Impact through a culture of belonging: creating a symbiotic relationship between teacher candidates, universities and schools: George Mason University and Centreville Elementary School PDS partnership

George Mason University (Mason) is a top tier research university in the Commonwealth of Virginia located in the metro Washington D. C. area. The Mason College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) is the largest in the Commonwealth, and both the undergraduate and graduate elementary teaching programs recently ranked in the top 20 in the country for public institutions (U.S. News and World Report Rankings, 2022 as cited by George Mason, 2021). The Elementary Education program offers three degree options for PreK-6 teacher preparation and licensure within a Professional Development Schools (PDS) model: (1) a post-baccalaureate master’s degree in curriculum and instruction (2) an accelerated bachelor’s to master’s in curriculum and instruction and (3) a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. Once admitted students complete a rigorous, clinically based program of study culminating in a capstone semester or year-long internship experience fully embedded in a school within a network of over 40 elementary schools across six school districts.

The Mason PDS network’s differentiated approach to partnership includes three pathways in which schools may engage as partner schools, clinical practice schools and collaborative inquiry schools (Parker, Parsons, Groth, & Brown, 2016). Universal to all school sites “…is a tight coherence and integration among courses and between coursework and clinical work in schools,” that allows candidates “…to integrate theory and practice in a way that scaffolds becoming an expert in making and enacting decisions to meet the very different needs of the children they serve” (Darling-Hammond, 2014). Partner schools and their mentor teachers (MTs) host students for clinical field hours experiences in conjunction with university coursework for 30–45 hours per class per semester. Clinical practice schools typically host five year-long teacher candidates (TCs) in their final internship, providing co-teaching experiences with a MT and independent teaching. Collaborative inquiry schools host five or more year-long TCs, continue to develop MTs and collaborate with university faculty on research, teacher inquiry and professional learning.

The Mason PDS Elementary Education network is supported by an academic program coordinator, clinical coordinators, PDS program liaisons, student advisor and a team of University Facilitators. University partners in these designated roles serve the Centreville Elementary School (CES) partners including administrators, a dedicated, school-based site facilitator (SF) and a growing cadre of MTs, presently 21, who host TCs as they complete mentoring modules developed by university faculty to learn about program requirements and supervision (see www.mentoringvirginia.com).

CES is a collaborative inquiry school within the Mason PDS network supporting TCs completing semester and year-long internships in the graduate elementary education program. As a partner committed to the Mason PDS mission (see  Appendix A), CES aligns its beliefs and practices with the NASUP Nine Essentials and national teacher preparation standards and progressions for implementation (CCSSO, 2013; CAEP, 2018). A hallmark of the CES partnership is the annual addition of newly hired TCs who have completed an internship at this PDS school. In the past seven years, ten program completers have been hired at CES.

The CES administration and faculty extend their resources and celebrate TCs prior to the first workday (Essential 9) surveying TCs for grade level preferences and other information. The TCs and University Facilitator (UF) are immediately welcomed as part of the staff, provided Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) email accounts, laptops and access to curricular resources. TCs are placed with experienced mentors, embedded within grade level teams, and UFs are provided space for biweekly seminars. MTs are school-based teachers who host candidates. All MTs complete mentoring modules developed to inform them about program requirements and supervision (see www.mentoringvirginia.com). Additionally, each PDS site in our network has a dedicated, school-based SF serving as contacts for partnership communications. At CES, the SF is integral in proposing and integrating topics and teaching in professional learning seminars on site for TCs and MTs.

The Mason PDS Academic Program Coordinator (APC) initiates separate and joint welcome orientations for principals, TCs, MTs and UFs to celebrate the start of the internship year. The partnership work agreement (MOU) between FCPS, CES and Mason (Essential 6) outlines how TCs will onboard, be supported and compensated. MTs and SFs receive a stipend and license renewal points for their leadership. MTs participate in training modules developed by university faculty and advanced mentor teachers (AMTs) adding to their expertise in how to support TCs. Year-long interns receive a monthly stipend to compensate for the 40–45 days they will substitute during the year. Substituting is well managed at CES, and intentionally balanced as interns are placed. The Mason PDS APC organizes several meetings throughout the year to garner feedback from all stakeholders to include principals, SFs and MTs. At the end of the year, all partners are invited to a culminating celebration of the TCs’ Action Research examining a question around pedagogy, conducted in their internship classrooms. These shared events strengthen a TCs’ teacher identity and reinforce relationships with the PDS partners. Additionally, the Centreville principal and UF serve on current NASUP committees.

