A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Hawley Environmental Elementary School
Milwaukee Public Schools
Milwaukee, Wis.

Key Programs: City-wide Environmental School

Background

Hawley Environmental School in Milwaukee is a small, rectangular two-story brick building, bordered on three sides by streets and on the fourth by a paved playground with playground equipment dominated by a low wooden bridge. Strips of "prairie" (narrow beds between the sidewalk and the building) must have been a riot of color before a recent freeze turned the many flowers dry and brown. The surrounding neighborhood consists of well-kept, two-story brick and frame houses typical of the middle-class areas of Milwaukee. The majority of the 330 students who attend Hawley ride buses from all parts of the city. Under Milwaukee's School Choice Program, their parents had the opportunity to indicate their first, second, and third choice of district schools and have their child?s name entered into a lottery to determine which of those schools they could attend.

The entrance to the school is guarded by a security system that requires visitors to push a button and identify themselves. The drab brown exterior of the building, the frozen flower beds, and the concrete sidewalks and streets are in sharp contrast to the inside of the building. Brightly colored exuberant flowers, drawn and painted by children in the style of Georgia O?Keefe, hang in the halls. Bright child-made drawings fired on tiles surround the door to the school office. Student work and colorful murals and maps grace every available vertical surface. It is only on closer examination that the age of the building is revealed. Highly polished wooden stairs are worn by the footsteps of thousands of children. On the walls of the stair landings are hung framed poster-sized prints of Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, and O?Keefe. Children and adults move purposefully between rooms and the buzz of children learning can be heard from the open classroom doors.

A greenhouse has been added to the outside wall of one of the classrooms designated as the Environmental Education Resource Room. Although a cool wind was blowing outside and children were wearing their coats as they played on the playground, the greenhouse was blooming with flowers and plants. Potting soil and equipment were ready to begin growing the seeds for transplanting into the prairie strips next spring.

Population Served

Among the 330 students at Hawley, 56 percent are African American, two percent are Asian American, 12 percent are Hispanic, 27 percent are white, and two percent are from other racial or ethnic groups. Seventy-one percent of the students come from families that meet free or reduced-price lunch criteria. The students come from homes in many Milwaukee neighborhoods that are challenged by poverty. Some of the students ride a bus for as long as two hours to and from school. Because it is not a neighborhood, but a city-wide school (like 19 other Milwaukee public schools), it is especially difficult for parents of children from the many neighborhoods in the city to be present in the school on a daily or a weekly basis.

Academic Improvement

In 1998, student achievement at Hawley exceeded the state average on both state tests and nationally-normed assessments. In addition, 100 percent of students in third grade passed the Wisconsin Reading Comprehension Test in 1998 (See Table 10) compared with only 25 percent passing throughout the Milwaukee Public Schools. Fifth-grade Iowa Test of Basic Skills (a nationally-normed achievement test) math scores have shown steady upward movement for the past 10 years, now with 89 percent scoring at or above the national average. Fourth and fifth-grade scores on the state writing assessment were near 100 percent passing until the assessment was changed in 1995, and are now hovering near the state average as teachers align curriculum and instruction to the new assessment. These results were in dramatic contrast to the level of achievement when Robert Helminiak became the principal at Hawley in 1989. The use of different standards and assessments make comparisons difficult; however, teachers report that student achievement was low and discipline problems were substantial.

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction reported that in 1997-98, the reading performance of students at Hawley Environmental School exceeded all other schools in Wisconsin with similar levels of poverty. In fact, the school?s performance in reading exceeded the statewide average. The school?s performance in mathematics was similarly impressive. (See Table 11)

Table 10: Percent Proficient on Wisconsin Reading Comp. Test at Hawley Environmental School

Table 11: Hawley Environmental School Students at or Above Proficiency Level in Reading and Math

* Based on CTB Terra Nova Multiple Assessments and Wisconsin proficiency standards

Starting Points

Robert Helminiak, the current principal, told of his first visit to the school after he was appointed principal nine years ago in 1989. The gym was idle outside of regular physical education activities. Children were not allowed to use the mini park on the playground because they were jumping off the low wooden bridge, risking injury to themselves or others.

