfortable with the harder tests at their onset, Manning said that she now has students who seek her out to tell her about the good grades they received on their CFAs.
Harder tests are just part of creating an overall culture of accountability at the school for both students and staff.
High teacher turnover rates have been a source of frustration for Goldsboro High students in the past, and making sure teachers are showing up to school on time and putting in the work expected of them is just as important as making students do the same, Manning said.
Manning said her primary goals for the school are safety, relationships and academic rigor.
Having well-trained teachers in classrooms consistently makes it easier to form relationships with students, which in turn makes promoting safety and academic rigor possible.
If students care about how their teachers see them, they are more likely to put in the effort necessary to get good grades.
It helps that Goldsboro High has broadened the classes available to its students.
Two AP classes -- U.S. history and composition -- came to the school this year, along with popular electives like journalism.
Of course, all eyes eventually turn to test scores, where Goldsboro High has underperformed in recent times. Manning is optimistic that the many changes the school has gone through will pay off, but acknowledged that there is more work to be done.
"I'm probably my toughest critic, because until we are exceeding proficiency on state exams, meaning we're at or above the average state scores, then I can't truly be happy with where we are," she said. "I believe that our kids have that in them. They are incredibly intelligent, they have great resilience. They are so much brighter than even often they realize."