www.charlotte.com/breaking_news/story/485496.html -
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Published on: 2/9/2008
Last Visited: 2/9/2008
Principal Nancy Guzman calls her strategies simple, if sometimes controversial.
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Guzman, 57, came to Pinewood nine years ago, after retiring from S.C. public schools.She won national honors in both states.
She likes a lot of what she sees in CMS, and considers Gorman less heavy-handed than predecessors.But she's not afraid to test limits.
Guzman doesn't expect her staff to use the "Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support" system recommended by district officials.Her teachers do fine, she says, with high expectations and common-sense discipline.
When the fourth-graders started making messes and intimidating younger children in the restrooms, their teachers restricted bathroom privileges and warned that offenders might end up donning rubber gloves to help with cleanup.
Was that OK?Writing teacher Rhonda Broom asked Guzman afterward.
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Sure, Guzman grinned.She gave a couple of kids bathroom duty last year.
Guzman is currently at odds with CMS's special-education folks over the latest push for "inclusion," putting students with disabilities into regular classes.
It often works well, she says.Pinewood has more than two dozen kids in such settings, and last year they passed state exams at twice the rate of disabled kids districtwide.
But Guzman says officials have lost sight of what's best for individual children in their zeal to push a program.
One recent morning, Guzman stepped into a kindergarten class, where a boy wailed for a baby doll."Baby!Baby!"he sobbed.
Guzman sighed.The child speaks only a few words.He has tested as having the mind of a 2-year-old, she says, and disrupts class unless an assistant tends to him full time.She has repeatedly asked to have him placed in a special-ed classroom, she says, only to get denials and demands for additional testing.
Guzman believes all educators should seek out new ideas.At a conference at Harvard University, she picked up on "fluency drills," or having students repeatedly practice reading passages aloud.
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"He was very interested," Guzman said.
What works?
Here are some of the things Pinewood Principal Nancy Guzman and her faculty say create high test scores at a high-poverty school.
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Guzman decides which CMS programs work well for her students, and gives teachers freedom to make their own choices as long as they get results.
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