catalyst-chicago.org

Walkthroughs are a staple of any area instructional officer's job. The practice is simply what it says: Area instructional teams walk through a school, visiting classrooms and taking note of students' work and how teachers are teaching.

From this, AIOs are able to pinpoint what's working and where improvements are needed. Afterward, the team writes a report and discusses it with the principal, who weighs the team's recommendations and determines which ones the school will implement.

When Janet House became principal of McCorkle Elementary, she faced the challenge of jump-starting a school with rock-bottom test scores, uninspired teaching and high mobility.

House was appointed to replace a principal who was ousted under the district's first intervention initiative.

"There was no real instructional program going on," says Philip Hansen, who visited McCorkle as director of intervention. "Everyone worked in isolation. The upper grades were tumultuous in the halls, in the classroom. It just was a mess." (Hansen now works for Princeton Review.)

When Janice Rosales was appointed to take over Peirce Elementary, she became the school's fourth principal in three years—and at 34, the youngest. By the time she left 17 years later, the school had made a steady climb out of the academic basement with better discipline, new staff and a restructured school day.

Her hand-picked successor, Paula Rossino, continues to build on the foundation laid during Rosales' tenure. Now, Peirce has begun to draw more middle-class parents from the surrounding Edgewater neighborhood, although the school remains high-poverty.