Kevin Eberle

The Path to the Principal's Office

I got interested in being a principal, actually, in an indirect way. I, my background is a little varied from the normal teacher coming up through the ranks of teacher/counselor. I'm a former police officer from 30 years ago, down in Hampton, Virginia. And I, I actually got involved with the streets more as a counselor and a teacher on the streets then in actual law enforcement, "let's arrest people" and you know, take them, you know to jail, so, at a very young age, 21, 22 I knew I was going towards more the proactive part of life and helping people before they got in trouble on the streets and started getting into counseling and teaching that way, so from there I came back up to New York from Virginia and got involved in a school in what was called, here in New York, we have what's called a BOCES (Board of Co-operational Educational Services) that spans the entire state.

And I did a lot of stuff with criminal justice and when BOCES down in Alakaville and started into administration down there under a principal and I took off from there, so the management part of it and I, I saw the bigger picture of how I could really be a tool for a school and helping teachers and talking about instruction and talking about what we need to do to make the school better at, at a larger scale.

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Building Relationships with At-Risk Students

There is definitely no silver bullet for the, the magic of what these students need in schools. As, as I stated I, I think it's, it has mostly to do with the relationships we've built between teachers, administrations and students. And that's again, that unconditional regard and that engagement with those students with instruction, and just knowing that they ultimately have someone they can come to and they know that we care.

And developing that environment is key. I, I think that's key in any school, I think that's lost in many ways with standards and a lot of the data out there that's data driven and all the standardized testing has, has really scrutinized a lot of the school environments across the country. And I think with us, we truly believe the relationships are the key.

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Setting the Right Tone

I think one of the brightest pieces to our school at International Prep is the tone that's set between all students. We have about a 25- to 30 percent population of immigrant students that are all ELLs and as we stated before, between gang-related issues or gang members or bright, all bright students that are trying to get to college, the tone that is set in this school, I, I really can state is really sort of colorblind.

We, we have students from all over the world, from every continent and that's one part of our school that we've never had issues with, that it's, it's one group or one culture against another. We've had gangs that have gone against different cultures maybe as a group, but overall in a, a building, we, we set the tone. And I'm really proud of that because I think, again, it goes down to the relationships built between teachers, the tone and the feel within each classroom, in the hallways.

The, the students are engaged with all different students, you don't see them in just the cafeteria all sitting together, they could be mixing and matching with different students from all over the world. So it's, it's a good feeling. We have a long way to go, obviously for comfort level of someone from Burma, they're going to be sitting with someone that actually speaks their language. But... more and more of the assimilation, you can start seeing more and more of them getting…more comfortable with each other and it's, it's a great feel for a building principal to see that in the hallways and the classrooms.

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Celebrating ELLs' Diversity and Culture

As far as the ELLs' diversity and culture, we really want to celebrate those countries. Instead of stagnating and then trying to put them on the back burner and you know, to drop those cultures off and it's all about just learning English, we want to flip it around the other way. We want to flip it around where culture is what it's all about.

Our theme is bringing the world into focus and that's exactly what we're about. We want to bring focus to the world, not take them out of the world and say "Hey, you're an American now and that's the way it's all about." And between our international club, our international dinners, all the different elements we want to get connected with the world even more so through technology. We want to bring that world to us so they can see what we're doing also and keep that culture rich.

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Defining Success

So how we establish academic support for the most at-risk, which is most of our school is, is really through data analysis, looking at the data we have. In New York State, we have Regents exams, so we have to look at the results of Regents exams, New York State assessments from the middle school. Take a look at all that data, see who's under benchmark and really, you do an analogy of that.

And go into item analysis and see what, what are the highs and lows of the students on an individual basis and as subgroups. And then from there, we have a plan of attack through either academic intervention services, different reading programs, literacy programs all the way up to our ELLs where we break it down from the NYSESLAT in New York State.

We have a language assessment that we analyze it and fortunately for me, it's, it's hiring the best teachers that you can and in the case of our ELL population, we have the top three teachers in the city, I think.

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AYP and ELLs

The annual yearly progress is a difficult piece just with AMAOs also, with the annual measurable objectives. It's, it's been tough with No Child Left Behind when you have a school as ours, with the international population and a cohort data process that we have to deal with.

