Derek L. McCoy

I speak often, and proudly, about the amazing job my school does is serving a very needy population. As a family, our school rallies together to making small and big differences in the lives of the students and family in the Spring Lake Middle community. Part of the significant issues we work around are high number of families living in poverty, very high transiency rates,, supporting the social/emotional needs of our students and keeping our teachers upbeat and impactful as we work in this very demanding environment.

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Since joining SLMS, I have worked with a great team of teachers and administrators to bring about some changes to our instructional practices and school culture that have translated achievement results for our school. With hard work and planning we have been able to make our growth goals these past years. We have been able to achieve our goals with a focus on several different areas:

• Strategic planning;
• Collaboration among staff and students;
• Innovative leadership and learning practices;
• Focusing on what to teach, how to teach it and,
• How to effectively assess our impact.

I’m happy to announce that this summer, I’ll be sharing our team’s success at the Model School’s Conference in Atlanta. The presentation will focus on our work to change the learning and teaching in our school and how they align to the Rigor Relevance framework designed by Dr. Daggett and the ICLE.
We are proud of our journey and its my hope to share the great work we have to engage in daily to ensure that teachers are teaching at high levels, students are learning and demonstrating the desired outcomes and we are helping meet the various needs of our community. There will be takeaways for everyone at this session.

We all grow together!