An Interview with Black River Career Prep High School Principal, Crystal Garmon
/As the only building leader, and spending significant time with students, Crystal Garmon, Principal, Black River Career Prep High School (BRCPHS), started noticing the instructional support for teachers was waning. Heading into the 2019-2020 school year, BRCPHS needed to refocus on student achievement and components needed to be in place to get there. To do this, she partnered with VanHorn Educational Consultants. Here is her experience, in her words…
“VanHorn Educational Consultants (VHEC) was able to offer quick help with meetings with me and my staff to regain focus. In addition, observations and follow-up feedback was invaluable to help me focus my time on where instructional support was most needed.
In addition to the focus meetings and observations, VHEC BLT meeting facilitation and coaching changed the protocols, developed processes using agreed up norms, focused on building agendas ahead of time, including formative and summative assessment data, and ultimately turned BLT meetings from a compliance activity into valued work time focusing on improving teaching and learning using evidenced based strategies. Staff actually looked forward to the BLT’s as meaningful use of time.
VHEC was able to offer guidance in implementing the MTSS process into BLT’s. VHEC proved to a critical friend to me along the way, offering a level of honesty and brutal truth at times for the sake of the students. The trust in the working relationship was built early in the work together and it allowed for these tough conversations to happen and gave me the time and confidence to confront them.
The 2019-2020 school year was a transition for the school from online only instruction to direct instruction in the classrooms. The support from VHEC gave both me and my staff an opportunity to reflect on observations and then determine what PD and focus we needed to take as a school as well as each classroom teacher.
VHEC embedded themselves in the school day to provide this support. BRCPHS was on the verge of closure and HAD TO IMPROVE. As a result of this support, the graduation rate increased dramatically and the number of students who earned credits toward graduation increased as well.
VHEC provided support to complete the ONE NEEDS assessment and guided me through the narrative section which was accepted without having changes mandated.
VHEC attended, facilitated, or coached every staff meeting, every BLT, and provided the principal with constructive feedback to keep the progress of our school moving forward. The feedback was positive reinforcement, even in the face of needing improvement. That made it easy to keep focused and lead the school differently.
VHEC transitioned to the COVID environment and continued to support the staff and leadership with the same level of commitment as they had seen in the earlier part of the school year.”