2013 Year-In- Review

In the spirit of the season, we thought we'd do a year-end wrap-up and highlight some of our favorite posts from this, our inaugural year.  If you missed them the first time around we highly recommend you take the time to read them now.  And please take a moment to share them.  We have a great story to tell, and it takes a village.

And so without further ado, we bring you our top ten posts of the year, in no particular order (just click on the title and it will link to the full post):

2013 UCHS Valedictorians Celebrate their Classmates, Teachers, and Alma Mater

We like this post because it speaks so well to the entire University City Schools experience.  Each of our four 2013 Valedictorians attended U. City Schools beginning in kindergarten and stuck with us all they way through.  These bright students are a testament to the quality of education available in our schools, as well as the great experiences kids can have. They honor their classmates, some by name, and acknowledge that success comes in many forms. They clearly had a lot of fun writing and delivering this address, and that's awesome too.

College Bound

We literally cringed the first time we heard our college counselor tell a group of parents that when people ask what she does, and she tells them she's the college counselor at UCHS, they occasionally respond with such ignorance as, "I didn't know kids from UCity went to college."  Seriously??!!  At this VERY MOMENT, while I am sitting here writing this blog, there are University City High School graduates studying for their finals at Harvard, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Bowdoin, Washington University, SLU, Purdue, Swarthmore, and dozens of other highly-ranked schools.  We have an image problem my friends, and it's going to take some effort to change this. Which leads us to...

Oh the Places They'll Go

Read it, share it, help us get the word out.  If we could profile each and every one of our newly-minted college students you would be amazed.  And, since we always have a new crop of young scholars to point in the college direction, check out the college visit programs offered by our guidance office.

University City Teachers Seek Nation's Highest Professional Teaching Credential: National Board Certification

We like this post because teachers.  We live in a crazy world where teachers get blamed for all kinds of things they have no control over.  They don't get the pay or the respect or the appreciation they deserve, and yet they keep coming back for more!  We have awesome teachers here in U. City, like those mentioned in this article who teach all day and grade papers all night and still have time to put in thousands of hours seeking to improve their teaching skills and join the ranks of the nation's elite.  And, since this post was first published, there have been a bunch more willing to take on the National Board challenge! Our teachers rock. You should thank them.  And bake them some cookies.

Robots Rock! UCHS Robolions help make STEM 'The New Cool'

OK robots.  If you are a regular reader of our blog, you may have suspected that we have a slight bias towards them, and you'd be right.  We've written about them here and here and here.  We love them, and we know that the world is going to need more and more scientists and engineers, so the more kids we can introduce to the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields the better. Robotics are fun and exciting and programs are available to U. City kids from kindergarten through high school.  Our robotics programs succeed in no small part thanks to volunteers, and we have have a lot of them, which is a great thing on it's own.

Dr. Jamie Jordan Named Missouri Middle School Principal of the Year

The Missouri Association of Middle School Principals says our Middle School principal, Dr. Jamie Jordan, is the best in the state.  In. The. State.  Booyah!

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About 700 of the 1.6 MILLION students who take the ACT every year get a perfect score. In 2013, 29 of those perfect scores came from Missouri students. One of them was UCHS senior Dan Politte.  We also had National Merit Finalists and even a National Merit Scholar.  What do each of these superheroes of academic awesomeness have in common?  They each attended U. City schools all the way through, starting in kindergarten.

UCHS AP Biology Students Participate in Washington University Study

UCHS currently offers about 13 Advanced Placement (AP) classes (some are offered in alternating years, like AP Chem and AP Physics), and is always considering adding more. AP classes challenge students academically, prepare them for college-level curriculum, and give them the opportunity to earn college credit while still in high school.  It is not uncommon for a UCHS grad to start college with a full semester of credit under their belts, thanks to our AP programs. And, the students who take the classes get to do really cool stuff, like participate in studies to identify cyanogenesis in white clover. Don't know what that even is?  Better read this post.

Our Amazing Students

Ok maybe we're cheating here, but choosing 10 posts from the nearly 75 that we've posted this year was really hard, so we'll just highlight a few of the kids we've highlighted over the past several months.  Like UCHS Student Deja Bowie, 2013 recipient of the UMSL Distinguished Achievement for Excellence in Science Award, known to her teachers and classmates as "Quiet Einstein."  Or young Xavier Morgan-Gillard, who overcame personal challenges, used his experiences to write an awesome essay about Jackie Robinson, was honored at Busch Stadium, and inspired us all with his courage. And then there's artist Marina Claunch,  admitted to the prestigious pre-college program at the San Francisco Art Institute. Or how about Jazz St. Louis All-Star drummer Zach Morrow? Or the UCHS Latin students who consistently win awards at the state convention and on the National Latin Exam?  And then there are the multitudes of students who serve the community in the Brittany Woods National Junior Honor Society,  our middle school celebrity, pint-sized pundit Gabe Fleisher, and freshly minted Eagle Scout Michael McMahon. (Just to name a few).

