A Warm Welcome
Lincoln Heights looks like a brand-new school, sparkling clean, good security, and warm welcome. The last quality was provided by Principal Kim Grant, a 32-year veteran of the Wake County Public School System, who exudes the reason why anyone would stay past the usual retirement level of 30 years—she loves what she does. She began as a physical education pupil instructor while at Cary High School and quickly got drawn by the Special Olympics into special education, which she specialized in for Wake County beginning in 1987. She celebrated the turn of the millennium by becoming an instructional facilitator at Yates Mill Elementary School. In that position, she coached teachers for all content areas.
To imagine the unique contributions that youth with disabilities can make, think of Helen Keller or some geniuses who have been called autistic. Once reflective teachers discover people like them, they become believers in multiple ways to learn. One of Kim Grant’s most dramatic memories was the day she had an adult visitor to her class. It turned out he was a former student with multiple disabilities who was now making his way in the world. An innovative example of using multiples paths to learn at Yates Mill involved helping the school make gardens and then using them across the curriculum to make authentic connections of reading, writing, and arithmetic to the real world.
Several years later, Principal Grant earned her MSA in administration, graduating at the same time as another beloved Fuquay-Varina Principal, Jonathan Enns (of our High School, before his recent promotion). Soon afterwards, she became Assistant Principal at Yates Mill and five years later full Principal at Lynn Road Elementary. It was our community that drew Principal Grant to Lincoln Heights.
Collaborating in an Open and Connected Community
Lincoln Heights is even more diverse than our town as a whole. Its population is 25% Hispanic, 21% African American, 48% White, 3% other (Asian, Native American, etc.). I have learned in story after Suburban Living story, that Fuquay-Varina citizens connect with each other in more ways than most communities including across ethnic, economic, racial, and educational levels. Perhaps it is our size or history or the diversity itself. Whatever has made Fuquay-Varina an open and connected community, I was delighted to find that Principal Grant not only quickly discovered this quality of our town, but also fosters innovative ways to draw on it and to enhance it in her school.
A special Lincoln Heights innovation was inspired by Campbell Law School’s John Powell and supported by a generous grant from Kellogg. He began experimenting in prison with what he calls “restorative practices” and “restorative circles.” These are ways to give voice to those who too often in our society have been deprived of their voice. Everyone sits in a circle and the organizer begins with a prompt like “What is your greatest hope for the week?” At Lincoln Heights, restorative circles began with the staff, but the teachers found them so productive, they introduced them to their classes as well. Every child gets a voice. And this model extends to the playground and other settings as well. If a child can advocate in front of a whole classroom, then they can advocate for themselves on the playground. Each child knows they have something to say and if there is a conflict, they have a voice. The result is collaborative learning and as Principal Grant put it, “a really caring, sweet school.”
Collaborative learning plays a big role in the professional learning teams. Teachers from every grade level meet for ninety minutes each week to analyze student performance data and plan instruction. The data discussed may include “exit tickets”—three questions after a lesson to determine how well it worked for whom. Observations count as well, since classroom teachers observe different results than standardized test makers have found ways to note. Discussions might also include student presentations and class writing scored with rubrics, often designed by the teachers themselves.
Standardized test scores may also enter the discussion. But the farther removed anyone is from the school, the more important such standardized scores become. Little learning happens because of them, since they are too crude to measure the minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, day-by-day activities that change the lives of students and the citizens they become.
Backward design plays an important role in team planning discussions. Goals begin the process and then the activities are added that aim to make those goals a reality.
Multiple Ways to Learn in the Outdoors
The circles enhance, but do not define Lincoln Heights. Besides its community feeling, Lincoln Heights is now defined as a Magnet for Environmental Education. A five-year grant is pouring millions of dollars in external funds into materials, supplies, and staff to transform the educational process at the school. The idea is based on Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods. He identifies many modern children with a “nature deficit disorder”—lost in virtual worlds that only vaguely imitate our God-given heritage. He argues that having kids outdoors and exposed to nature is essential for their development. The school based their whole magnet grant on his work.
