By Mitch Evans
Pulling into the parking lot at Lane school, I’m surprised to see a dozen or so cars. School has been out for just over two weeks now but there is still work happening in this school building.
I’m here to interview Rob Ackerman who has been the principal at Lane school for the past seven years. Prior to moving to Bedford, Rob was principal at Page Hilltop Elementary School in Ayer, Massachusetts, and before that he worked as a 4th grade teacher at the J. Turner Hood Elementary School in North Reading. Rob is married with two sons and he currently lives in Andover.
Following is the transcript from our conversation:
Did you always want to teach?
I became interested in teaching at about the age of 26.. I was involved in coaching sports, which I found rewarding, and I found the connection with the kids so fulfilling that the logical next step was teaching.
Do you miss being in the classroom?
There are definitely times when I miss working directly with the kids. When I have been working with staff on new ideas, sometimes it would be exciting to see these ideas through into the classroom myself. But I have been helping out in the Computer Lab, and this year I have been working with kids in Math. I do try to keep a small part of my schedule free to enable me to work with the children.
I feel I know a lot more about teaching now than I did when I was a teacher. I think I would be a better teacher now, than before I was an administrator.
In which areas do you think you have improved?
I think in understanding how children learn. I also have a much more well-rounded knowledge of classrooms and schools since becoming a principal.
What does teaching and learning look like in your school and how do you communicate that vision to your staff and to the parents?
I want our school to educate and empower students to shape their future. By this I mean, we want to prepare our students for their future, not our past. We think the best way to prepare our students for the unknown is to make sure they have a solid foundation of essential academic skills and can learn how to think critically about their lives and the world they live in.
As a school we need to make sure that our pupils are engaged in meaningful work, I’m pleased to say that Lane is not a worksheet driven school. We are also not a test prep factory. Teachers are being asked to really get the children to apply their learning, to apply high order thinking, and this is a big change from even five years ago. We pride ourselves at Lane on having a very rounded education with an emphasis on arts, music, PE and foreign languages programs. We give our kids a lot in a little more than a six hour day. We try very hard to engage the students; ‘engagement’ is a word that our school district uses a lot.
You touched on test preparation. How do you feel about that for the coming year?
I don’t like testing. Whether it’s MCAS or PARCC. Not at this level, I just don’t feel that it’s necessary. Schools already have a good understanding of where their students are and it takes a lot of time away from teaching and learning. There is also so much attached to these tests, for teachers, for administrators and for students. It’s just becoming too significant in schools. Yes, I can see its usefulness as a baseline graduation tool, but why have 8 and 9 year olds being tested to this extent? Perhaps the tests could be every other year instead. The pressure that the teachers and their students feel doesn’t make for a particularly healthy environment. The stress trickles down and it’s not fair for these young children.
Another school year is over. What were the highs and lows of last year?
Highs? Our curriculum is much more aligned now, grades 3 through 5, and we are working on the alignment between both Davis and John Glenn Middle school. We have also done a great job on incorporating more diversity and multicultural content into our curriculum.
No lows as such, but the things we have struggled with are no different to other schools. By offering a lot to our kids the schedule can sometimes feel limiting. We have more transition times and sometimes this can make it hard to give all children all the support they need. We don’t want to take them out of their classroom to give them that extra help because they will be missing something else.
What are you most looking forward to in the next school year?
I look forward to many of the same things each year. In the end it is the people who make this job so satisfying. I love when staff returns and the excitement as they prepare to welcome 540 students to our school.
It feels good this year, as we don’t have a lot of new things happening in 2015/16, instead it’s a continuation and development of existing ideas. Working on the common assessments and continuing to make our curriculum better. It’s always exciting to have new staff , to see what they bring, both personality and skills wise.
Any more planned TV appearances next year?
No, but we are always open to ideas. The vegetable garden has been a huge success and Keith Kinney and myself are always looking for ways to get our kids outside. In fact we have plans for our 4th grade students to do some science work off the school grounds next year. We are actually working over the summer with a former principal of Lane and Davis schools, Ralph Hammond, who is going to be helping us with planning for these new science lessons. Taking more advantage of our natural surroundings, heading over to Fawn Lake and Buehler Pond for example.
Are you ready for a big question? What does the future hold for elementary education in Bedford and in the state of Massachusetts ?
Well education has definitely changed a lot, you don’t see elementary schools putting on plays anymore. I sense that there is a push back against all the testing mandates that have come down from government. We have seen social studies and science get short changed over the years with the time allocated to the test requirements. But Lane staff work very hard to ensure that these subjects have a fair allocation in the schedule.
Elementary schools are at a challenging point, the academic work is harder, the testing is more frequent and there is an increase in anxiety issues in our children in general. I feel it will get to a point where we step back and actually take a look at what is happening, and realize that ‘we’ need to slow things down. Here in Bedford Public Schools, we are always concerned about the social/emotional state of our children, caused by the pressures of life as a whole nowadays. Our guidance counselors do a fantastic job, but they have definitely seen an increase in the number of children needing regular check-ins. It never feels good to see children this young experiencing anxiety that sticks with them day to day.
Another thing to mention is the change we are seeing in the population of our schools. We are much more diverse now, which is a good thing. I think people outside Bedford and even within Bedford itself, don’t realize how diverse we are from a social economic, ethnic and English language learners perspective. But this can bring its own set of challenges.
And on that point. How does the ‘no child left behind’ and the more ‘inclusive education’ ruling affect Lane?
We battle with how much to include our special education children in the mainstream classroom. We feel that on the whole it is better for kids to be included where possible. But there will always be some special education children whose needs are best met in a separate environment. Where they can receive a more targeted tuition. The federal government wants all kids to be working at grade level and frankly, that’s just easier said than done.
You have no plans to leave Lane, but when that day does come, what do you want to be remembered for?
I would like to be thought of as someone who had an open door policy. That parents always felt that they could contact me and that I gave them a speedy response. That I was genuine in trying to figure out what was best for our kids. I hope people would feel that I was able to look at Lane school through a kid’s lens and tried to do what’s best for them. That doesn’t mean that I pleased everyone all the time. In fact I was told once that “if you are pleasing everyone all the time, you are doing something wrong.”
I hope that I would be remembered for improving the curriculum while still keeping the traditional pieces of Lane, like the Project Adventure program, our foreign language classes and music instrument lessons during the day.
And finally, you are sitting in your office today but do you have any plans for the rest of the summer?
I’m not going too far this year. We might take our sons to Washington DC to do some sightseeing but I will be here at school and available on email for the rest of the summer.
We will be doing tours for our incoming third graders. Parents can bring their children and have them practice walking around the hallways. We also have new students joining us and we have met a few families so far. Mostly from neighboring towns, who have moved into Bedford. But we normally see a few out of state families during the summer too. You never know who you will see. Then we will need to do some last minute adjustments in late August before school starts to ensure that we can accommodate everyone’s needs.
I love the start of the school year, seeing returning students and welcoming a whole new third grade. I often tell my staff, there may be other elementary schools as good as Lane, but there are not any which are better. It’s a fabulous place to work and learn!
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