Decibel
Can He Save This School In Five Months?
Clip | 4mVideo has Closed Captions
Principal Walker started working at Dobie Middle School in July. Is that enough time to change it?
Mike Walker became principal at Dobie Middle School in July. His task? Improving test scores by more than 10 points in order to avoid turning the campus over to a charter school, and doing it with a slate of new teachers and dropping enrollment. He's confident in the work his team has put in, but this week students start testing this week. Is five months enough time to turn around a school?
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Decibel is a local public television program presented by Austin PBS
Funding for Decibel is provided in part by Texas Mutual and Roxanne Elder & Scott Borders
Decibel
Can He Save This School In Five Months?
Clip | 4mVideo has Closed Captions
Mike Walker became principal at Dobie Middle School in July. His task? Improving test scores by more than 10 points in order to avoid turning the campus over to a charter school, and doing it with a slate of new teachers and dropping enrollment. He's confident in the work his team has put in, but this week students start testing this week. Is five months enough time to turn around a school?
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(somber music) - A month in, are you there?
There's so many variables to that.
(somber music) (somber music continues) Okay.
Walk, walk, don't run, walk, walk, walk, walk.
(Principal Walker laughs) So my name is Mike Walker, I'm the Principal here at Dobie Middle School and I've been here since end of July.
(pensive music) Good morning, sorry for one additional interruption Dobie.
I'm just focused on getting Dobie right, even though there may have been some angst about some of the, you know, whatever happened, I think the focus now is whatever it takes, let's make sure we get across the finish line.
(inquisitive music) Obviously our goal minimum is a C and so our big focus really has just been making sure that teachers are aligned to the curriculum that they're teaching what needs to be taught.
(pensive music) It's such a genuine feeling here.
I think the top priority for me, literally was staffing.
When I first got here at the end of July, we needed probably 25 teachers.
When the school year kicked off, we still had a couple of positions however, kind of based on enrollment and everything like that we still wound up being, you know, pretty much whole.
(pensive music) Our enrollment is down.
Last year I think at the beginning of the year they might have been closer to 500 students, give or take.
Right now we're right about 400 students.
I haven't made that a focus other than we have who we have, let's teach who's here, let's do the work.
(students indistinctly chatting) I think that we're settling very well.
One of the parents literally walked up to me and said, "I just want to tell you how much my kids love their new teachers."
They're excited about who's here so I feel like that's an affirmation of what we've been working on.
But at the same time, in no way is that, you know, a put down of who was here because obviously the data shows that they made some significant growth and significant gains, we're just trying to continue to build on that.
(eerie music) I think sometimes people are like, "Oh you know, based on what you see right now in any school, like a month in, are you there?"
There's so many variables to that, that I would just say, yeah we're very hopeful.
We feel like we're on the right track and we're just continuing to tweak and continuing to do what makes sense.
Let's clear it out.
Hey DJ, how you doing man?
- I'm doing wonderful.
- You been all right today?
Let's have a good one.
Clear it out, uh-oh sorry.
Clear it out.
If kids say, "I love my school, I love what's going on at school.
I feel safe at school, I feel good at school."
Which for the most part, we feel like that's the feedback that we've been getting, it will ultimately... I feel like it will ultimately take care of itself.
My focus is making sure that we put out the best learning opportunity that we can for kids and I really believe that the rest of it takes care of itself.
(kids cheering)
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Decibel is a local public television program presented by Austin PBS
Funding for Decibel is provided in part by Texas Mutual and Roxanne Elder & Scott Borders