GRAND CENTRAL STATION
Bullard intermediate, middle school present new program to board
By Lori Mellinger editor@bullardnews.com

"No more random acts of improvement."

That's what intermediate schoolteacher Pam Frederick told school trustees at last month's board meeting.

"This quote was one we learned in training, and I think it rings true," Frederick said.

To that end, Frederick and Lori Kern are teamed up in what they believe will be a winning combination for struggling intermediate and middle school students.

The two have been on the road a lot recently - at training seminars - and now that their project is in full swing, they're excited to see the results.

Bullard intermediate and middle school campuses joined the more than 90 other campuses in Texas that are now offering a program called Grand Central Station (GCS).

And Kern and Frederick are the lead GCS teachers on the two campuses.

GCS, Frederick said, evolved from years of watching struggling students give up on school and finally give up on themselves.

"As struggling learners reach intermediate and middle school, increased workloads and organizational demands often trigger a predictable downward spiral: failure, lowered selfesteem, anxiety, anger, behavior problems, shut-down," she said she learned in training.

Frederick said educators, parents, and community partners addressed this by asking themselves, "If we could build the ideal supportive environment for struggling learners, what would it look like?"

Kern said GCS was created to be the ideal safety net for atrisk secondary students, activating organizational and systemic structures to ensure each student's success through on-going assessment of individual learning needs, structure and accountability for academic progress, and tracking/communication mechanisms that ensure implementation at school and home.

In other words, it's a whole new approach to learning.

Kern and Frederick meet with individual teachers every week - on their respective campuses - to assess the progress or lack thereof of students.

"One of the essentials of this program is the collaboration between teachers and lab personnel," Kern said. "Through our communication, we are able to identify those students who - through certain weaknesses - are not doing well in core subjects.

"Once we determine there is a weakness, we put our heads together to decide how best to help the student."

Core subjects are math, history, science and language arts.

While five students in the intermediate program and seven in the middle school one may seem low, Kern said it's set up that way for a reason.

"The program is designed for labs to start small, to get a grasp of the process, then building up to help as many students as possible," she said.

Admission is set up by the guideline that a student must have a failing grade in one of the core subject areas; however, Kern said, this can't be because of behavioral or attendance issues.

Kern and Frederick - with the aid of the teachers - try to ascertain what may be the underlying problem. Then there is a series of diagnostic probing.

"Sometimes it's an environment issue," Kern said. "Some students need a quieter environment in which to learn."

Frederick said it could also be an organizational issue.

And once the child enters the program - it's not the goal to keep him there.

Beyond the failing grade, students are referred by a teacher, parent, administrator - and sometimes by the student himself.

The students involved in the program may leave the class in which they are failing to attend the program with either Kern or Frederick.

"From that level, if they are still failing, we replace their elective with GCS so as not to take too much of the classroom time," Kern said. "If further measures are needed, we have an after-school program."

And through it all, the coordinators are in touch with the parents.

But Frederick and Kern agree on one thing: it's not something a student needs to be in permanently.

"We want them to become independent learners," Frederick said. "That's the whole purpose."

And it doesn't teach to the TAKS test, it teaches standard subject matter.

"I think it revolutionizes what teaching is all about," Frederick said. "It gives teachers the opportunity to hone in and focus on where students stand academically and success in the classroom leads to greater success on TAKS."

It also allows kids to get engaged and excited, she said.

Kern agreed.

"It improves their skills, builds their self-confidence - and that trickles into the learning environment," she said. "Say you see a student hasn't learned his multiplication tables when he should have. This follows him for the rest of his career unless it's corrected.

"We hope to be able to pinpoint where they are weak and give them the tools for success."