(upbeat music) - Coming up next on this education edition of Arizona Horizon we'll hear from the first Arizona teacher to be inducted into the National Teacher's Hall of Fame.

And we'll learn about the concept of micro schools.

That and more next on this special edition of Arizona Horizon.

- [Announcer] This hour of local news is made possible by contributions from the friends of PBS, members of your PBS station.

Thank you.

- [Narrator] Arizona Horizon is made possible in part by the generous support of the Pakis Family Foundation.

(upbeat music) - Good evening and welcome to this Education edition of Arizona Horizon.

I'm Ted Simons.

We begin with Mary Vail High school teacher, Kareem Neal who was the first Arizona teacher to be inducted into the National Teacher's Hall of Fame.

We spoke to this special teacher about the honor.

Kareem Neil welcome to Arizona Horizon and congratulations.

National teacher of the year, huh?

- So National Teacher Hall of Fame, National- - I'm sorry, Hall of Fame, there you go okay.

- National Teachers Hall of Fame.

- That's still pretty good.

- Definitely pretty good.

- Yeah, your thoughts on being honored like that?

I mean that's gotta hit you pretty hard.

- Definitely, you know, teaching is not necessarily the kind of field where you're getting those big types of awards where all of a sudden you're on TV shows and things like that.

So, you know, so 2019 I won Arizona State Teacher of the Year and it was pretty big as well.

And so, yeah, I just feel like I wish other teachers had the opportunity to experience a lot of what I'm experiencing, you know, being the first you Arizona Teacher Hall of Fame.

- Yes.

- Member.

- Yes.

- I'm hopeful that I can also help some other folks- - Hall of Fame of Fame usually means you've been around a while, and you've done a good job for a while but you've been around a while.

What got you started in teaching?

- The Special Olympics.

So I was a student at Seton Hall at the time, Seton Hall University in New Jersey, I grew up in New Jersey.

And a Special Olympics event came and I was the person who worked at the rec center so I would put up mats and things like that for events.

And someone said, hey, do you mind coming and talking to the students 'cause I'm really tall.

And they were kind of enthralled by how tall I am, I'm 6'7.

- Yeah.

- And so I went over and the athletes were so authentic.

And it's different when you're a junior in college, we all are very similar.

We all talk the same, we dress the same, we listen the same.

They were just completely their own selves and not worried about how they appear to the outside world.

And I just thought that was was super refreshing and dove right in.

Yeah, so I was like, I gotta go to grad school 'cause I was too far into my, I was a chemical engineering major, undergrad.

- Holy smokes, chemical engineering too.

- Quite a different.

- Yeah.

But when you saw those kids did something just ring a bell with you?

- Yeah, it was the thing that I had not had yet happen in my life where I was like, this feels like the fit, right.

I've done, I did lots of things prior to that.

You know, of course I was a math and science student I was really good at that.

And so, you know, sports, I was a pretty good athlete, football, basketball and things like that.

But this was the first thing that seemed to hit me inside where I was just like, I can't get it out of my mind, and I was absolute, I knew what I wanted to do, I actually called my mom.

- Oh, wow.

- So I was like an hour and 45 minutes away from home called my mom and said, I know what I want to do now, I want to be a teacher and I wanna teach- - And that is really, and but what makes a good teacher?

Is it that passion?

Is it that knowledge, that certainty that I'm doing the best I can, I mean, I so many teachers, we interviewed so many teachers.

What makes a good teacher?

- Yeah, I would say what makes a good teacher is their ability to adapt and connect, right.

So adapting to whatever the circumstance the classroom is a place that I think before I started teaching 24 years ago, it was really that most classrooms looked a lot alike, and then even, you know, if I asked my parents about their classroom situation, very similar stuff.

Adapting to all of the changes that happen which it happens constantly in education now it seems like now it's moving faster and faster with technology and things like that.

And so your adaptability is huge and your ability to connect with people.

And so I, you know, I know of course loads of teachers who also they can look at content and make it their own, right.

But that's part of that adaptability.

But the way they connect with students is what gets it through and what keeps the kids energized about learning, because you are asking a bunch of young folks to sit down all day.

- Yes.

- Say seven, eight hours a day.

And so how you engaged them, what kind of environment you make happen in your classroom is huge, and so those two things I think are the most important.

- When you started, obviously the bell rang when you saw these kids, when did you, cause you know a lot of folks wanna do a lot of different things.

It doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna be good at it.

- That's true.

- When did you know not only do I love this, I'm pretty good at this too.

