How We Nearly Doubled Math Scores with Kevin Finnegan Transformative Principal 333

Social Media: When we saw Math could be a discussion, it totally changed everything.

Kevin Finnegan is the principal of Prairie Hill School in Illinois. His students recently showed a 77% growth in Math, and we talk about how he made that happen.

  • Prairie hill is the school and the community comes together around it.
  • Northern Illinois, PK–4th grade.
  • 9 years as the principal.
  • Mission statement: Students first, always.
  • PLC school
  • Reformed schedule so that every day (4 teachers per team) have an hour of common collaborative time every day.
  • Why are we making this decision? The students are always the bringback.
  • Norms: imagine the students you are talking about are here.
  • To be a great principal is easy. You just have to have a great staff.
  • PE teacher said, “I want students more.”
  • Each class has 10 half hour blocks each week: Art, PE, STEM,
  • Always been a high performing district. Makes change really hard when you have had success in the past.
  • staff is competitive within themselves.
  • Noticed that math scores were less than we expected.
  • Dove into the data.
  • Computation was awesome, but they struggled with elaborating on their thoughts.
  • In every math assignment, adding the words, “I know this because…”
  • If you see something that can be done in Kindergarten it can be done anywhere.
  • Ready Math - iReady as platforms for learning.
  • Standards based School, done in isolation.
  • Common language in math.
  • Didn’t get good training at first, but then got good training and that made a huge difference.
  • Math has always dealt black and white.
  • Math didn’t have to be one answer, it could be a discussion, totally changed everything.
  • Talking about kids’ growth, talking about assessments, classwork, and then looking at the data.
  • It’s not about what you teach, it’s about what we learned.
  • How long did it take to understand that it was working?
  • It fit us, rather than us fitting it.
  • How to be a transformative principal? Spend a little time with kids, like on their birthday. It’s a constant reminder that kids come first.

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