By Rachel Kalina
These eager hands weren't those of young students, but they instead belonged to about 50 concerned parents, who were trying to understand the direction of Baldwin's literary curriculum.
Britto held a community meeting titled "Focus on Academic Excellence" on Sept. 27 at Baldwin Senior High School. Throughout the evening, he highlighted the benefits of a program called "Empowering Writers," which was used for fourth and fifth grade students last year. This year, the program has expanded to encompass those in grades three through six.
To help parents encourage their kids in school, Britto showed them examples of high-quality, student work and outlined goals teachers should be demonstrating in the classroom. He encouraged questions and discussion, and while he didn't address every audience inquiry, it seemed that the discussion did help parents to understand the future of Baldwin's programs.
"I was here last year," said parents Paulette Palmer, who has two children in special education programs. "I'd like to try and understand what he is attempting. I find it an interesting concept. Whether it's applicable to the classroom is another story."
Palmer said she was skeptical of some of the Empowering Writers methods, which Britto outlined that night. Among the goals set for students were: to engage in challenging assignments, to be able to demonstrate evidence from their learning materials in support of their work, and to be able to reflect on their work with outside help from someone like a teacher or a parent.
"If students can internalize, they can become smarter. They should be able to go to teachers," Britto said.
In turn, Britto said teachers were responsible for setting clear and high academic expectations for their students and applying fair evaluations for student performance. He emphasized that assignments should be challenging and rigorous so students would aim higher in their accomplishments.
"School should not be a mystery in terms of how to produce academically good work," Britto said.
He said both children and parents should be told exact New York state learning standards and be given examples of high quality work with which to follow.
"I wanted to find out what his goals were for the school year," said parent Melissa Desravines of why she went to the community event that night.
In order to make his student and teacher goals more tangible for the parents in attendance, Britto gave them examples of student writing and asked them to critique it. He allowed for discussion time and then demonstrated how the work could be improved with another example of the same student's work after it has been edited for content.
He encouraged parents to think of how they might help with their own child's work when approached with a "I don't know how to write details, dad," or a "Mom, I can't write well."
"Teaching kids to write is a major problem everywhere," Britto said. "Writing does not come easy. That's why very few writers become millionaires," he joked.
The program focused a great deal on the third through sixth grade curriculums, which left some parents wondering about the goals set for their middle school and high school children who were struggling in the literary department.
When one parent asked about initiatives in the middle school to encourage reading and whether Empowering Writers really applied to them, Britto addressed this as "another type of challenge." He said it was harder to influence older students because they are more interested in what their peers are saying rather than examples a parent or teacher might set for them.
"I recently heard that the reading scores in the middle school have dropped," said Darlene Jones, a parent of a third and a seventh grader. "I felt like it was because parents are not as involved."
Although Britto did not comment on reading scores during the presentation, Jones said she would like to see more programs like Parents as Reading Parents, an elementary school program, translated into a middle school environment to encourage reading.
"I think if parents become more involved, maybe that will change," said Jones of the literacy rates. She said she did find Britto's discussion helpful in some ways, however.
"In assisting my daughter in writing, I can point out what Britto spoke about in helping her to write better," Jones said. She also said she now realized when her middle school child has trouble in math, it may be a word instead of a number problem.
Other parents were also concerned that they were just viewing the highest end of the academic spectrum when Britto gave them writing samples. One woman worried about the children who were not yet on this learning level, but Britto said that no matter where a child was on the spectrum, she could still get better. Everyone deserves a strategy, he said.
"This is the goal and more and more kids should be reaching the stars," he said.
Comments about this story? RKalina@liherald.com (516) 569-4000 ext. 207.
