It is a bright, crisp, Saturday morning at Dewey International Studies Elementary School, a magnet school in St. Louis, Missouri. The doors are open, and the commotion begins as preservice teachers from the local university arrive, arms laden with materials and activities. The principal, Ann Russek, meets the preservice teachers and their university faculty supervisor at the back door. At 9 a.m., more than 50 energetic K-5 students and their parents will arrive for the first session of an 8-week course of Saturday school. At noon, the principal will prepare lunch for the Saturday students. She will end the day greeting parents as they pick up their children. Saturday school is a great way to have informal conversations with families and to make sure the school building gets used six days a week!
This program, part of a partnership between Dewey and the University of Missouri-St. Louis, began four years ago with funds from a U.S. Department of Education Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant. The teacher preparation program at the university requires its students to spend a full year in a classroom. The first semester, a 120-hour internship, places students with a classroom teacher one full day each week under university faculty supervision. The second semester is a more traditional student-teaching semester in which students work in the same classroom five days a week. Many students at the university work during the week, and some have families. The Saturday classes are an appealing alternative for completing their internship.
Instead of a classroom teacher being assigned to each preservice teacher, the university faculty member, her assistant, and the principal (all certified teachers) provide the supervision. The children come to school from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Preservice teachers are the classroom teachers, setting the rules, pacing the instruction, planning the activities, and assessing the students' work.
The eight-week curriculum is centered on projects. With help from the preservice teachers, children choose project topics that frequently relate to the community around the school. The location of Dewey offers rich community assets. For example, many students choose to do projects about animals because the St. Louis Zoo is in walking distance. When the school was temporarily relocated for building maintenance, student projects revolved around Soulard Market, the oldest farmer's market west of the Mississippi River. Students research their topics and share what they learn in a variety of ways, such as through research papers, plays, and artistic representations. Topics have ranged from a study of marine life, to the many uses of apples, to the westward expansion and the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Everybody Wins
St. Louis Public Schools is weighed down with the typical struggles of a large urban district: low test scores, a diverse population, a high number of children living in poverty, and constant administrative changes. However, Dewey makes a point of celebrating its students and their diverse backgrounds. This program would not be possible without the families' dedication to the school and Principal Russek's dedication to the families.
Russek believes that her students deserve more than the district can give—more field trips, more instructional time, more hands-on and authentic experiences, and more practice for the all-important state tests. Opening the school on Saturday gives participating students these benefits. The program also enables Russek to see potential new teachers in action. Many of the Saturday interns return to Dewey the next semester for student teaching and later as classroom teachers.
Besides becoming acquainted with a potential future employer, the interns benefit from intensive practice leading a classroom. An additional requirement also gives them in-depth knowledge of community assets. Because the eight weeks of Saturday school do not give the preservice teachers enough hours to fulfill their internship requirement, they also complete volunteer hours at local community-based education agencies. Many work at the St. Louis Science Center or the Missouri Botanical Gardens where they learn about the facility and deliver education to the public.
Getting Started
When this program first began, some feared that elementary students in a large, urban school district would not want to come to school on Saturday. There were concerns that parents who relied on the school bus system during the week would not be able to arrange transportation. University faculty worried that preservice teachers would not participate in a Saturday class in which they would have to be the teacher, instead of just a helper as was typical in other internships.
Despite these worries, the program took off. At Dewey, a single flyer sent home elicited more than enough responses for the program to move forward. At the university, preservice teachers in early childhood and elementary education registered for the new internship option. On a warm October morning in 2004, Saturday school began with a full complement of 50 children and 12 interns, and 50 more students were on a waiting list.
Immediately, the Dewey students realized that Saturdays would be quite different from their weekday instruction. First, their teachers were college students. Second, hands-on projects, field trips, and experiments replaced the traditional seatwork. Team teaching, with two preservice teachers and no more than 12 students in a classroom allowed for individualized instruction.
Many of the university students had never worked in a classroom before. However, Principal Russek noted that their lack of experience was actually a good thing because they brought fresh ideas and insights. They were excited at the prospect of organizing their own classroom and teaching their own students. Russek was on site each week, along with university faculty, to provide guidance and disciplinary support.
Choosing School
The excitement was infectious, and attendance for Saturday school soared. Students dared not miss a day for fear they would lose their coveted spot to someone on the waiting list. Some families told stories of taking multiple public buses to get their children to Dewey.
Saturday school was a top priority because it was different from the weekly grind. Less stress, less anxiety, and less emphasis on the state test scores created a completely different atmosphere. The attitudes and behaviors of the students changed. The students felt empowered, independent, and successful. They were in charge of their own projects that they would present on the last day of the program, and they took this responsibility seriously.
Most important, the Dewey students began to realize that school and education can be fun. Test scores at Dewey are rising, and attitudes are changing.
Eight weeks flew by, and warm days turned cool. On the last Saturday of the program, families attended Saturday school to see what their children had learned. The students were ready to present the fruits of their eight weeks of labor. The students demonstrated how all the fun they had experienced on Saturdays translated into serious learning. When they were weighing and measuring ingredients for pumpkin pies and muffins, they were also learning important math concepts. While they were reading poetry, composing short stories, and reflecting in their journals, they were practicing handwriting, defending an opinion, and expressing a point of view—all skills addressed on the state tests.
The final Saturday was a day of celebration. Families toured the classrooms. Each preservice teacher displayed what his or her students had learned during the semester and provided a family activity for parents to do with their children. Families picked up their child's work and obtained feedback from the preservice teacher. In these authentic interactions with families, preservice teachers were getting practice for parent-teacher conferences in their own future classrooms. After touring the classrooms, families gathered in the cafeteria for a pizza lunch and a chance to win attendance and door prizes. The one question on everyone's mind was, When do we sign up for next semester?
Sustaining the Partnership
Each semester, everyone in the partnership has learned new lessons. The university has streamlined the experience for the preservice teachers so they are ready to go when they get to Dewey on the first day. Dewey has recruitment down to an art, with some students participating all four years. Admission is on a first-come, first-served basis; however, because the principal wants to maintain consistency within the program, she holds spots for children who come every year. Each semester, more Dewey students sign up than the program can accommodate, but fortunately, more university students also register for the Saturday internship each semester. In spring 2008, the program even included a foreign exchange student from Korea who led a physical education class, something he did not have the opportunity to do when preparing to teach physical education in Korea.
The university has the responsibility for recruiting the preservice teachers, and the university faculty provides oversight. Any other expenses, including the snacks and materials, are covered by Dewey. Because a large number of children at Dewey qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, the district food service company provides the lunch.
This program is so important to all the partners—and especially to the children and families at Dewey—that as the federal dollars used to launch the program ended, other funds were secured to continue Saturday school. With Dewey open on Saturday, other university courses could send students to complete field hours there. Undergraduate students studying assessment completed several standardized screenings with the children. A graduate reading improvement course met at Dewey then.
A grant from the Parsons Blewett Foundation provides funds for a reading clinic through which district teachers can earn their reading certification at the Saturday school. As a result, the children in the Saturday school received individualized reading instruction, and district teachers learned some of the latest strategies for teaching reading.
Schools that can team up with universities, colleges, and community colleges definitely reap rewards. Having a new, fresh perspective will not only get students excited, but also kick-start the creativity of seasoned teachers. Classrooms will come to life while test scores climb—and maybe, students will fall in love with school again.