- I did have kind of like, I've always been a people person, I've always been able to connect.

So I, which is part of probably why I valued that, right, but I did have early success with like behavior management, which if you ask most new teachers, that's kind of the tough part initially.

And so when you have that, a lot of people tell you, you are good.

So I don't necessarily think I was the best teacher when I first started teaching, but people were giving me a lot of positive reinforcement and a lot of praise because of how well behaved my students was, how well behaved my students were, and I think that was, you know, kind of enough to keep me people need that, right.

People saying to them, - Exactly.

- Man you're doing great work and can we bring people in to see your classroom?

And they were doing that, and I think it was because of kind of my behavior management and that was based on the way I connect with people.

- Yeah yeah.

- And then the man, the good teaching though for me, I would not have considered myself a good teacher until about 12 years ago, 13 years ago because I I broadened my mind and I decided everything didn't have to be my way and that changed a lot.

- Interesting indeed different perspective there, huh?

- It did, it did.

- With that in mind, last question here, what kind of advice would you give to teachers especially in this climate in Arizona and other parts of the country now or education funding and teacher consideration?

It's a controversial issue in many ways, what advice would you give a new teacher?

- My advice to new teachers but all teachers would be build strong communities in your classroom first and then try and bring it out to your schools because, so, behavior management this comes with building a strong classroom community, my classroom feels like a family, if you walk in there, we treated other that way, so when things don't go right we also then work it out like a family, we don't just say, all right, I'm done with this.

- Yeah.

- And that's where, you know, some of that behavior management stuff falls in but also the learning cause then you build trust when you build community, right?

And so the learning happens because students give you their full selves.

And lastly when I think about schools it's like a great place to like build these great humans.

In the end, you only care that they're these great humans, you don't care as a teacher.

You don't care if they, you know, go to some great college or something like that.

You hope that they're happy, healthy, and really good adults.

And that same thing, when you're building that community, you start figuring out the strengths, the weaknesses, the things that we all value and how to bring about like, alright, you value this how do we make that a part of your life going forward?

And you know, when you build that community you can do all of those things at once, otherwise you can't.

- Yeah.

- Like features, can't do all the things at once, there's a lot of things we have to do.

- Oh, spoken like a true Hall of Famer, Corrine Neal, congratulations.

Maryvale High School.

A great worker, I mean, keep it going.

- Love Maryville High School, and I will be there for the long haul.

I'll tell, wanna listen.

- You're a young man you got a lot of students to take care of out there.

- I'm a young man.

- Yes, you are.

- 24 years.

- Congratulations.

- Thank you very much.

(logo whooshes) - Up next on Arizona Horizon, we'll hear about a new school that focuses on creativity as a way to learn about science and technology.

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Plant a seed with Arizona PBS today - I was so excited when I learned that I was gonna be the next moderator of Washington Week.

I was incredibly lucky to be mentored by Gwen Eiffel, and what that gave to me was this confidence that I could be my full self, and that I was deserving in whatever spaces I was in.

Welcome to Washington Week.

I also feel this great joy in taking the helm of Washington Week knowing that I can mold it and make it my own, but also make sure that it is still within the legacy and the tradition that made it so great for all of these years.

(upbeat music) - Besides State Route 90, about 12 miles from Mexico is a monument, to Fort Huachuca, today, a high-tech training facility but also a key outpost in Arizona history.

Founded in 1877 as a temporary camp, Fort Huachuca protected minors, ranchers and travelers against Apache attack.

After Geronimo's surrender in 1886, the fort protected the border and in 1915 supported general Blackjack Pershing's expedition against Pancho via.

A statue at the fort celebrates black soldiers who served here first in 1892, then continuously since 1913 when the 10th Cavalry nicknamed by Indians the Buffalo soldiers were sent here.

In 1942, the first all black division was stationed here.

Fort Huachuca has a long and distinguished record of support for the people of Arizona.

- ASU Prep has launched a new school at Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church in Phoenix.

The school aims to offer personalized learning with a focus on science and technology for students of color who've experienced barriers in traditional school settings.

We spoke to the school's founding principal Heidi Alexander and administrator Richard Yarborough an elder at Pilgrim Rest.

Heidi, we'll start with you.

What ex gimme a better definition of ASU at Pilgrim Rest.

- Sure, we are a pre-K through sixth grade school, we are tuition free, it is a public school.

We're excited about also having a STEM focus, but also arts in a big way.

So we are a STEM plus the arts school and we do the arts in a really big way.

- Yeah, and I want to get to both of that in a second 'cause I know that there's a jazz curriculum here that I I think is really inspired.