There were frequent complaints from bus drivers about the behavior of students on the buses. Children entered the school after long bus rides that may have been chaotic and possibly even dangerous. Teachers then had to try to restore order and teach children who were still caught up in the incidents that had occurred on the bus coming to school.

One of Helminiak?s first actions as principal was to ask the teachers to list three things they liked about the school and three things that needed improvement. The teachers responded that they liked the environmental studies, the smallness of the school, and the location of the school. Several of the teachers listed "discipline, discipline, discipline" as the areas needing improvement. Also listed by others was the "atrocious look of the school." Because so many teachers were concerned about student discipline, Helminiak asked for volunteers to serve with him on a Discipline Committee. The committee developed some simple guidelines that, at first, were top-heavy with adult control. Initially, Helminiak took responsibility for making the discipline plan work; however, as described in the next section, roles changed with time.

A School Beautification Committee also began work at the same time as the Discipline Committee. While the committee had the support of Helminiak, he was clear about his priorities. He said, "You?re not going to like what I say, but I?m more concerned with what?s going on with the kids. If you can do something about this building to make it look more attractive, I can talk with the engineers, I can talk with the custodians and get them to clean this building up." The Beautification Committee had many discussions, but the school chose to invest their resources in ways that would directly affect student achievement. Nevertheless, the building is neat and clean, with flower beds all around the outside, fresh white paint, and colorful murals and maps.

Changing the School Climate

The school staff at Hawley worked well together as a professional team focused clearly on improving student achievement. This culture has evolved during the past 10 years. Helminiak explained that when he arrived, a fourth of the teachers had just retired. Helminiak seized this opportunity to start anew and the entire staff started working toward becoming a cohesive unit that functioned with the clear purpose of making Hawley a successful school. This was not a quick and easy process. Helminiak related that at first many teachers did not feel comfortable letting their opinions be heard, but he expressed to them his philosophy, "No one person knows all the answers." He demonstrated that he valued everyone?s ideas and expertise.

Helminiak?s easy-going personality inspired confidence in his staff and students that the thorniest problems could be corrected through dedication and collaboration around the issue. In this way he encouraged the staff to bring out ideas and take initiative for their implementation. School personnel have responded positively.

For instance, five years ago, when a full-time position became a possibility for the part-time reading resource teacher, Helminiak challenged the reading teacher to take the initiative. "I told him, ?If you want to become full-time, it?s not up to me, it?s up to all of us. It?s a committee decision. You have to sell yourself. What are you going to do to show them that this school will not be successful if you?re not here full-time?? He [the reading teacher] accepted the challenge."

Helminiak described his leadership style in a colorful manner:

I will not succumb to the goose theory of taking care of programs. The goose theory is that you come in with an idea, you poop it out on my desk, you fluff your feathers, and you walk out, and you leave me there to carry it out. I don?t do that ? not anymore. I can?t. I just can?t. So if a person comes in with an idea, I say, "How are you going to solve that? What are you going to do to market it? What are you going to do to get support from other people? Are there other people already that support this idea? How come they?re not here with you? Let?s talk about that. What can we do?"

One of the ways in which Helminiak helped staff focus on student achievement was by taking responsibility for student discipline. As mentioned above, the Discipline Committee established guidelines that were top-heavy with control from the principal. When the guidelines were in place, Helminiak said to the teachers, "If you want me to do this, I will do it, because I want you to teach." He explained that he ended up becoming a very gruff individual, so he began the process of helping students learn to follow the simple guidelines that had been collaboratively developed.

At the same time the principal was helping children learn the new behavior guidelines, he was also developing an intramural program for fourth and fifth graders that takes place before lunch every day. This program became a venue for developing leadership and teamwork among the oldest students in the school, as well as a privilege that they had to give up as a consequence of disruptive classroom behavior. Helminiak related:

We were able to reach the fourth and fifth graders who are the leaders in this school. And the kids found out they didn?t have to be streetwise to be here. It wasn?t necessary. They could be themselves. They found that this was truly a safe place even though they might be coming from one of the toughest neighborhoods in the city. They didn?t have to act that way here. It was really comfortable for them.

