School-Site Spotlight: Roosevelt Elementary

Our first Mills Teacher Scholars School-site partner, Roosevelt Elementary School, has just begun its fourth year of work with our program. Roosevelt teachers recently gathered for their initial meeting, facilitated by their amazing teacher scholar leaders (Cynthia Epps, Wendy Papciak, and Kenny Moy) who are adapting meeting agendas to respond to the specific feedback from their colleagues around how the inquiry work could best suit their professional development goals. Twelve Roosevelt teachers—70% of the staff—self-selected to join the Roosevelt Mills Teacher Scholars group this year.

The first teacher-designed, teacher-led School-site Scholars meeting

The Roosevelt teacher scholar leaders received feedback that their colleagues were interested in incorporating video footage of a colleague’s classroom into their Mills Teacher Scholars meetings. Roosevelt principal, Vctoria Forrester, responded to the interest and video taped Lauren Lipka’s students. Thus, the kick-off meeting, which was led by the teachers, featured a video of two students having a writing conference about revising a poem.  Viewing the video at the MTS meeting fostered a conversation among teacher scholars about the challenges of scaffolding a thoughtful, student-led conversation. Teachers discussed the tension between being explicit and being directive in this type of learning activity.

In the future, Roosevelt teacher scholar leaders plan to incorporate relevant academic readings in order to deepen their understanding of their inquiry topics. With the continued support of our Mills Teacher Scholars staff, their experienced teacher leaders, and their principal, Victoria Forrester, Roosevelt is primed for a fruitful year of teacher learning!