By Marie Haaland
Staff writer
Hofstra professors will start mentoring teachers at Alverta B. Gray Schultz (ABGS) Middle School in a few weeks as part of a program to advance the Hempstead School District.
Hempstead School Board members approved the plan at their monthly meeting in March. The program, which will cost $100,000, will be paid for by a grant from the state.
ABGS Middle School was chosen because the New York State Education Department classifies the school as struggling.
School districts are put into three categories: There are those in good standing, others with assistance plans and some fall under what is called focus, or struggling, districts. The Hempstead School District is considered a focus district. The goal of this program is to help the school and the district in improving its standing.
Eustace Thompson, an associate professor and the chair of the Department of Teacher Education at Hofstra, explained that the professors will be coaching and mentoring the instructional leaders by subject area.
“We’ll be doing such things as advisory strategy and curriculum development and education,” Thompson said. “We’re coaching them through relationships with teachers; relationships that will have an impact on student performance.”
Thompson will be one of these professors. The school has about six instructional leaders, so six to eight faculty members from Hofstra will be participating in the program. The middle school teachers being mentored will then be expected to teach peers what they have learned.
Thompson expects the program to start within the next few weeks.
“We’re getting the faculty together and we’re waiting for Hempstead to give us their teachers’ schedules,” he said. The program is expected to continue through next fall to allow enough time to really make a difference.
“[We] will leave no stone unturned as we aggressively continue to pursue meaningful partnerships with our neighbors to better prepare both students and faculty,” LaMont Johnson, president of the Hempstead School Board, said in an article for Newsday.
If ABGS Middle School is unable to show improvement in student performance, there is a chance that outside management will then step in to try and help. One goal of partnering with Hofstra is to stop that from happening.
“My only concern is that the middle school teachers may be offended that they’re getting outside help for what they’ve been trained to do,” Eve Morin, a junior early childhood and childhood education major, said. “It’s likely not the fault of the teachers. Schools in Hempstead struggle for lots of reasons, mainly economic.”
Two other programs were also approved by the Hempstead School Board to help students in these schools thrive. One of these is focused on ABGS Middle School, while the other is at Hempstead High School.
“Teachers in general are usually eager to improve,” Morin said. “And I think many of the professors here are strong enough and capable of taking on this program.”