The discipline plan initiated nine years ago has evolved into a much different form of student self-responsibility over the years, made possible by the relationships that have developed among the students, and between students and staff. Helminiak pointed out, "That strict discipline only works so long, then the kids say, ?I?ve had enough.?" Six years ago Hawley took advantage of a program, "Prevention is Kid Stuff," offered by the Milwaukee Drug and Alcohol Council which provided a social worker to the school for one year. Then Hawley used their own funds to keep her another half year. Among other activities, the social worker engaged the children in developing 10 simple school rules that are still part of the school culture. Now each year the teachers meet with the students to update and create a sense of ownership of the rules. Closely associated with the student rules is a program of peer mediation that the current social worker has continued. One of the members of the school steering committee said:

I think we?re looking at kids who are coming from some really tough, tough neighborhoods and some very dysfunctional [homes]. These kids come here and know that this is their safe haven. It?s more than just a school; it is their family. They get support from the reading resource teacher, the social worker, from paraprofessionals, through peer mediation, and through their teacher. There?s always a support system built for these kids.

Changing Academic Instruction

Although Hawley had been identified as an environmental school for some time before Helminiak arrived, the curriculum had not reflected a consistent focus on the environment. Helminiak had applied for a transfer from another Milwaukee elementary school to Hawley, citing his background and interest in wildlife preservation. Prior to Helminiak?s arrival at Hawley, new teachers were assigned to the school based on a seniority system, with no requirement for expertise in science or environmental studies. The school staff, led by the principal, set about incorporating environmental studies into the curriculum, but there was concern about how to do that. As Helminiak said:

So I said, ?We need to be patient. Make it a mind set. You can involve environmental issues with everything you?re teaching. We can write a curriculum that is user-friendly to you and that will help you.? We broke it into the four units of study. But rather than making it so involved, we just list the instructional activities that complement the objective and where we can find the resources. This way, we have a skeletal structure and which page in the science text complements it, and so on. So we did that for each grade level.

Later, the Milwaukee school district required that curriculum be integrated with the School-to-Work Program. All of the staff members worked on the plan to integrate environmental education with School-to-Work. Discussing this adjustment to their plans, Helminiak said, "If we already have our focus on environmental studies, what types of workforce complements that? So we lean more toward city government, environmental engineers, engineers of all types, and different horticulturists?. We started expanding our vision into the arena of environmental careers."

Hawley has incorporated their focus on the environment and environmental careers into an educational plan to address student achievement. The current educational plan is constantly reviewed and revised. According to a member of the campus steering committee:

On certain staff planning days we sit down with the staff and go over it line by line. We used to do an awful lot more when we were creating the plan. We would break the staff into smaller groups and each one of us [steering committee members] would take a group and discuss each of those issues and develop the plan. But now, we?re looking at lines and we?re saying, ?Yes we do that. No, we don?t do that. Why aren?t we doing that? Does this still belong in there? Is it a valid statement to have in our plan??

The process of incorporating environmental education into the curriculum, then expanding that into environmental careers, then including these activities into an educational plan for student achievement on state and district assessments, has served to strongly focus the attention of the whole school staff on teaching and learning. A Milwaukee Public Schools central office administrator, referring to the success at Hawley, observed:

I happen to believe that most schools that excel have a very strong focus. And in the ones that don?t, people spend their time fighting over what they should be doing, whether it?s environmental education, or the arts, or Montessori, or language immersion, or whatever. Schools that excel have a culture that says, ?This is what we do.? They don?t spend a lot of time arguing over what they?re going to do. They spend their time instead trying to improve their craft.

The staff at Hawley has developed systems of support to ensure that students who come to the school lacking skills or who are struggling to master the curriculum get the assistance they need. A Comprehensive Support Team (CST)—consisting of the principal, reading resource teacher, social worker, school psychologist, speech therapist, and two classroom teachers—meets with the parents and the referring teacher to determine how to support a referred child?s learning. The team discusses how to support the classroom teacher in addressing the child?s educational needs. According to Helminiak, the key component is having regular education teachers on the team. The school social worker pointed out that support is provided before the child is referred.

