ML/EL E5: Serving every student, in every seat, speaking any language, with Genie Baca

This episode features an in-depth conversation with Genie Baca, a 33-year education veteran who has spent the last 18 years as a principal in Texas. Baca discusses her career progression from a balanced literacy classroom teacher to various educational roles along her journey to the Science of Reading—and how it all led her to a unique school predominantly serving refugee students. This school, where 39 languages are spoken by the diverse student body, faces different challenges (and opportunities) than most schools. Baca shares some of the transformative strategies implemented under her leadership, particularly focusing on the Science of Reading and high-quality instructional materials. These strategies have significantly improved literacy and engagement, with a systematic approach adjusted for Tier 1 instruction to benefit all students, including monolingual and multilingual learners. Baca’s story showcases the positive influence strong leadership, a dedicated staff, and research-based educational methodologies can have when creating an inclusive, successful learning environment for a diverse student population.

Quotes:

"I couldn't just lead my campus into the Science of Reading if I didn't open myself up to [the possibility that] maybe I was wrong. It wasn't easy, but it really took me looking at student work to prove that what I had been doing all these years wasn't working."  —Genie Baca

"It's serving every child we have in the seat, whether they're monolingual or they speak two or three languages. What works is a systematic approach to learning how to read." —Genie Baca

"Now that we know better, and we know more about the research and how speaking and reading go together, we're just getting smarter. We're learning more about how reading works, how the brain works, how kids acquire knowledge, and we just have to be smarter with how we do things." —Genie Baca

Episode timestamps*
02:00: Introduction: Who is Genie Baca?
03:00: Genie Baca’s journey in education and unique school
10:00: School changes over 14 years
13:00: Change management: Teacher reactions & professional development
15:00: The shift to Science of Reading
27:00: Science of Reading for multilingual learners
33:00: The importance of oral language and leveraging it in the classroom
35:00: Involving parents and caregivers in the learning process
40:00: Reflecting on lessons learned and future directions
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

Transcript

Genie Baca: 0:00

It's serving every child we have in the seat, whether they're monolingual or they speak two or three languages. What works is, it is a systematic approach to learning how to read.

Susan Lambert: 0:15

This is Susan Lambert and welcome to Science of Reading: The Podcast from Amplify, where the Science of Reading lives. Amarillo, Texas, is an international resettlement community for refugees. That's why, At Eastridge Elementary, students speak some 39 different languages. On today's episode, we're hearing from the principal at Eastridge, Genie Baca. Principal Baca is a former ESL teacher herself and, On this episode, she talks about the way her school has used the Science of Reading to successfully develop the literacy skills of students. Listeners, I think you'll enjoy hearing about Principal Baca's own Science of Reading turnaround, the story of Eastridge Elementary, and some of her advice for using the Science of Reading to serve multilingual and English learners. Here's my conversation with Principal Baca. Well, welcome Genie Baca, thank you so much for joining us on today's episode. We're excited to have you here.

Genie Baca: 1:19

I'm excited to be here.

Susan Lambert: 1:21

We can't wait to hear your story, and I know that you have so much to share with our listeners and particularly important because you are on the ground doing the work right now. So before we jump into all of those details, I would just love if you could share a little bit about your background and your current role to give our listeners just some context.

Genie Baca: 1:42

Okay. I'm on my 33rd year in education here in Texas.

Susan Lambert: 1:47

Congratulations, wow!

Genie Baca: 1:50

The end is near ! I started obviously as a classroom teacher, moved into curriculum specialist, then assistant principal. And the last 18 years I've been a principal leading schools. One of the funniest things I look back on is for many, many years, I was a balanced literacy trainer for my district and a reading recovery teacher for 10 years. And so , that was just part of my journey to where we are now.

Susan Lambert: 2:21

Yeah. We'll talk a little bit more about that. I love that you shared that because there's a lot of our listeners sitting in the same situation, whether they're classroom teachers now or they're in different kinds of roles. But it's a real thing to think about how you shift your thinking and your practice to more Science-of-Reading-based approaches. So thanks for being transparent about that.

Genie Baca: 2:43

You're welcome.

Susan Lambert: 2:44

So you are a principal in a school right now. Can you tell us a little bit of the context of the school? Because this is the really interesting part, and I know our listeners are just going to be excited to hear about that.

Genie Baca: 2:56

I have my little school here, and it's not very little. We're quite large. I don't think there's another school anywhere, I know in Texas, like us . We have mainly just refugees. And so what we do have here in Amarillo are meatpacking for work. And so that's one of the reasons refugees get settled here. And so I do have mainly second-language learners on my campus. We currently have 39 languages spoken on my campus.

