Great things happening at local schools

  To lighten my uneasiness about this commentary, here's a full disclosure. This column speaks directly about the school that bears my name. Except for that tag, I view it like any other Yuma County school. I have no influence in its happenings or personnel. (OK, the latter contains a small fib. I encouraged my wife to accept a position there. She wanted to teach for Principal Laurie Doering.)

  If you ignore the terrible fiscal conditions facing Yuma County school districts, local schools have enjoyed a collective great year. Their successes climaxed recently.

  Some 850 Rotarians, teachers, inductees into the Education Foundation of Yuma County Hall of Fame, sponsors, family and friends jammed the Yuma Civic Center for the Teacher of the Year banquet. It has, for 21 consecutive years, been Arizona's largest public gathering honoring teachers.

  Yuma County teachers, regardless of district, have demonstrated that they are among the very finest in the nation. Area teachers are an elite group because local school districts joined forces five years ago to invest in world-class training. Observers apply the label "unprecedented" to the positive impact of the instruction.

  Each March, since 2004, qualified observers have assessed every classroom in eight Yuma County school districts. They determine whether local teachers use the very best instructional practices they learned. Thus, after five years of feedback, we know local teaching has soared. In some schools, instructional practices now approach perfection.

  Get this. Observers previously never assessed a single school across the land where every classroom had students fully engaged in learning the presented instruction. Likewise no school ever had all classroom teachers effectively utilizing every minute of instructional time.

  Never, that is, until March 2008. Three Yuma County schools - yes, three - neared flawlessness. Rancho Viejo Elementary School in Crane and Somerton's Valle del Encanto School were the first in the nation to demonstrate unbroken performance on both measures. Meanwhile, Knox Elementary School teachers also perfected instructional time and hit 96 percent on total student engagement.

  More importantly, over the five years of training and classroom observations, teacher practices countywide have risen remarkably on both measures. Fully engaging students in learning for significant lengths of time went up a county average of 6 percent each year. The effective use of instructional time more than doubled during this time.

  Scores improved despite the high teacher turnover rates in Yuma County schools - typically some 20 percent annually.

  Local student achievement scores historically have lagged behind more affluent and mono-English language students across our nation. But the mounting expertise of local teachers has helped close the gap. Yuma County students have shown remarkable academic gains.

  Several lay community leaders this year were profoundly affected by these improved teacher practices. They had volunteered to decide which teachers to individually salute at the annual Teacher of the Year celebration.

  Unexpectedly, they found that deciding which were the best turned out to be among the most challenging decisions of their lives. The quality of the nominees was so superior, they struggled to score one over another. But they did. This business-community selection committee revealed the results at the banquet.

  Elementary school teachers compete in three categories. One includes kindergarten through third-grade teachers. Another embraces fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade teachers. The third is for special area teachers, a potpourri of, for example, counselors and physical education, special education and art teachers.

  Astoundingly, for two consecutive years, Knox Elementary School teachers have taken one of the three finalist spots in every slot available to them. That's the maximum of six finalists. These finalists competed within a pool of 19 of the county's best.

  Of the six Knox finalists, five emerged on top. They won individual category honors three times and were named Yuma County Teacher of the Year twice.

  How can a school so dominate in this tide of rising countywide teaching successes?

  Studies tell us that the leadership of the principal is the key. In this case while teachers were learning best instructional practices, she (along with her Yuma County peers) was refining her supervisory skills. The training she received enabled her to help her teachers teach even better.

  My wife knew there was something special about Laurie Doering when she transferred to the school.

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Gary Knox is a retired Yuma-area school superintendent and guest columnist for The Sun.