Grad's guide to graduate admissions essays - Colleen Reding 2015
Columbia university - Teachers college, summer principals academy
General graduate studies
We stood—a small, motley group of parents, children, and teachers—rolling bright, warm stripes of paint onto the dismal gray walls of our school’s entryway. Though our conversation came in halts and bursts of English and Spanish, our purpose united us, as we worked to transform a space from hopeless to inspiring. The entryway to the school is an important place. For years, it had been the door from a neighborhood which had long disowned it, associating the school with violence, academic failure, and a sense of low expectations. Since our school’s founding in 2009, it is where our teachers pass each morning, breathlessly chattering about the plans for the day; where excited children eagerly hurry into the warm, embracing fold of their school family; where parents are met and greeted as they arrive for meetings; where families cross as they arrive to proudly watch our students excitedly take the stage to perform.
The project was a small one in comparison to many of the roles I have taken on in my time at PS 317 Waterside Children’s Studio School, but it captures some essential qualities of my leadership. First, I saw a problem—in this case, the blank, gray walls of a school long associated with failure and low expectations—and envisioned the solution and the potential for transformation. Bringing vision to reality, I applied for and was awarded grant funding; created the designs; gathered volunteers; purchased supplies; and managed schedules and permits. I rolled up my sleeves and painted side by side with a team of stakeholders in our school’s success—parents, staff, and students. We were left with blocks of bright, vivid colors, and the words “PS 317: Learn. Create. Imagine” covering the walls. “It makes me feel hopeful,” one mother told us. It had become an entryway which could signify to everyone who walks through our doors that they will be empowered with the tools they need to succeed to their very greatest potential.
My first year as a teacher was also PS 317’s first year as a new DOE school replacing a failed phase-out in a uniquely challenging community. When I applied to Teach for America 4 years ago, I was a Georgetown University Social Justice Analysis student working in DC’s homeless community. I wrote in my application essay about how my experiences had taught me that “no one should ever give up his or her struggle against injustices large or small, no matter how hopeless or frustrating a situation may seem. For every person that fights to make the world a better and more just place does so simply by fighting.” In my time teaching since then as part of the inaugural team of teachers at Far Rockaway’s PS 317 Waterside Children’s Studio School, I have had the opportunity to meet, work with, and learn from many such fighters. I saw firsthand the tremendous impact passionate leaders, including our founding principal, can have in that fight to make the world better—in the classroom, throughout the school, and in the greater Far Rockaway community. The realization that my own impact could be multiplied as a school leader quickly became apparent.
As I learned to create and implement positive behavior plans and design rigorous, individualized instruction for students in my self-contained third-grade classroom, I was also participating in key schoolwide decisions as we shaped our mission, modified and adapted our curriculum, and built engagement with our children’s families and the larger community. As our school grew and developed in mission, capacity, and impact, so did I. Beyond the leadership role I stand in daily as a special education classroom teacher to the part I’ve played in logistical, operational, and instructional planning for the school, I have had the opportunity to learn and grow through many different leadership opportunities.
The school we had replaced had long failed its students; the most affected by this failure were the students with special needs. As a proactive approach, I partnered with another classroom teacher to focus and strengthen our support for struggling learners as Coordinators of Special Education. This has been perhaps the most important, formative role I have had the opportunity to take on. Through my work, I have learned that leaders must be strong at proactively building structures and systems to create a successful environment in which children can learn and must also be able to respond thoughtfully and comprehensively to situations as they arise. Through participating in and eventually leading focused, practical, and impactful professional development, as well as small group and individual coaching and support, I have learned about, shared, and helped to implement positive behavioral and academic interventions and strategies which have made our school a place where all students can learn, grow, and feel valued. I created a video library of teachers within our school, filming, editing, and compiling clips of my colleagues at work to maximize the impact of sharing best practices for supporting all of our learners. The results are not only in our testing scores, which show dramatic progress among our lowest third, but in the smiling faces of our students, in the pages of their writing which adorn our walls, in the excited whispers of their reading in classroom libraries.
Our special education students and the lowest third of our learners are not the only underserved among our student population. For years, local schools have failed our community. It is an extraordinarily urgent level of investment required to fight for these students—I remembered that each role that I took on at the school had the potential to be a key piece of the fight for those not yet old enough to fight for themselves. Whether it was fundraising (more than $250,000 for a new technology lab, auditorium renovation, playground, and beautification projects like our entryway); collaborating with our school’s Parent Teacher Association; forming partnerships with community leaders and our local City Councilman; writing and planning new curriculum maps across content areas aligned with the new Common Core Standards; or supporting instructional and behavioral best practices in classrooms throughout the school—I constantly had in mind the value each result would have on the learning, well-being, and success of our children.
Summer Principals Academy, I believe, is the next step in my training to be a fighter for educational equity for all children. For 3 years, I have had the powerful experience of helping to lead a brand new school under what many in our community told us were impossible circumstances. We worked relentlessly each day to raise student achievement, to foster stakeholder investment, and to reflect on and improve our own instruction and pedagogy. Summer Principals Academy would allow me to continue this important work at PS 317 while developing my potential and maximizing my future effectiveness. I believe and have seen that school leaders have the ability to make a tremendous promise to children that school can and will change their life and build their future. In this promise—which I believe Summer Principals Academy can help me make—I know there is also a battle won in the fight toward making the world a better and more just place.