But you know, in a school like Hawley, there are a lot of interventions normally in place before the kid comes to the CST. They work one-on-one with volunteers or paraprofessionals in small groups. We have a reading resource teacher. Sometimes they have been to see the psychologist or me. So there are a lot of things tried before a kid comes to CST. Then there is always a review date. We come back together to see how these interventions have progressed.

All of the staff interviewed acknowledged the support provided by the reading resource teacher, including small group instruction, assistance with data analysis and interpretation, and support as teachers implement a new reading series. A third-grade teacher said:

We had some other reading resource teachers who never mentioned it [ideas about improving classroom reading instruction] to us. But with the reading resource teacher we have now, we talk more, get together more, and talk about strategies and things we can do to improve achievement.

The teachers also discussed the importance of the support they received from paraprofessionals and teacher aides who were hired in response to teacher's request for classroom help. The main purpose has been to give the teachers the extra help that they need in the classroom so they can fully dedicate themselves to student learning. Helminiak said:

We have one classroom that is always a four-five split [a class composed of both fourth and fifth-grade students.] We couldn?t eliminate the split class. So, we decided to get a paraprofessional to work with and help that teacher, because there are such varied learning styles. That worked out really well.

It is important to point out that according to a central district administrator, Hawley does not have nearly as many educational assistants as most Milwaukee Public Schools. They have focused on carefully selecting individuals who are well qualified, and who could fit in with the school?s culture of teamwork and focus on student achievement.

Hawley has developed an extended-time program to address student needs. The Hawley After-School Math Club for fourth and fifth-grade students was organized because of the low achievement of some students. The group meets weekly, with the busing schedule adjusted to allow this extra time at school. The school social worker is an integral part of the club. He said:

As a social worker...it is nice to know that I can have some impact upon academics. Not only do I do the after school math block, [but] when kids are in need of homework help, I am the liaison between the school, the home, and the community, finding programs where they can [get help] in their immediate neighborhood. He [Helminiak] knew that it was an interest of mine, and he said, ?Hey, why don?t you try something in the after school program?? A lot of principals won?t allow you to do something different, so this is unique.

The extended-day program is not only a Hawley initiative, but also a part of a district-wide effort to increase the time students spend learning. Alan Brown, the Milwaukee Public Schools superintendent, explained, "One of the things we are working on is extended school day programs. We think that?s really important and we are out raising the dollars through our foundation and through federal dollars to put more extended school day programs in place."

Similarly, the district is attempting to increase the time students spend learning by providing summer school. The superintendent stated:

We?ve brought summer school back. They dropped summer school for financial reasons. Last year, we had a remedial summer school program for the first time in about six or seven years. The program has really made a difference in the district. People are already looking forward to it next year because we are going to add enrichment programs. Our funding has not improved, but we just renewed that commitment and restructured the budget to find the money.

Data-Driven Instruction

By working together to integrate the curriculum and develop the educational plan, the staff at Hawley became a team of professionals who were confident in their ability to bring students to high levels of academic achievement. This confidence grew as the principal and steering committee continued to encourage innovative thinking, facilitate collaboration among the staff, and ensure that the staff was keeping abreast of current educational research and teaching methods. At the same time, the Milwaukee school district has provided time for professional development through an optional system they call "banking," where students come to school 10 minutes earlier on a daily basis and the extra time is "banked" to provide five professional development days per year. A central office administrator elaborated, "If you?re going to do any of these things that really improve quality of instruction, you can?t do it after school or on the weekends."

Hawley opted to participate in this system, and used the "banked" time for planning and professional development, in addition to their use of after-school times and some Saturdays. A member of the Hawley steering committee took responsibility for conducting an annual comprehensive needs assessment for professional development. The Milwaukee Public Schools provided some professional development activities that responded to identified needs. Teachers could either earn in-service credit that would result in a move up the pay scale or apply for graduate credit from one of the local universities. However, as related by the central office administrator:

They [Hawley staff] have really done a lot of professional development themselves. They bring people from other schools, they use the talents of their own people, and he [Helminiak] has brought in some people from the Department of Natural Resources, and different outside groups that are into environmental education. Heavily, they?ve used their own and other teachers.