So that's it, our unscientific wrap-up of our favorite posts of the year.  We hope you've enjoyed reading about just a few of the terrific things going on in our schools, and we encourage you to keep on reading and to share with your friends and neighbors.  Comment on a post or two, "like" us, subscribe to our blog and help us get the word out about all of the good things University City Schools have to offer. It really does take a village!

Our very best wishes for you and yours in the new year!

University City Teachers seek Nation’s Highest Professional Teaching Credential: National Board Certification






Brittany Woods librarian Kelly Werthmuller is
 one of six district teachers currently seeking
National Board Certification 

Teachers tend to be busy.  Really busy.  Between lesson planning, grading, meetings, conferences, training (not to mention teaching) free time is not something most teachers possess in abundance.  So what could possibly motivate six School District of University City teachers to willingly take on a grueling three-year, 400-600 hour-long project (!)?  Could it be a sadistic love of paperwork?  Or perhaps an aversion to quiet evenings spent with loved ones? Maybe a strict adherence to that old wives’ tale about idle hands? Most likely it is the satisfaction of knowing that once the work is completed they will rank among an elite 3% of educators nationwide who hold the most prestigious professional certification available in their field: the National Board Certification.

National Board Certification is an advanced teaching credential, similar to certification in fields like medicine and law.  The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards  website describes it as “a rigorous, peer-reviewed process that ensures that Board-certified teachers have proven skills to advance student achievement” through which “teachers expand and refine their content knowledge and pedagogy. The outcome is more powerful teaching that improves student achievement and reflects college and career readiness.”

Retired Jackson Park Elementary teacher Kelly Mueller was the first in the district to earn the distinction, and now she serves as the NBC coordinator for Maryville University and works with NBC candidates both locally and nationally.  She says that the importance of the National Board process is easily understood when you think about it this way:

“Other professional development tells us what to go back and do in our classrooms. The NB process simply says ‘Here are the highest standards in your teaching profession - recognized across the country. Give us evidence of how you meet them.’ They recognize there are countless ways to get there. Each of us is an individual. We teach different children in different settings at different times. Each is a professional, and in that role makes thousands of decisions in a week. An accomplished teacher uses his/her knowledge of the students in the class, knowledge of the subject area, and knowledge of available resources to plan worthwhile lessons to meet the goals they children need to learn at this point in time. WE say what we did, giving the rationale for our decision(s) as to what to teach, how to teach it, and how to evaluate student performance. THAT is teaching.”

The certification process involves a series of performance-based assessments that include teaching portfolios, student work samples, videotapes and thorough analyses of the teachers' classroom teaching and student learning. In all, teachers spend hundreds of hours beyond their normal workload preparing materials and being tested in order to attain this lofty distinction.

Although the process is entirely voluntary, the School District of University City has stepped up to not only cover most of the registration fees, but also to provide a generous stipend (which Ms. Mueller notes is on par with some of the best in the country) to all district teachers who become National Board Certified.   Candidates claim that this sort of financial support is a great motivator and a wise move, as research continues to show that the students of National Board Certified Teachers (NCBTs) out perform those of non-NCBTs on achievement tests (particularly in STEM fields), and that the impact is especially significant for minority and low-income students.

Brittany Woods Middle School librarian Kelly Werthmuller is one of the current crop of six NBC candidates in the district.  She says that that seeking certification is making her “reflect more on my teaching practice. I am pushing myself to be more innovative and focus on each individual and class, instead of the entire grade. It is a VERY frustrating process, but I can already see positives in my teaching.” 

Likewise, Brittany Woods communication arts teacher and NBC candidate Katherine Adams explains that the process has prompted her to “deepen my reflection and really analyze why I make the choices I make in the classroom. In the past I have thought, ‘Well this worked well last year, so I will do this activity again.’ Now I am analyzing why the particular activity worked. How exactly did it impact my students? What aspects need to be retooled so all my students are impacted by this lesson? How can I involve my parents and our community as part of our learning process? While I am still working through the certification process, I feel the work itself has truly made me a more reflective and effective educator.”

If this year’s six candidates succeed in achieving certification they will join current district NBCTs Dr. Jamie Jordan (Principal, Brittany Woods Middle) and Shenelle Dubose (UCHS Assistant Principal).  Seven additional district teachers have signed up for a pre-candidacy class, suggesting that we will soon see a flourishing of NBC teachers in our schools.  This is exciting news for our students and for our community. 

The bottom line, says Kelly Mueller, is that seeking National Board Certification is a “great opportunity for teachers to work on their practice. Showing evidence makes you think about teaching much more methodically than ever before....cutting out fluff and things that really don't impact student learning. THAT is what this process is all about!”