Susan Lambert: 3:27

Wow.

Genie Baca: 3:28

So for 14 years I've been here and working on just teaching kids to be productive adults with what we had over the years. And so—

Susan Lambert: 3:38

What grade levels do you serve there?

Genie Baca: 3:41

We start at three , pre-K three, pre-K four, and then go all the way up to fifth grade.

Susan Lambert: 3:46

Okay. And then how many students altogether this year?

Genie Baca: 3:50

Right now we're , one of the things that's been common in everywhere, but especially in Texas, is dropping of enrollment. So normally have , would always stay in 800s, but we are also affected by that. And we're sitting at 560 right now.

Susan Lambert: 4:04

Okay. But still, how many languages did you say were spoken?

Genie Baca: 4:07

39.

Susan Lambert: 4:09

Wow. And that brings all kind of complications in and of itself. And, and we can sort of talk about that a little bit. Anything else you wanna tell us that's important about the context of the school?

Genie Baca: 4:21

Yes. So, a lot of times you'll have campuses that are bilingual and most of their kids are Hispanic, but their kids have come from Mexico and they've been in school. Their instruction has been in Spanish, but our kids come from refugee camps, so they're unschooled refugees. And so whether they come in at fifth or third or kindergarten, they're unschooled. And so they don't come in with a written language. They can't write or read in their first language. And so makes things more challenging. We can't really assimilate from first language to second language because that first language instruction was not there.

Susan Lambert: 4:59

And so many of your students then haven't even been in a schooling environment. So it's sort of acclimating them to that process as well.

Genie Baca: 5:07

Yeah. People don't understand when you are in a refugee camp, you are isolated from your country, and they grow up there. Like they might stay 12, 15 years in refugee camp before they get out and get , you know, be able to get accepted into a country. And so it's not a easy place to grow up in. They have some stories from growing up in a refugee camp, but that's our thing. When we communicate with our parents, we do everything orally. We could translate all our communication, but they can't read it. Well, some can, but for the majority of them, can't. And so we have learned over the years, we just do oral translation for all our communication.

Susan Lambert: 5:47

How does that happen? Do you send out audio, video? What does that look like?

Genie Baca: 5:51

So we have systems where you can record. So like our Somalian translator will do the message in Somalian, and, and it's sent to just her parents, our Burmese, our Karen, our Karenni , you know, Vietnamese, Laotian, whatever language, our translator records it and then the parents get it in their language.

Susan Lambert: 6:13

That's amazing. How many translators do you have to be able to accomplish that?

Genie Baca: 6:18

I have about 19, but the thing is, they speak multiple languages because in Burma, Thailand, they speak many dialects. And so one of mine can speak Burmese, Karen, Karenni, Thai, which helps.

Susan Lambert: 6:33

Yeah.

Genie Baca: 6:34

So they're instructional assistants, is really their title. But they do, and what languages we don't have a person for then we have a system called, it's like a language line where you get on and they find the person you need to help.

Susan Lambert: 6:51

So those , what did you call them?

Genie Baca: 6:53

Instructional assistants. So they spend their time in the classrooms, and so we kind of organize it where our kids that are struggling in, say, first grade and this classroom, well, maybe they're several Somalian kids. So we do their schedule, where that Somalian translator is in that Tier 1 instruction helping out with those students. And so we kind of attach them to our kids who need more assistance in the classrooms.

Susan Lambert: 7:21

Got it. And what about languages? Do you have one language that's more common? Or not?

Genie Baca: 7:29

Yes. Karen is our most common, our biggest—

Susan Lambert: 7:32

Wow.

Genie Baca: 7:32

—language, yes.

Susan Lambert: 7:34

And I am I'm sure many folks listening to this podcast don't know what country kids that speak Karen come from.

Genie Baca: 7:44

Burma.

Susan Lambert: 7:44

Burma.

Genie Baca: 7:44

But most of them have been sitting in a refugee camp in Thailand, and so they escape Burma to Thailand. And so that's where they pick up a lot of Thai, too. And so when we get them , they usually speak both by the time we get 'em .

Susan Lambert: 8:01

So because you're in Texas, my guess would've been Spanish, but that would've been wrong!

Genie Baca: 8:07

My largest population is Asian.

Susan Lambert: 8:09

Quick question. Did you ever think that you were gonna be leading a school that had that many different languages? Was multilingual education something you were interested in?

