ENSURING EXCELLENT TEACHING
Murdock and the assistant principals at the school
strongly believe that having the right teaching
force in the school is critical to success. This means
recruiting highly effective staff and preparing new
teachers to be immediately effective in their classrooms. The school also ensures that all teachers
have access to high-quality professional learning
opportunities, engage in professional learning
communities, have curricular tools to help them advance their practice, and implement strong instructional strategies.
teachers at Covington participate in a three-day
orientation program to understand the school
and its expectations, and then are assigned one
content-based mentor (usually the department
chair) within their subject area and one experienced teacher mentor who is located near the new
teacher’s classroom. The first mentor helps the
new teacher understand the most effective ways to
deliver instruction within a particular field, sharing
lesson plans and techniques for engaging students
in the content. The second mentor provides more
general support, such as helping the new teacher
understand how to use technology, how to analyze
data, and how to establish effective classroom management techniques.
“Covington Promising Practice:
Fostering Great Teaching”
http://www.tnscore.org/scoreprize/
downloads/2012/Covington_High_School_
Promising_Practice.pdf
Building a strong staff. Attracting and retaining effective teachers who are a good fit for the school’s
culture is a key component of building a strong staff
at Covington. “Prospective teachers need to care
about our kids. So my questions are, ‘What kind of
person are you? Do you really care about our community?’” Principal Murdock said. “We need to know
they are going to care about our kids’ potential and
success.”
Covington has a combined strategy of looking
within its own community to find effective teachers
and vetting applicants with untraditional backgrounds to find the right mix of teachers with both
strong content knowledge and a commitment
to serving all students. Building and maintaining
relationships with previous students has been a
particularly effective strategy. Currently, more than
two-thirds of the school’s teachers were raised in
Tipton County, a fact that Murdock believes is a
tremendous advantage for the school. For example,
the school recruited a former student to teach at
the school six months before his teacher training
was completed. Since then, that teacher has helped
drive the impressive gains in algebra for the school
while also connecting with students on a personal
level. “These teachers are a wonderful asset to the
school and to each other,” Principal Murdock said.
“You can tell they really care about their students by
the way they treat them. They understand what their
students are experiencing.”
All new teachers are provided with strong support
to develop effective instructional techniques. New
41
Pathways to the Prize
Lessons from the 2012 SCORE Prize School Winners
“Mentor Handbook”
http://www.tnscore.org/scoreprize/
downloads/2012/Mentor_Handbook.pdf
“Three Approaches to Attracting and
Retaining ‘Irreplaceable’ Teachers”
http://thescoresheet.org/2013/02/25/
three-approaches-to-attracting-and-retainingirreplaceable-teachers/
Supporting all teachers. Covington High School
has implemented multiple strategies to ensure
that all teachers receive the professional development they need to be successful. All teachers have
access to PD360, an online system that features
videos of teachers implementing effective practices
in different content areas. Covington assigns some
videos for all teachers to watch and then asks the
teachers to complete reflections about the practice and to implement strategies from what they
observed. The video is connected to the reinforcement and refinement portion of the state’s teacher
evaluation system. Feedback is provided to each
teacher by master teachers or department chairs
within the school.
Covington implemented professional learning
communities (PLCs) in 2010. While all departments
have their own PLCs, two additional groups were
formed for schoolwide purposes: one focusing on
English and another on assessment. The English
PLC was formed to address students’ academic
struggles in English II, writing, and the English test
on the ACT. Led by Brandi Blackley, the school’s
English instructional facilitator, the group developed
and implemented plans for an English lab for all