As the Hawley staff participated in professional development, they learned about the national shift to the use of standards to drive instruction and assessments to measure the attainment of those standards. A member of the steering committee said:

We had been doing the third-grade state reading test for Wisconsin and it became very evident that children had to have specific skills if they were going to succeed at that test. The Milwaukee school district contracted with a group to assure that the curriculum being taught in classrooms was aligned with state assessments. I think we were just ahead of the game because we took a look at where we were and would always examine the results of our tests. We were asking, 'Where are we strong, and why? Where are we weak, and why?' We started to look and talk with staff and say, 'What can you do in your room? Or, how can first grade support this [concept]?'

The state assessments required adjustments to the environmental curriculum, also. The environmental education instructor pointed out:

When I started four years ago, we were focused on an environmental education curriculum that was broad and not necessarily concept-driven. Once we started getting tested for many of these concepts, we took a look at what we were doing in the school. We said, ?Hey, in order to do these environmental projects, such as talking about land and wetlands and going camping, the kids really need to know the basics of science, including physical science, earth science, and especially the biological sciences we stress here.

The staff also took responsibility for assuring that students were able to demonstrate their knowledge on different types of assessments. The Wisconsin science assessment is a performance-based test, requiring students to apply science concepts to real problems. As related by the environmental education instructor:

Last year during a bank day [one of the professional development days] we actually had the teachers take the [fifth-grade] science assessment. It was so different from what we were used to. It wasn?t multiple choice, fill in the blank, or matching. There was a prompt at the beginning, and they had to walk through either the whole experiment or part of the experiment. Because I had helped score these, I knew what they were looking for. It was really hard to explain to the teachers. But once all the teachers took a look at the test the fifth graders had to take, everybody came up with their own ideas, such as, ?Well, maybe I could do graphing in first grade.?

Indeed, examples of this graphing were seen posted in the hallways outside the first-grade classrooms.

Changing the Organization of Schooling

In the past, Hawley had used their Chapter 1 [now Title I] federal education funds to provide pull-out remedial programs for reading and math. Then for a two-year period, Hawley received no Chapter I funding. In 1994 the Milwaukee school district began allocating the federal Title I funds to more of the district schools, and Hawley became a Title I schoolwide program. The Hawley staff took advantage of the increased flexibility that federal regulations granted to schoolwide programs and used their Title I funds to improve the whole school, incorporating their Title I plans in their educational plan for the whole school. A year earlier, the district had "decentralized," giving schools more authority over their budgets. Helminiak discussed decentralization as one of the key influences upon the school?s success. He said:

...[Decentralization is] allowing us to have a little bit more say about what goes on in our building. We don?t have enough yet, but decentralization is allowing us to be able to use the people in our building to develop our own budget. If it weren?t for that, we would have never gotten the reading resource teacher in here full time. He was only half time our first three years. That was a very major issue....Currently, the reading teacher is also the part-time librarian and part-time Title I coordinator. Decentralization allowed for that flexibility in the use of resources.

Alan Brown, the district superintendent, pointed out that all schools had not responded to decentralization as constructively as Hawley:

Some schools elected to hire more security, not realizing that the better performing your children are, the more well-behaved they will be. Some schools just completely missed the boat on that and that?s where we are backing them up a little bit and saying, "You?ve got it all wrong." So Hawley was one of them who saw the big picture and the long term and hired a reading resource person.

The staff at Hawley has also chosen to combine their Title I federal education funds with local funds to incorporate technology into classroom instruction. There was no room in the building for a computer lab, so the school is in the process of installing computers in every classroom and providing the necessary professional development for teachers to integrate technology into their curriculum and instruction. A third-grade teacher, who has taught at Hawley for 21 years, said:

One thing I can say about my principal, he does not mind spending money for the kids to support good achievement. When they mentioned computers in the classroom, he was all for it. Now we have them in third, fourth, and fifth grade. You don?t see that in a lot of schools. Teachers here were willing to do what was necessary to become computer literate, too. We are getting ready to put the Internet in all of our classrooms, too. We had to take an Internet class.

