English Learners Thrive in Border District With Teacher Leadership

By Paloma Peralta Carrillo, Master Teacher, Gadsden Elementary School District #32, Arizona

Paloma Peralta Carrillo is a NIET 2024 Fellow and Master Teacher from Gadsden Elementary School District #32, Arizona. Peralta Carrillo began her career in education in 2016 as a 5th-grade teacher at Desert View Elementary School and moved into a Master Teacher role at Ed Pastor Elementary School in 2021, where she still serves supporting primary grades and the special education teachers. Read more about her selection as an NIET Fellow here.

In a first-grade classroom at Ed Pastor Elementary School, a young student stood out to me. Not initially for her academic achievements, but for the challenges she faced - and, with the support of our teachers - eventually overcame. This student had entered first grade with limited English proficiency. At first, tasks like reading, writing, or even understanding her peers in English, seemed impossible. Yet, by the end of first grade, she was not only able to move out of intensive levels of reading development into grade-level performance and learned to speak English, but also reclassified into proficiency on the state assessment. She stands as a shining example of how resilience and the right guidance can help overcome obstacles and is one of the many success stories in our primary grades made possible by a whole team of educators who cultivate a love for learning. 

This student also stood out to me because I had been in her same small shoes, in these same halls. Long before ever stepping into my current role as Master Teacher for grades K-2nd and Special Education, I was a student at Ed Pastor. I faced many similar struggles in reading development and English language acquisition. I had been a Migrant student receiving English language services since preschool. Finally settling into a school and developing my English language proficiency positively impacted my educational journey. I accepted my first teaching job as a 5th-grade teacher at this school and saw many of the same struggles in my students at the upper-grade levels and the impact it has on children as a whole. Now in my current position, I support teachers to achieve the school’s mission - helping all our students succeed. That success starts with literacy.

The support that NIET provides has guided me throughout my career. Since I first started teaching fifth grade, I have been coached and evaluated using the NIET Teaching and Learning Standards rubric. I moved into a leadership team as a mentor teacher and master teacher, I developed a greater understanding of NIET’s mission to help students succeed by building educator excellence. 

To support literacy development at Ed Pastor, I employed a four-step approach, aligned with NIET practices, with teachers when I stepped into my role of Master Teacher in 2021. I have spent the past three years implementing each step: Establishing a positive learning culture and climate with the team, developing systems and structures for instructional practices, introducing the implementation of curriculum and rigor in the classrooms, and building capacity among the team to sustain success. The results were immediate and impressive, with our school's 2023-24 DIBELS test passing rate soaring from 28% to 46% - and that was only the beginning of building the foundation for literacy for our school. 

Culture and Climate

Ed Pastor is very unique. Less than two miles from the border with Mexico, the school is centrally located in San Luis, Arizona. Our population of students consists of 59% English Learners, with a majority Hispanic student population and a full staff of bilingual educators. While many teachers in our K-2nd and Special Education team are fairly new teachers, they are equipped with enthusiasm, skills, and knowledge. Developing a positive culture within this group of teachers has been critical to laying the foundation for trust, collaboration, and a shared vision. 

At NIET’s 2024 National Summer Institute (NSI), trainers helped our instructional leadership team deepen our work in building trust and a positive culture, which we replicated with our K-2 and Special Education teacher groups. Together, we developed a mission and vision for our cluster group to ensure it would guide every single decision, task, and action in and out of our cluster. Our students remain at the center and core of our entire mission to drive student success and leverage their learning. NIET has illuminated the importance of a shared vision and a common language by cultivating a growth mindset within each member of our team and inspiring lifelong learning. There is clear alignment to our school goals and expectations to maintain consistency in the teaching and learning that happens in our primary grades. NIET also helped us develop improved communication and professional learning communities to ensure effective collaboration among the teachers on our team. This has created accountability and clear expectations for each member of our team and their role in helping students succeed.

When we were able to establish and commit to this collective effort, it alleviated resistance to change and reduced skepticism about new systems. Building this foundation of trust with my teachers helped me transition into a facilitator role, supporting their work in the classroom. This built my credibility as well. Due to the bond we had created as a team, we were committed to supporting each other in our pursuit of excellence.

