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Eight years ago, only of Palolo Elementary School students met federal math standards. The percentage of students who met reading standards was significantly better, but 11 percent proficiency is not even a dubious accomplishment.

“We were one of the worst elementary schools in the state,” said principal Ruth Silberstein.

Today her school is a model for success.

Palolo turned itself around and since 2007 has been in good standing under federal standards. , 58 percent of Palolo students tested proficient in math — nine percent higher than the statewide average. Sixty-one percent were proficient in reading. It was in the 49-percent minority of Hawaii schools that could boast meeting the benchmarks.

What happened between 2002 and 2007 was a top-to-bottom transformation of the school. The process Palolo went through has a familiar but stigmatized name: “Restructuring.” (Click here to read our companion piece about restructuring schools in Hawaii.)

Silberstein, a nearly 50-year education veteran, has been at Palolo since 2001. She knew then that the school’s test scores were low, but she didn’t realize she was signing up to lead a massive turnaround effort when she took the job.

The initiative involved changing more than curriculum, assessments, schedules and skills, she said. It also involved transforming attitudes toward change, group culture and strategy. And Palolo needed fresh perspectives from outsiders like to identify which areas required the most attention.

Welcome to Palolo

Palolo Elementary School is nestled in the Palolo Valley near Kaimuki and surrounded on two sides by public housing projects. These are populated mostly by non-English-speaking immigrants.

It employs about 20 teachers — 10 of whom had been at Palolo when the school entered restructuring. The faculty had an average of 16 years of teaching experience in 2003.

Poverty and the students’ lack of familiarity with English are two of the most common obstacles for schools that don’t meet federal standards.

Nearly 88 percent of Palolo’s 259 students in 2009 received free or reduced-cost lunches — the most common metric for measuring student poverty. And 131 (51 percent) had limited proficiency in English.

This year, Silberstein said, 97 percent of the school’s students live at or below poverty level and 55 percent are immigrants.

“Because of this, the challenges are very great,” she explained. “That’s why I really commend the teachers for meeting these challenges, which they wouldn’t have to meet if they were in a high-performing school in a community of doctors and lawyers.”

Silberstein was determined not to turn those challenges into excuses, though. She chose to lead her faculty through a bold experiment in embracing change, becoming students of their profession and working as a team. They discovered together that true school reform is about more than changing curricula, collecting new skills and changing the schedule — it’s about transforming group culture.

Embrace Change

“I think the biggest thing to realize when you’re restructuring is, you have to change,” Silberstein said. “Change is necessary — it’s imperative at that point. I think that was the hardest thing for the instructors to accept.”

Some teachers knew it had to come and some had to be coaxed into embracing it, but “eventually I’d say 99 percent knew we had to change,” Silberstein said.

In many cases, it was difficult for teachers to accept that their hard work and long hours weren’t enough. The high level of dedication common among teachers can make it difficult for them to see alternate paths that can yield better results, Silberstain explained. In a strange role reversal, all of the school’s educators — including Silberstein — had to become students of their craft. And they had to be open to correction and guidance.

“All I did was encourage them to openly welcome the external providers,” said Peter Uehara, the complex area superintendent who guided Palolo through restructuring. “We could have done it ourselves within the Hawaii Department of Education, but at the time I think Ruth and I talked it over and said another set of eyes might be good. If you look through the same lens all the time, you’re going to see the same thing.”

“In the case of Palolo, it came down to Ruth making some gutsy decisions and leading her faculty to make that change that was necessary for the school to become the high-performance school they are today,” said Stephen Schatz, who is the current complex area superintendent over the Kaimuki-McKinely-Roosevelt complex area.

Before Palolo entered good standing status, its faculty first went through three external audits and then put the suggestions to use. The first audit, or needs assessment, was performed by , which is now , a public accounting firm. The faculty was skeptical about the findings.

The second audit was performed by the Los Angeles County Office of Education, and it reaffirmed the findings of the first one, Silberstein said. It also resulted in a couple of . One teacher was reassigned to a different grade level and a counselor was encouraged to resign. The first two needs assessments served to “clean us up first,” Silberstein said, and paved the way for schoolwide self-improvement with EdisonLearning, a third-party education company that performed the final audit.

EdisonLearning re-trained Palolo’s faculty in best education practices and guided transformation in other ways by:

• Helping establish a common mission and vision for the school.
• Teaching the faculty to work as a cohesive team.
• Training teachers in how to use data and set specific, measurable goals.
• Leading them through extensive professional development courses.

“Edison was like a catalyst to help us really move forward,” said fourth-grade teacher Anita Silva. “They brought a lot of assessment tools and a lot of people who could offer us help. They were there for whatever we needed and offered tremendous support.”

By the third year of receiving outside help, Palolo had emerged from restructuring. It usually takes between two and five years of this outside support before a school can sustain the gains on its own.

“We’ve learned a lot,” Silberstein said. “I’ve learned a lot. I’m still learning. The change is constant now. The minute you think you’ve come to a balancing point, you learn something new and have to adjust.”

Everyday Decisions

Ask Silberstein or a teacher how the school day has changed and you’re likely to get an overwhelmed sigh and eyes lifted to the ceiling as they try to find a place to begin.

“Everything,” Silberstein said. “Everything — my gosh. It is a total cultural shift. We’re functioning the way we are today because of a change to everything that we did every day. A change of curriculum, a change of the classroom — its appearance — a change of the way we assessed students and a change of interactions with students.”

Teachers at Palolo now spend more time collaborating to ensure they are on the same page and that students experience continuity from grade to grade, she explained. When staff and faculty members go off for training, on their return they are expected to share with others what they learned.

But the school’s three key mechanical changes, Silberstein said, included collaborating more, employing best practices and using assessments more effectively to gauge progress throughout the year.

Other changes:

• The school day now has only one 15-minute recess, as opposed to two before.
• After-school tutoring is available for every grade level.
• Additional classes are offered during most vacations.
• The principal makes weekly visits to every classroom and follows up with written feedback for each teacher, constantly reminding them of best practices.
• Students write constructive responses in math and reading each week to describe what they are learning. Their teachers, the curriculum coordinator and the principal read them and respond with written comments.
• Teachers rely heavily on pacing guides that keep them on schedule with the standards they are supposed to teach throughout the year.
• Teachers administer monthly assessments to their students.

Edison representatives still come through on occasion to ensure things are running smoothly and to help faculty members refine their goals and lesson plans.

Perhaps most important, Silva said, Palolo teachers use all of these things to engage in more self-reflection and strategic planning for both themselves and each of their students.

“We call it redeeming the individual student,” Silberstein said. “After teachers administer their monthly formative assessment, they develop a plan per-student.”

“There’s lot more scaffolding in the lesson plans — a lot more differentiation so we can meet the individual needs of the children,” Silva explained.

Rising Expectations

Palolo has room to improve still. And although she never thought the school would make it so far so fast, Silberstein and her teachers feel proud and confident about the future.

“I’ll just tell you that from the time I’ve been here till now, my expectations have risen, of myself and of the kids,” second-grade teacher Sandra Kanemura said. “This is how I can see it. In the past, I used to buy second grade (books) and below, and now I’m finding that I’m buying second grade and above, because they’re capable.”

Silva said the changes would never have been possible without teamwork among the teachers and a strong commitment to improving student achievement.

“Whatever they told us to do, we did,” she said. “If the powers that be said it, we did it, and we did it with fidelity to the programs suggested. Fidelity is very important.The teachers did it and we did see the gains today.”