Furthermore, the CES staff and administration has continued to be on the forefront with green/sustainable education with a focus on boundary spanning roles (Essential 8). In spring 2022, the principal received the Trailblazer Award from the Green Schools National Network (GSNN). In June, the two assistant principals presented Health, Equitable and Sustainable Schools are a Necessity, Not an Option, at the Virginia Association of Elementary Schools Principals (VAESP) conference providing insight and inspiration on how to integrate health, equity and sustainability into school culture. This work around green/sustainable education has been strengthened through the PDS partnership and the addition of TCs to the staff who lead the learning within this program.

CES is a PreK-6 school located in Centreville, Virginia. The student population of around 760 students is approximately 24% ESOL, 18% Special Education and 34% Free/Reduced Lunch. During its recent six-year tenure as a PDS, the principal and the UF have remained constant, solidifying the school–university partnership. Both the principal and the UF have previously served as MTs in partnership with George Mason’s PDS, thus bringing additional experience and perspective to their current roles. Throughout the last six years, four assistant principals and four SFs have also fully supported the PDS partnership mission. Despite changes in staffing over the years, the core beliefs about our PDS partnership have remained a consistent part of our school culture and supported us as we have challenged our level of partnership within the PDS network of schools (See  Appendix B).

The needs of our diverse school community have informed topics in professional development over the last few years. This has afforded TCs and university partners opportunities to advance in their understanding about equity, antiracism, and social justice. CES’ Equity Team Leads (teacher leaders) facilitate and extend monthly professional development on the topics of equity, antiracism, and culturally and historically responsive teaching to TCs, the UF, staff and families. Evidence of the autonomy offered TCs, several of the “Equity Coffeehouses,” which are staff led learning sessions were developed and presented by a teacher candidate. She shared resources, integrated art and music created by Latinx composers, dancers, singers, and artists, and provided cultural and historical context for morning meeting lessons. Combined with this effort over the last four years, monthly book club selections included Stamped (Reynolds & Kendi, 2020), All American Boys, (Reynolds & Kiely, 2015), Blindspot (Banaji & Greenwald, 2016) and Cultivating Genius (Muhammad, 2020) were well attended by TCs and the UF. During each professional development, topics of social justice are discussed as a school community in a trusting space to deepen understanding, analyze personal biases, raise awareness about learners and explore high impact teaching practices. These explicit strategies help TCs “…confront their own deep-seated beliefs and assumptions about learning and students and to learn about the experiences of people different from themselves…” (Darling-Hammond, 2014, p. 548). This continuous professional learning engages CES staff, TCs and the UF in conversations about race, equitable opportunities, and antiracist teaching, which is a prominent aspect that characterizes our PDS partnership.

Additionally, our partnership has benefited from the unique, flexible system of the PDS pathways framework propelling CES from a Clinical Practice site to a Collaborative Inquiry site (Parker et al., 2016). CES now serves as a Collaborative Inquiry school site engaging in inquiry-based projects and research, working directly and collaboratively with Mason faculty. CES and Mason have partnered in the following capacity: (1) the Spark STEM family project nurturing family engagement (2017, 2018) (2) developing and implementing a course, Green STEAM for educators, including TCs to introduce outdoor education pedagogy and sustainability (2019) (3) a research study through the Institute of Sustainable Earth, involving CES teachers integrating outdoor sustainable approaches into grade level curriculum (4) CES principal, assistant principal and STEAM teacher serving as adjunct faculty teaching elementary education courses at George Mason and (5) University Facilitator co-planned and co-led with CES’s reading teacher, a series of school wide professional development sessions on writing workshop.