But a pilgrims gets got involved, why?

- Well, we started a partnership with ASU in 2013 when we started hosting a delivering democracy lecture, from that partnership, the conversations ensued and this is the culmination of that collaboration.

- And an important aspect of the community as well because these kids, as we mentioned, may not have the same avenues that other kids have had, the focus is right here on them.

- True.

- Yeah, and that's a big deal I think to the East Lake community.

- Absolutely, East Lake community is a historically African American and people of color neighborhood.

And so the renaissance of East Lake having the ASU brand in it is really significant to the growth and development of what East Lake's future is.

- And and we mentioned again, science, technology, math these sorts of things.

But there's a jazz inspired curriculum, not only I guess to learn about music, but also things like math and other avenues.

True?

- Absolutely, there's math all along the curriculum, right.

So on a day we go to visit and take a part of our jazz lessons with our fourth through sixth grade students.

You can hear the discussion of math and conversation with reading the notes and the music, along with the history of jazz something uniquely American that we're very proud of and uniquely African American, and its beginning roots.

- Indeed, and how, how important was that in terms of this relationship with ASU?

- Well actually that was one of the reasons why we decided to partner with ASU in the early conversations, they were interested in having our opinion about some of the curriculum that we felt was important for the people of the neighborhood.

- What was some of the, other than the jazz and the music and the arts and stuff, what did you tell them?

- Well, we told them that we had learned quite a bit from having partnered with a previous charter operator but that we needed something that would bring culture in the arts into the school because so many of our students were coming from schools where those programs no longer exist.

- Indeed, and I would imagine that having that culture having the arts, having the ability to to go off and learn an instrument something along those lines, that instills confidence and probably a little bit of energy to let's get to school, let's get there and start learning and doing this stuff.

- Certainly, so I have students texting me wanting to know why they have two more days off doing fall break.

(all laughs) So they definitely wanna get back and yeah student engagement is at an all time high because of those pieces.

- And we heard about input from the community the East Lake community, East Lake Park, which is very prominent there in that part of town.

How important was that?

And, but what did you hear?

- It was very important for an entire year as the planning principle before we opened just this last August.

I spent that time monthly with committees comprised of community members.

They helped us to create the school model which includes making sure our students have a sense of agency beginning and closing practices, we listened to the community.

I'm really proud to be a part of something like that.

- Yeah, and how's the community responding so far?

- Very well.

The congregation and the community are very supportive of the school.

I think that having people to come and seeing the happy faces on campus, we have the happiest students in the world, you should come and visit.

- Yeah, yeah.

Talk to us about pilgrim rest what hundred years now of service and- - Yes, we are celebrating our hundredth year of service most of which has been in the East Lake community.

We're culminating that with a trip to Israel that's coming up with Congregation Beth Israel that we're really excited about.

And so it's been a wonderful year of activity for pilgrim rest.

- And I would imagine it's important for ASU getting this whole project going and started to associate with Pilgrim Rest because the trust that the church has in the community.

- We've been able to leverage that relationship in so many ways, right.

I think prior thinking is a separation of church and state, but we have to understand that the community organizations that service and support communities know a lot more about our children coming through those doors than we might initially.

So just humbled by that knowledge and that relationship that we have.

- And we should mention that the Pilgrim Rest it's kind of community gathering spot down there.

(mumbles) I mean the East Lake area, that's kind of a focal point, is it not?

- Yeah, that's really how the partnership started.

And we're happy to say that we're going to introduce a dream scape pod which will be the first that we're aware of in Arizona.

So that's something that we're really proud of to have our community partners to help us to bring that to the students of ASU Prep Program Rest.

- And we got about a minute left here, I'm hearing the students are happy.

You seem very happy and satisfied.

- Yes.

- What about the parents?

What are you hearing?

- Our parents are very happy.

They're excited to be engaged, involved, represented right?

In their child's curriculum and their daily experiences.

That means a lot, makes all the difference.

- I was gonna say, where did they not feel represented before?

- Absolutely, I had interviews throughout that year before we opened up and asking parents, what is it that you want to see more of?

What would you like to see done differently?

Or the same if it's working for them.

- Yeah, well, a congratulations on this.

It sounds like a great project along in the making and a great relationship.

Continued success.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you both very much.

(soft upbeat music) - The devastating effects of the pandemic on the education system are still being felt.

Many students have fallen behind academically and teachers have left the profession in record numbers.

Amid these concerns comes a new type of school known as a micro school, which proponents say offers more of a personalized education to learn more.