Systems and Structures

As I began my work as a Master Teacher in 2021, we saw a lack of reading foundations across all the primary grades in our school - we knew we had a lot of work to do together coming out of the pandemic, and we needed the right approach to succeed. After building our trust and aligning our culture, reestablishing systems and structures within each classroom and during cluster meetings was the next step toward impacting our student and teacher achievement. 

Our entire district was adopting a new rigorous curriculum for reading development that revolved around the critical elements of building skilled readers. This standardized curriculum ensured the alignment across grade levels to be able to reduce gaps within our students and help foster collaboration within our team. But implementing the new curriculum didn’t come without challenges. Teachers saw their students struggle to read or learn new weekly skills. This is where my support as a teacher leader made a large impact. As a teacher leader, I needed to build my teachers’ confidence and competence as systems required adherence to common standards and our pacing guides. 

To support the shift of the structure of student learning in the classroom, we shifted the structure of teacher learning in our professional learning communities (PLCs) and development. From the coaching provided by NIET, we developed a long-range plan for professional development aligned with our school goals. In our plan, we created cluster cycles that scaffolded the learning for our teachers and built towards leveraging student achievement. Our professional development sessions became much more targeted and my ability to field-test the curriculum and share findings in my professional development sessions empowered teachers and enhanced their learning. Our team also implemented the student work analysis framework consistently to ensure we constantly analyzed student work in our clusters and PLCs. Each teacher created and maintained a cluster binder to keep track of their reflective individual growth plans (IGPs) and student progress. Through the IGPs, teachers engaged in reflective practices during cluster learning and when tracking student formative data. Our analysis of student work became consistent and developed a high level of trust among the team. Teachers saw real-time results in student data and instructional practices. The collective outcomes shifted the responsibility for students' success from individuals to the entire team and fostered a sense of unity. 

Data and Growth

Over the past year, the work we had put in from 2021, including the implementation of the new curriculum, our PLCs, IGPs, multi-tiered support systems of intervention, and NIET-based structures within our classrooms, made a significant impact. 

Along with the growth we saw in our overall pass rate on the DIBELS assessment from 28% to 43%, we had substantial individual grade improvements, too. In kindergarten, we surpassed our 29% pass rate goal and finished with 33% passing. In first grade, our goal was a 44% pass rate and 60% of students passed. In second grade, 48% of our students passed the exam.

In the Galileo assessment, which measures reading foundations and comprehension, both our first and second-grade classrooms finished the year with high growth. Our first-grade students grew 29% by the end of the year and our second-grade students grew 22%.  

Seeing our students reach these levels of success and growth was no small feat and an endeavor we look to continue each year. To see some of these students enter the classroom lacking English proficiency, and later see them thrive on literacy tests just one, two, and three years later is a credit to our diligent leadership, committed teachers, NIET-based support structures, and professional learning communities.

Capacity and Achievement

My work as a teacher leader helped lay the foundation for developing both myself and a strong team of teachers committed to building skilled readers and leveraging student achievement. At Ed Pastor, I have seen the value of shared leadership and opportunity and work to provide teachers in my school with leadership capacity themselves. I invested in several of my teachers to build coaching abilities by modeling how to coach teachers through cycles. I gather teacher input and feedback to identify my areas of growth and include intentional moments in our PLCs that allow for teachers to lead and facilitate discussions on the agenda. I also make time to take newer teachers to see teacher leaders instruct a classroom and observe effective instructional practice in action. These intentional moves build the community and my own practices, increasing trust, knowledge, and credibility for all.

Teacher leadership plays a major role in how we leverage student achievement and build capacity. As a teacher leader, I can influence beyond the classroom and guide my peers to shape the culture of instructional excellence in our school. NIET’s support in coaching, cluster implementation, and culture and vision have helped our team make significant progress in our work to provide students with the opportunity to succeed. As a primary grades team, we set the literacy foundation for our student's success as they progress into our upper grades, with many learning English as a second language along the way. Our primary grades serve as the backbone of school improvement and elevating collective capacity within our team builds a stronger and more effective team community. With teacher leadership structures and a collaborative approach to improvement, we can continue to not only impact student achievement but elevate our teacher success.