At Lincoln Heights, every day from 2:30 to 3:00, students go to an Environmental Expedition. They choose one from four different themes, each lasting for nine weeks. After those themes are completed, another four are created, so that the school has already produced 30 different themes. Like the regular day, many expedition classes start with a circle.
A walk around the school makes it easy to see that Principal Grant’s passion for multiple ways of learning is shared in the school. A giant mural in the front hall recently created by the art teacher shows a map of the state, like a kid’s puzzle magnified a hundred power, complete with bears and waterways in the coastal plain, mountains in the west, and various flora, fauna, and landscapes in between. Beyond the hall, there is a courtyard, not an empty source of light like the one outside my mid-century school classroom, but filled with umbrella-covered tables, miniature gardens, and even sawed-off logs ready to be chairs, desks, stepstools, or whatever else young imaginations might invent. Outdoors is for learning and collaborating, not just for recess and playground shenanigans. Behind the courtyard are more gardens—flowers for pollinators, vegetables for the food pantry, and all for biology and mathematics lessons. Parents can call the office (919-557-2587) to arrange tours at their convenience.
A Place for Parents and Volunteers Too
A school, which is made for people to get along with each other and their environment, works. Lincoln Heights was projected for 411 students this fall, based on population changes in the area. During my late July visit their population was 462 and still growing. Two-digit growth in a single year shows that the magnet’s environmental theme is drawing iron-clad interest from around the area.
If the numbers don’t impress you, try out the family engagement program. Each month on the first Thursday, the school provides dinner for 250 people on a first-come, first-served basis. Parents participate in a theme related to literacy, math, or environmental inquiry like farm-to-table plans. Activities are hands-on and interactive, designed to provide tools for working on phonics, reading comprehension, fractions, or other skills with children at home. The hope is to reinforce learning. The last-half century of research on human cognition has shown beyond doubt how much the memory of an experience is dependent on the place where it occurred. Home learning, like the outdoor learning of Lincoln Height’s magnet theme, gives more places for children to remember what they learned.
Lincoln Heights Magnet Elementary provides services far beyond what we have come to think of as our right to a public education. But the community relations between Lincoln Heights and Fuquay-Varina is not just academic – like our Academy Street, it is also two-way. Modern Woodmen of America donates money, as does the Rotary Club, and some churches. There is also a fill-the-backpack program for children in need. Such gifts are very welcome, but people may not realize that the gift of skills is also welcome at Lincoln Heights. My tour came across a telescope, microscope, and other scientific equipment, provided by the Magnet status grant. Astronomy clubs, nature clubs, woodworkers’ clubs, and music providers came quickly to mind as groups having skills that could be shared with the school. A restriction is that the activity be open to children who need transportation.
That means the activity must be either during the school’s special activity periods or provide transportation for students who need it and wish to participate in activities held after school. Such inclusiveness fits right in with the focus on diverse ways to learn. Regardless of whether pupils need a ride home, as Principal Grant put it, “Everybody needs a time to shine.”
Infectious Devotion
Principal Grant’s devotion to the school, its community, its parents, its staff, and its pupils is infectious. A favorite experience of hers was the story of a former teacher assistant who had graduated from Campbell University but had not completed student teaching which is needed to become a licensed teacher. Empowered by her Principal they found a way. It made a huge difference in what the staff member was able to contribute to the school and to her family. Another favorite is watching staff grow into leadership roles. Still another is having lunch with a group of students, who asked to have lunch with her.
There are people who love power for its contribution to their self-esteem. Real leaders are enablers. They don’t care if they enable the young, the old, the poor, the rich, the skilled, the learners, or the doers. The glory for them comes in seeing accomplishments of people they affect. “It’s a joy,” Principal Grant exclaimed about being a principal. “After 32 years. I really do love it.”
I usually ask at the end of interview, “What do you want to say to our Fuquay-Varina readers?” Principal Grant’s answer was “Check us out. Call for a tour. Learn about the environmental impact we’re making—its impact on the community; its impact on the kids; and even its impact on the community that the kids make among each other.”