Producer Shauna Fisher and photographer Juan Magan took us on a field trip.

- [Juan] Tucked into a small shopping center in the heart of Fountain Hills, is what some call the future of education.

- Adamo Education is a micro school program, a micro school is a smaller more personalized learning environment.

We have one teacher with no more than 12 students, and we're able to really customize the learning for students and give them a different type of educational opportunity.

- [Juan] Tamara Becker started a demo in August, 2021 after spending 25 years as a teacher and an administrator.

- And I saw an opportunity for education to innovate itself.

And as we were going through the pandemic, I really thought that this was the time for education to do something different and put kids back in the focus.

- Let's give Jojo our attention.

- [Juan] Its What attracted elementary school teacher, Rosemary Barker.

- I really feel like working with children is definitely my calling.

I love the kids, they are hysterical, they're funny.

They make me laugh every day.

But not only that just to see the aha moment that they get when like they grasp a concept is so rewarding.

And that's the best part about being a teacher.

- [Juan] For years, she'd been frustrated, things like class size as many as 30 children in her kindergarten class.

Lack of school supplies and support, but Barker says 2020 was the hardest year of her decades long career.

Watching her colleagues struggle with teaching during the pandemic, left her feeling weary.

- We had to learn a whole new platform, we had children online and then we did hybrid and we did half online and half at home, and then we would switch, and so the curriculum that you taught was really, it was really stressful because you didn't know who grasped was a concept who did not, did I teach this?

And it was really time consuming and very stressful, and then you didn't have that parent involvement because most parents are working themselves.

- Barker went looking for a more fulfilling and better opportunity.

- Well you're doing nine times four.

- At Adamo she feels she's closer to her students and their parents than in a traditional classroom.

- When I decided to become a teacher I did want a closer relationship with the parents because it is an extension of school.

When you go home it's not stop learning, it's continue learning.

And so when you do have that post relationship, you can get let them know what we're working on.

And then it extends at home.

- The eighth and farthest planet from the sun, Neptune.

- [Juan] The concept of micro schools is a hybrid of the one room, schoolhouse of the past and homeschooling.

- There's no charge, there's no tuition, there's no fees.

We are held to all state and federal guidelines just as any other public school.

- [Juan] In order to keep a Adamo tuition free and receive federal dollars, it partners with the largest charter school group in Arizona Edkey, making it a public school, Edkey also provides the curriculum which encompasses kindergarten through eighth grade.

Before starting Adamo, Becker used to be EdKey's assistant superintendent.

And while anyone is allowed to teach at a micro school, Becker requires all of her teachers have state certification.

Students choose how many times a week they do in-person learning.

Though Becker and her teachers recommend students come in at least three times a week for the most benefit, and the school day is structured similar to traditional schools with 45 minute classes.

Students group together in pods and do a combination of teacher driven learning as well as self guidance.

One big difference with micro schools, all of the grades interact at some point during the day providing socialization time.

- 15, (indistinct).

- [Juan] When Roman balloons charter school shut down last year, he didn't wanna switch to a typical public school.

- I do feel like I'm getting a little bit more getting more attention than most other schools, because it's like I said, it's a smaller and more kind of area a smaller area that I'm able to interact with the teachers and kind of get more information that I would need for the future.

- [Juan] The sixth grader also prefers Adamo's format because he wanted to avoid the pressure to fit in socially.

- Honestly, it's kind of hard because the new with all the new trends and how people like to interpret things, it gets a little difficult trying to keep up.

But I feel like here people aren't too, like, aren't too like pushy about it.

They'll kind of accept you for who you are.

- [Juan] Proponents say another added benefit of micro schools is increased parent teacher interaction.

- We pretty much have a mini parent teacher conference at the end of every day.

Parents know what we've worked on, they know how their students have been doing, and they know what they can do to help support them when they're not with us.

- [Juan] Still, micro schools are not for everyone.

Concerns range from the large emphasis placed on independent learning versus in-person learning with a teacher, to a lack of oversight by the state's education department.

Becker says she understands the criticism but sees micro schools as a viable alternate to an already tapped and strained education arena.

- I think that the need for school choice is important.

So in a community like Fountain Hills where there was no school choice, I felt for the families and the students here.

And so I wanted to make a difference in this community.

- Then you have a 20.

So first we would add - Adamo education also has a new location.

This one in Queen Creek that location started accepting students this fall.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Saturdays on Arizona PBS.

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(soft upbeat music) - That's it for now, I'm Ted Simons.

Thank you so much for joining us.

You have a great evening.

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