Good Teachers Help Bring out Best in Students

OCALA -- Dana VanWagner knows good teachers when she experiences them. "They're so interested in our life, how can you not work hard for them?" the 14-year-old North Marion High School freshman said at a recent meeting of School Superintendent John Smith's student cabinet.

Vanguard senior Marybeth Coleman pointed to her experiences with Jim Warford in the television production program.

"I want to do well for him," Coleman said. "I want to succeed, because he built the program from nothing."

Belleview High School junior Patria Lopez, 16, said her good teachers have a love for their subject.

"They want to teach it," she added. "They were born to teach that subject."

Vanguard junior Wayne Tutt, 17, said that extends to a love for the student and a desire to improve the future, "because they're trying to show the student that there's a whole world and open their minds up besides what they know."

When SchoolMatch auditors visited 14 Marion County schools in December as part of the audit for educational effectiveness, they found so many well-qualified people working in the school system that it became one of their 15 commendations of the school system.

SchoolMatch, a private company based in Westerville, Ohio, analyzes how well school districts educate students. It uses socioeconomic factors such as poverty level, income and education levels within the community to compare student populations. About 1,500 school districts share characteristics with Marion County. The audit whittles that number down to 10 for a direct comparison.

When the evaluation team visited Marion County schools in December, they were pleased with the people they found.

"First of all, they were open and honest with us," said SchoolMatch President and CEO William Bainbridge. "They welcomed us. We selected the schools, remember. The school administration did not."

Principals in some school districts, Bainbridge said, view their job as bean-counters who watch the budget. Not so in Marion County.

"They appear to be instructional managers," Bainbridge said. "We were pleasantly surprised that their focus seemed to be teaching and learning.

"They were familiar with modern instructional leadership and they weren't afraid to talk about it."

Smith said he takes heart in the quality of people in Marion County schools, especially in light of stories he's heard in his role as president of the state superintendent's association, where some districts have trouble getting two qualified applicants for school principal jobs.

By contrast, 19 people applied to the newly vacant Anthony Elementary School principal job.

"I'm reminded, 'Gosh, we've got a lot of good things going,' particularly in terms of personnel," Smith said.

"There are things that make all this happen," he added. "One is we have a wonderful community. There's a spirit about it."

Smith also cited factors ranging from positive relationships with the cities and county and good relationships with the business community to that there have never been massive layoffs during lean times.

"I believe over time that message gets out and people hear about Marion County and are attracted to it," he said.

Lisa Fontaine, Marion County's 1997-98 Golden Apple Teacher of the Year, said teachers are motivated by a love of children and a desire to make a difference.

"For a lot of children, school may be their most stable environment, and teachers may be the people they spend most of their quality time with," said Fontaine, a teacher at Romeo Elementary School.

"Watch, for example, first graders," she continued. "When they come in, they're not self-sufficient, they really depend on you and you watch them change and grow. It's amazing.

"We get to experience and see things on a daily basis that most people miss out on. You watch kids get that spark in their eye, you see them struggle ... then you see them get it. You get chills."

The audit noted the quality and attitude of employees spread beyond teachers too. The 1997-98 support person of the year, Gail Lombardo -- who works in the guidance, testing and research office -- said she started working with the school system because of her kids.

"When I started working with the school system 14 years ago it was because my children were young," Lombardo said. "Then as I worked with the school system, I wanted to stay with them. It's a team working to better educate students."

Lombardo said she finds it exciting to keep up with changes in education and see what advances are made in education.

Fontaine said there are some common threads running through the lives of people who choose to work in education.

"It's very obvious that they love what they do," Fontaine said. "They put in time on their own to give their best to students.

"There's that mutual love/respect between the students and the teachers," she added. "There's the bond there."

Belleview High School sophomore Michelle Sumner, 15, illustrated that mutual respect as she scoffed at a SchoolMatch allegation that the grade point average in Marion County Schools might be too high.

"The fact that our GPAs are higher, I think is a true testament to the teachers," Michelle said. "I'll put my instructors against any instructor in the country.

"I think the reward I get from them, just the self-satisfying reward, is better than any certificate or pin than I could get," she added. "In that way, the award that you receive is not so much special as the education you learn from it."