The Essentials and mission and vision of NASUP drive our PDS partnership in a multitude of ways. Each year when TCs are assigned to CES, they are immediately welcomed as part of the school community cultivating trusting relationships and creating a foundation for impactful clinical preparation. At CES, we believe that dynamic clinical practice cannot take place without strong relationships and an understanding of the community. Three specific actions at the beginning of the school year exemplify this belief (Essential 2).

• (1)

  Our TCs and their MTs take part in a New Teacher Orientation, a series of meetings designed for first year teachers to begin to learn about the school culture and community, build relationships with other staff members and engage in crucial conversations relevant for novice teachers.

• (2)

  When TCs are assigned, they are added to all modes of communication (community newsletters, email distribution lists, school Google sites, data dashboards, etc.) and issued a laptop to ensure they have all information needed to be active participants and to share resources amongst TCs. Additionally, they are invited to and often attend staff community building events inside and outside school.

• (3)

  CES TCs are immersed in the community through a keystone event known as the “Welcome Walk,” where each child is cheerfully welcomed back to school and personally meets his/her new teacher. The TCS begin to understand the invaluable foundation of a family to school partnership and the importance of connecting with families as the CES staff and TCs meet each child at their home.

Additionally, CES is a nationally recognized Green School, where sustainability and green efforts are explicitly taught, and the power of outdoor learning is actualized. TCs along with their MTs plan and implement year-long, grade level and student-led sustainability projects during a time called “Green Hour of Power.” During this time, students are empowered to identify a problem within the school and design a solution, centered around the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals. Through this project, students directly impact their community through inquiry-based learning; providing TCs the opportunity to take part in innovative practices that link their coursework and clinical experience (Essential 2 and 3).

CES TCs are also prepared for tomorrow’s students through their active participation in school improvement efforts, dialogue and decision-making. All TCs are encouraged to attend CES’s leadership committee meetings where staff problem solves through school identified dilemmas and coalesce perspectives from all stakeholders to generate student-centered solutions. Through active participation, TCs begin to understand the intricacies of the school community as they partner in shared decision-making, equipping them with problem solving and advocacy skills needed to impact a school community. Our TCs’ knowledge is nurtured through their participation in equity-based committee meetings, multi-tiered systems of support collaboration meetings, local screening meetings, behavior/wellness team meetings and welcoming and culturally responsive environment team meetings. During these meetings, MTs and TCs collaborate in order to reflect on their practices, examine data, collaborate with curriculum and behavioral experts, and commit to agreed-upon, student achievement goals. These meetings are reflective in nature and innovative approaches are shared generating new knowledge for teaching and learning for all TCs and stakeholders (Essential 2, 3 and 4). Through this focus on clinical preparation, professional learning and reflection, CES has hired and retained ten TCs because of their impact on and understanding of CES’s culture and community. Of the 22 TCs who have interned at CES over the last six years, 21 are presently employed in Virginia public schools.

Continuously embedded professional learning and the implementation of innovative practices guided by need and inquiry is a hallmark of how our PDS partnership is fulfilling the mission and vision of NASUP. Collaborative Learning Visits (CLVs) started as a model for professional learning for teachers at CES and have since become an effective model for learning about high leverage practices for TCs across our PDS program, now called guided observations. During guided observations, TCs observe various grade levels and classrooms with a common focus (i.e. teacher language, learning environment, workshop model, equity) to analyze and learn about innovative practices modeled by experienced educators, thereby ensuring personal and collective growth. After observing multiple classrooms with a common focus, TCs video their own practices around the focus, reflect with their peers, MT and UF and discuss what they learned and how their learning will impact their teaching practice. TCs are also active participants on their grade level Collaborative Learning Teams (CLTs) where they plan instruction, unpack standards, analyze data, celebrate successes and respond to student needs through a lens of collective responsibility, immersing in experiences that are well-matched to the contexts in which candidates will later teach (Darling-Hammond, 2014). Knowledge gained from the CLVs and CLTs strengthens the TCs’ confidence and sense of identity as a teacher. They are better prepared to take on their substituting responsibilities in various grade levels throughout the year, widening their perspective and understanding of the vertical articulation of standards and skills (Essential 2, 3 and 4).