You have to have a mentality that sort sands, stands strong and not let it bother you and understand it, but still be aware of it. And, and I think that's the key, I mean we, we certainly are looking at annual yearly progress, but I do understand that if someone's coming from Burma that doesn't speak English, it's going to take more then four years to get through the cohort. So we look at, yes that's there, but we're really going with the objective of how we have these students become successful in any amount of time, doesn't matter if it four years, five years or six years.

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Front Lines

I'm definitely what they call a distributive leader where I, I try to empower in many ways most teachers to be their own leaders. I, I think that's the key, that teachers know that they, they have a leader in the building that, that cares about them and, and is listening and, and tries to help them every way. But in all reality it's, it's someone that says, "No, you're the adult, you're the professional, you need to take the lead and I'm empowering you to take that lead, to set the tone and to create the culture in the building." What we're really, really looking at our population, what I love is that fortunately, you know I can say it again, I sound like a broken record, that I have the confidence in our ELL staff and their intelligence. They're in the driver's seat. I'm just sort of the, the guy steering the ship.

But they're really, they're really the ones that are in the front lines and really understand. I have total faith in them and having faith in your teachers, knowing their experience, I, I really take that to a different level and we, we look at it as basically, what's our goal? Get these guys into college, you know, as a College Board school the goal is not just to graduate from high school, but to actually be successful through college. So no matter where the students come in, if they're coming from sixth grade or they come in from ninth grade, our goal is to get the through high school, accredited and get them into a college.

So that with that team we have, I mean that's our, that's our main goal and what are the things that come in the way, obviously language, reading, writing. The listening and speaking, that comes very quickly. The reading and writing is the key and there's where you get into language programs, you get into reading programs. We look at different assistance from reading specialists. We, we get again that collaborative model and that collegial piece where we'll take all kinds of ideas from a lot of people.

But ultimately, those ELL teachers are the ones that are right at the frontline, they understand their students and our students come so fast through the process, so it really, I think it still comes down to the collaboration and the resources that I give the teachers, empower them to really get the resources they need.

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"She Knows They Are Already Brilliant"

Michelle Lawrence is probably one of the best teachers I've known because of her passion for not only her students, but her passion for teaching and her passion for culture and her passion for keeping that culture alive. That, that's the key, that it's all about the students and how we can really make them the brightest, the smartest and the most brilliant students towards college we can.

What I love about Michelle is, she already knows they're the brightest, the smartest and most brilliant, they just don't speak English. So that's the part that people don't understand when it comes to English language learners and why they went from ESLs to ELLs because all our students are brilliant, speaking three, four languages and dialects from all over the world, but we have one task of teaching them English.

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Professional Development

I think that's our, our, really our next big move is, for professional development at ELL, I look at it as, as two-faceted. One it's, it's about professional development for all other content areas and then it's about professional development for the actual ELL teachers. So it's really about time and, and creating time within the schedule, the master schedule, summers, different times throughout the year that they can allow the teachers to go to the different professional development seminars.

As I mentioned earlier, the sheltered English piece is critical for us for the content area of the teachers, but I think it's critical to be wide open to any kind of opportunities for our teachers to go to, to see what best practices are out there and anything new they want to use. So, again it's that, that leader, that leadership where you just are open to all that and realize looking that it's an ongoing process, and where do we, do we want to be year from now, two years from now and it's all about our professional development.

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"Building a Plane While Flying It"

The plan of attack for a new principal with a new population of ELLs is, is definitely building a plane while you're flying it. In, in the way this country, the trends in this country are moving, there's going to more principals that are, are really in need of some training in what that population is all about.

My suggestion to any principals are to find the best and the brightest ELL teachers and deputize them as your assistant. Obviously you can't do it officially as an assistant principal, but you have to break down those leadership roles as the power-over type administrators and be a power-with and a, a collaborative... what they call transformational leader, which basically is saying, if we're going to transform our thoughts as far as culture and, and the population of immigrant students coming from all over the world, you have to understand your role as an administrator or a principal, as not as just that boss manager and we're going to tell people what to do, because you'll be swallowed up. And in the ultimate end, the students will not have what they need to be successful and move onto a career or into college.

