http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/nyt/20100907_in_a_new_role_teachers_move_to_run_schools.htmlThe Newark teachers are part of a growing experiment around the country to allow teachers to step up from the classroom and lead efforts to turn around struggling urban school systems. Brick Avon is one of the first teacher-run schools in the New York region, joining a charter school in Brooklyn started in 2005 by the United Federation of Teachers.
Others have opened in Boston, Denver, Detroit and Los Angeles.
At Brick Avon, the principal, Charity Haygood, who calls herself the "principal teacher," teaches every day, as do the two vice principals; Haygood started her career in Teach for America and eventually became vice principal for five years at another school.
While they are in charge of disciplining and evaluating staff members, they plan to defer all decisions about curriculum, policies, hiring and the budget to a governance committee made up largely of teachers elected by colleagues.
The school has 38 teachers, including Lee, Haygood and the other four Teach for America veterans who took it over.
Teachers have more say over what they teach, and starting next year they will have more time to work with children when they introduce a longer day.
To an unusual degree, they are shown they matter, as with the air fresheners left in the faculty lounge and bathrooms, or the new air-conditioner that will be raffled off at the end of the month to a teacher with perfect attendance.
Driving the establishment of teacher-run schools is the idea that teachers who have a sense of ownership of their schools will be happier and more motivated.
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