Changing the Relationships with Parents and Community

With such a large percentage of students riding buses from all over the city of Milwaukee to attend Hawley, there are challenges to parent involvement that neighborhood schools don't face. Hawley incorporated their own philosophy of parent involvement into their program. As recalled by one of the Steering Committee members, "We always say, 'you don?t have to be here to be supportive; all you have to do is support the things that we try to do here.' It's really amazing. I can't begin to tell you how many times—I'd say 95 percent of the time—there?s a problem, the parent will tell me, 'Thank you. Thank you for telling me about this.'"

This kind of relationship with parents does not happen accidentally, however. The staff and the Parent Council, worked as a team to bring parents together to develop this supportive relationship and to get to know each other. To improve attendance at parent meetings, they initiated the "Hawley Family Nights." As recalled by one of the Steering Committee members:

The biggest problem we had was not being able to have parents here. They were trying to get some supper, then get here in time for the meeting, and so they just didn't make it. So we said, 'Let's just eliminate that part by feeding everybody first.' We took it out of Title I money. What happens is, we meet, we eat, kids get a chance to go outside or to the gym and watch a quality movie and the parents have a chance to share. We ask them, 'This is what is happening at our school. What do you think? What do you want?' If we can't solve a problem or an issue that a parent might bring up at those meetings, they can take it to our council. They are invited to our council meetings to see if we can get their idea implemented.

An aide who started her association with Hawley nine years ago, after working as a parent volunteer in another school, described a parent involvement project that she produced annually:

My project every year is an all-school skating party. The school sponsors everyone at a roller-skating rink and we have great family participation. We'd have upwards of 300 people come, which is a really nice turnout. It shows the grownups that you can make time to spend with your kids and not have it be painful....Sometimes being a parent walking into a school can be really intimidating, and to put the parents and the staff together in that sort of environment helps to break down those feelings really fast. When you're falling down in that roller rink side by side, there are no walls at the end of that evening.

In order to assure parent participation in schools and school policy decisions, the Milwaukee School District now requires that schools have a Parent Council. At Hawley the transition from Parent-Teachers Association, to Parent Advisory Council, and then to Parent Council, as it is now called, has been a smooth one. Describing that transition, a parent said:

One of the main things that the PTA did was fund-raisers. Certainly that's still something that we're involved with as a council, but it is much more than that. We're taking a look at the hard issues for parents and some of the hard issues for kids. The question has come up about uniforms. Do we want a uniform policy here? How do we involve parents and kids to get feedback for that? One of the things that the district said it wants to do is reward schools that are successful by allowing them to expand. That's one thing that we'd like to do, but there?s no room, you can see. How do we communicate with the administration to say, 'We're not going to stop pushing for expansion...because we think it is something that's good for our kids?'

The parent who chaired the Parent Council said:

Those are some of the things that we are looking at doing, and part of it has to be redefining how we want to work. What kind of relationship do we want to have with other parents, from other schools as well as from here? We have about 50 parents that voted and we have 300 families. How do we make sure that parents see that the council really is designed to reflect not just what I think or what somebody else thinks, but what direction the parents want to go?

Conclusions

Every staff member and parent interviewed mentioned that Hawley is a city-wide school and that children come to the school in the early grades and stay there through fifth grade. Regardless of where a family moves within the district, busing is still available to bring them to Hawley. The district's commitment to busing Milwaukee students to a city-wide school requires considerable resources. The staff emphasized that this stability has a lot to do with the success of the school. The staff members know the students well; they know their students' older brothers and sisters and they know their families. Teachers have many opportunities to talk with each other about learning styles of students, what interventions have been tried, and what next steps to take with students who are struggling. Parents have at least taken the steps to select Hawley as one of three choices for their child, representing an investment in a partnership with the school in their child's education.

[Goodale Elementary School]

[Lora B. Peck Elementary School]