At Greenfield Union Elementary-Middle School, there are the teachers and staff who continual-ly go the extra mile, such as the middle school teachers (known as the ‘Mighty Middles’) who came in during a break week to paint every lock-er in the historic wing of classrooms.
There’s the leadership team comprised of Principal Beverly Campbell, Academic Engagement Administrator Geraldine Chestnut, Science Instructional Spe-cialist Rudaina Kainaya and Special Education Lead Teacher Anna Knott, who provide vision and direction to its family of teachers. And there’s the community, both the immediate community and supportive partners including the 20 or more par-ent, church and foster grandparent volunteers who show up for active duty as tutors, classroom aides and helpers each day.
“We are a family of high-quali-ty teachers and staff. We can walk the community because we know the community,” Campbell says. “They receive us because we’re always in the community.” The families, community and Greenfield Union teams come together most of-ten to raise academic achievement, provide for student and family needs, and ensure a safe and nurturing learning campus. One of the results has been an upward enrollment trend for two years af-ter some significant declines over time.
Greenfield Union has become a renewed catalyst for families to remain in the immediate neighborhood even when moving or upgrading. Professional Learning Communities The Mighty Middle Teachers are organized not just around locker painting but as a Professional Learning Community Team. The same is evident in the curriculum, hallway bulletin board themes, and instructional approaches to Differentiated In-struction in the classrooms and hallways of the newer elementary school on the dual building, well-organized and tidy campus. This adds to the magnetic appeal for both old-er and newer teachers. Special Ed Lead Teacher Knott says, “Once the teachers get here, they don’t ever want to leave.”
[ione_embed src=//player.vimeo.com/video/91918773 service=vimeo width=500 height=281 type=iframe]
Pre-K ECDD teacher Cynthia Nicholas is a rela-tive newcomer to the staff who started in 2012 af-ter 14 years as a teacher and substitute elsewhere. Now she drives the 70 mile trek each school day from her home in Byron, MI, often staying late, and doesn’t envision ever working anywhere else. “You want to come to work because it’s fun,” she says. “I’m not here for the job. It’s a career,” says Nicholas. “When you go to school for so long for teaching, it’s got to be some place you want to be. We’re all here for the same reason.”
The Broader World Campbell says there’s a conscious effort to ex-pose the students to the world around them. The school maintains a robust field trip schedule, with sites visited including everything from tradi-tional local favorites to more unusual and distant locations such as the Toledo Zoo and the Spring Valley Trout Farm. Even for the local trips, it’s an unbeatable op-portunity for the children, often their first such outing. After a field trip to the Detroit Institute of Arts last year, 76 students were polled and it was found that for 74, it was their first visit to the mu-seum. AEA Chestnut says the Trout Farm visit was planned because most of the students never go fishing.
Staff work hard to ensure that all stu-dents can participate in such opportunities. Tutors, volunteers by the dozens St. James Episcopal Church tutor Barbara Small has been coming each week to Greenfield Union as part of a team of 25 volunteers from the church who assist Kindergarten through 3rd grad-ers with reading and math and also help to ensure that holidays are filled with clothing and baskets. These volunteers and others are in virtually ev-ery classroom, hallway and corner.
Foster grand-parent Anna Garcias, who has tutored for 14 years at the school, does so “because I love it. It gives us a chance to share knowledge and love with the kids.”
Greenfield Union Elementary-Middle School
420 W. 7 Mile Road, Detroit MI, 48203
Phone: (313) 866-2999
Fax: (313) 866-2633
Principal: Beverly Campbell
About Post Author