John Dewey stated, “We do not learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience.” At CES, the administration plans monthly meetings with all TCs. During these meetings, there is reciprocity of the role of leader and learner (Essential 4). The administrators share innovative practices and/or current changes/challenges occurring and TCs discuss what they are currently learning and researching and how their learning/findings can improve CES. It is this reciprocity of reflection that generates new ideas with the potential to impact our entire CES community, exemplified through the Community Mapping Project (Essential 4 and 5). The Community Mapping Project encourages the TCs and school stakeholders to research and analyze ways our teachers' lives intersect with our students’ and families’ lives. The CES TCs applied Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory of child development (1981) to understand the complexity of how environmental factors impact students at CES and gain knowledge about their school community. This greater awareness of the complex factors that impact a school supports TCs’ work with students as they learn about the human, material and community resources available to them within the school as well as the political, and administrative elements outside the school (Essential 5).

Within the Community Mapping Project, TCs described the various influences, connections and interactions within layers, including positive and negative impacts on school. This inquiry helps all partners see the “…complex variety of factors that influence learning while providing a framework within which the factors could be observed, analyzed, and responded to in pedagogical practice” (Hays, Toole, & Halpenny, 2017). TCs then composed a holistic summary and reflection articulating what makes the CES community unique and why this information was important to consider in their role as a teacher. The information gathered was disseminated to CES administration for reflection to develop a plan to enhance and impact the school–community partnership led by the TCs. This experience exemplifies how activity between two communities of practice produces new learning and meaning as members cross typical boundaries of learning and value the new knowledge (Tsui & Law, 2007) (Essential 5).

An exemplary example of the impact of TCs research and results has been the work around mindfulness as a school practice. During a feedback session, TCs noted a specific need to incorporate mindfulness into Tier 1 practices for all students at CES. As students returned from the pandemic, the increased need for social emotional learning (SEL) was evident. The mindfulness movement was initiated, led by TCs. Our TCs had a vested interest in SEL learning and expertise specifically in the area of mindfulness. We leveraged their talents and together, TCs, the UF, the administration and teacher representatives launched the movement. TCs began by teaching the school community how mindfulness can impact our brain and our ability to learn. Our TCs created short videos, songs, wraps and “the mindful minute” which reached our entire student body. As students were learning about it, they were also practicing mindfulness. Each Monday morning, a different TC created a schoolwide announcement and facilitated the school in a breathing, listening or grounding exercise in mindfulness. These moments lasting between 3–5 minutes had students reporting they were feeling calmer and more focused.

Mindfulness Mondays have continued at CES. A former TC and current teacher now lead the movement and they have trained school counselors to facilitate the practice with students with the belief that mindfulness is a practice to be learned and subsequently used independently when needed. Last spring, our TCs created a list of mindfulness tools to support students in independently refocusing and reengaging in learning, developing an SEL classroom toolkit. The tools included breathing boards, coloring kits, liquid drop timers, “find it” scavenger tools, thinking putty and pop-its (Essential 3, 4, and 5).

The toolkits were launched and introduced to all staff at the beginning of the 22–23 school year. Teachers were given steps to support implementation and each classroom has a “calm-down” area in their rooms where this kit is located. Kits are also located in staff offices, conference rooms and in all specialists’ spaces, such as the computer lab, art room and gym. The ease of use and the placement of the kits allow all staff to support students throughout the building. The collaboration of all stakeholders further led to the formation of a Tier 1 Behavior Wellness Team at CES including the TCs we’ve retained who serve on the team providing direct support to grade levels team around behavior and wellness. Our team has launched a schoolwide motto, provided support to staff for structures during morning meeting or closing circle, as well as other wellness routines and procedures schoolwide.

Each of the NASUP Essentials drives and strengthens the Mason–Centreville ES PDS partnership and commitment to our community. Through continual inquiry, we work to ensure our TCs are equipped with the skills, philosophies and abilities necessary to teach tomorrow’s students. Each year as we reflect our partnership adds new practices for our TCs, mentors, staff, administration and university facilitator, mining the expertise of our partners to develop committed, independent teachers in the field.

The supplementary material for this article can be found online.