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Addressing Gang Involvement

I think in recent years, I think the challenges for ELL students is the assimilation into the American culture and thinking what the positive role models are and the negative role models are especially in an urban setting as Buffalo. That could be of any urban setting across the country where there could be mixed messages of who the true, the true leaders are. And in some cases unfortunately, some are looking at some of the leaders as gang-related members of, you know, some of the tougher gangs in the city and some try to assimilate to that.

We try to curtail that and keep on reinforcing the different elements of the school that are the positive elements between, I'm a huge advocate of the arts, so between music and art and all the physical and visual arts, along with the sports, this is where it really comes in. We've had some great stories of some of our students who were right on the edge of, of sort banning together with some of the different gangs and we've had some great stories where we've, we've reeled them back in and they've stayed.

We had one of our, one of our students that we were all going to lose bets on as far as he was going to gone before Christmas. And now he's part of our final four state champion soccer team that, three, four weeks ago, no maybe beginning of the semester, all three of us, two ELL teachers and myself said were all saying, "There's no way." And now he's, you know, hugging us and thanking us and knowing he's on the right path. But as I said, it goes back to the unconditional regard helping him. And that one really threw us because we thought it was going to be tough.

It was that assimilation into the negative side of the city that really hurt us in a way and sort of blindsided us. But now we've learned from that, we've actually learned a lot of that. And as I said before, flipping it around to have them celebrate their heritage, their culture, I think is critical. I, I think we, we keep that at a forefront. With students coming in from all over the world, it actually has helped us as a school. Because the cultures have really set a different type tone for the majority of the day. So we, we can pick and choose different battles. We're definitely never going to rid the streets of gangs in anywhere in this country.

But if we can change the culture and the structure of a building through that unconditional regard, relationships, advisory where you have mentors, older students mentoring younger students, continually celebrating their cultures, I keep on saying it, it sets a different tone, for the building.

As I stated of our student that was in the final four for the state finals for soccer this year, that was worth more than all the money in the world that I ever could have given to me, to look at the grin on his face, being out at the state finals last week, it was just this past weekend, just to look over at me.

We have something special here, and I really don't know how to pinpoint it as far as to tell you, as far as the principal being in the school for six years, to really look at the cultures and the teachers, but when you look at the eyes of these kids from all over the world and you just know that you're here for a reason. You can't put that in professional development.

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Reaching Out to Families

School is actually... it actually is sort of off-limits for people from all over the world because they're intimidated. Because of their own lack of formal education in any of the countries they've been in, the refugee camps they've been in, in the war-torn countries of all Eastern Africa and Western Africa. It's intimidating, they, they feel that or almost, almost embarrassed of coming in and trying to talk to anybody with the language barrier or even just educational barrier.

We try to break those walls down, so we have the cultural nights, we're going to have a cultural dinner where everybody brings in all the different foods from around the world in January or February of this year and that's been going on the last several years, it's a huge success where parents come in and see that "Yeah, we can, we can bring everybody together." And bring on the whole world in focus and, and that's a goal. That's a simple thing but it's something that goes a long way.

I want to go so, further then that though, I mean to, to open up a school in the night where we can have parents and students sitting side-by-side for an ELL class or a computer class or, or something else other than just the students coming in the daytime and the parents being disconnected with the school. I think it's... I think it's critical to bring them in.

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Community Ties

Our relationship, the school's relationship to the community is, is really, just recently has taken a huge turn towards the positive. The Extreme Makeover Program came into the City of Buffalo. And we actually coat-tailed off them, had an extreme neighborhood cleanup and an extreme food drive. And we basically broke all records when it came to the food drive of, of collecting 85 tons of food for the Buffalo City Mission that broke every record. And along with that we, we opened up to the community where we had all our students throughout the whole week of this extreme drive, have an extreme cleanup where we were raking all the leaves for the fall of all the houses around the neighborhood.

And we literally had students of every culture, of every country out there raking and loving life going out there on a nice fall day. It's been a beautiful November in Buffalo and it opened up the eyes of this whole entire immediate community around the school to a whole new look of what the school is about. To go bigger as far as the community, it really opened up the eyes of the city to what we are as a school and what we're trying to talk about as far as service to the community and we're giving it back to the community.

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