Genie Baca: 8:18

I was an ESL teacher, and so, yes, I loved being an ESL teacher, but I did not want this campus! When it came open 14 years ago, I had several colleagues call and say, "call and say you want that!" And I was like, "Oh, no, no, no way!" Because it was at school like, "Oh, that's so hard." Like, I feel for the person who has that school. And so I got the call when I was at a conference, from my superintendent telling me I was moving to be the principal at Eastridge. And I cried, cried and cried. And you know, you say, you know, "Thank you for the opportunity," you know, but as soon as you hang up the phone, it was like, "Noooo!" But when I came and I met my staff that summer, I inherited a staff that were so amazing and so hardworking and ready for a change. Because we were in school improvement. When I got Eastridge, we were in trouble. And so the first thing I did was just sit with everybody. And that was the first thing, was like, I have the best staff, and now? You can ask my superintendent, if he moves me, I retire. So he's not allowed to move me. So it's a whole different—

Susan Lambert: 9:31

We have that on a podcast recording, too, for the world to hear! That's funny. So, what was the school like when you first got there, paint us a little picture of that.

Genie Baca: 9:45

So, first thing they tell you when you get a school, just by yourself, go walk in classrooms and, you know, just look at what's in classrooms and what they have and what they need. And I was a Title I campus, and so, you know, with Title I comes money, and I think the first thing I was taken back from was they didn't have the needed materials. I didn't see any easels in classroom, any rugs in classrooms. Just basic things that you would want in elementary classrooms were missing. And so their morale was really low because , they were, they'd been in school improvement. They were in trouble for years. And so they were beat down. And when I met with my teachers, they were doing everything they knew to do. It wasn't that they were not working hard, they just exhausted all, they didn't have any other strategies. And so first thing we did is I sat with them, got to know them, and said, "What do you need in your room?" We started with basics of , and we ordered every classroom a rug, everybody an easel , smartboards, back in the day when we had smartboards, we ordered everybody smartboards, you know, all just the needed material. So first of all, they couldn't say, "I didn't have the needed materials to create school improvement." We got rid of that excuse. And then we rolled up our sleeves and started working on systems for school improvement. And if you talk to anybody in this district, I'm a systems girl. I have a system for everything. I have a system for planning, a system for Tier 1, a system for RTI, everything we have a system for. We monitor our systems and we hold everybody accountable for the work we do. And we quickly got outta school improvement and have stayed outta school improvement for 14 years.

Susan Lambert: 11:30

That's awesome.

Genie Baca: 11:31

But barely, you know, especially in reading.

Susan Lambert: 11:34

Yeah. Yeah .

Genie Baca: 11:35

Our math has always done well. Math is universal, but reading, we would just, you know, stay like a D score, not in trouble, but we'd be a D and we'd make very minimal growth every year. Every year. Then obviously four years ago is when every teacher in my campus had to go through the training of Science of Teaching Reading, which—

Susan Lambert: 11:59

Yeah. Yep .

Genie Baca: 12:00

Changed things. Yes.

Susan Lambert: 12:02

Yeah. We'll get to that in just a minute. I'm really curious to understand how the staff reacted when you came in, because it seems to me that you paid attention to the things that they need. So how did you get them, you know, outside of, "you need stuff in your classroom to make it feel like a classroom and work like a classroom"? Were there other ways that you helped them get on board with making changes? How did they react to all of that?

Genie Baca: 12:29

They—surprisingly, beautifully. Like, I really, that's why I tell people, I, the staff I got was amazing. But the thing I came with that my staff didn't have when I came was training in professional learning communities. And so that was my thing. And so my first year I taught professional learning communities and talked about systems and stuff. And then we went and took every single teacher through that three-day training, you know, San Diego, San Antonio, you know, all over the country, and made sure that every one of my staff members went through. And what professional learning communities does, it teaches you, again, systems on how to look at data , how to lesson plan, how to make formative assessments , how do you respond to data, the whole everything. And we slowly, we just started moving. And everybody, you know... And so, not everybody, I shouldn't say everybody, everybody has to get on the bus, but if you're not willing to get on the bus and roll up your sleeves and do what everybody else is doing, you know, then you get off the bus and leave. And that first year after my first year, that's exactly what happened. The people who did not wanna work smart and hard left. And then we, there we went, the people who weren't willing to get on the bus got off and we went to moving.

Susan Lambert: 13:55

So I'm gonna say this tongue in cheek , but I'm sure you have a process for professional learning communities now in your school, right?

Genie Baca: 14:02

Yes.

Susan Lambert: 14:03

Yeah.

Genie Baca: 14:04

We call it collaboration, yes, but PLC is everything. It's everything we do all day long is a PLC. But then of course, part of that, where we do the deep work, is in weekly collaboration.

Susan Lambert: 14:14

Yeah. That's amazing. So you really did spend a lot of time focused on the people in your building, getting them the resources and the professional development they need to really build that culture, that culture of professional learning, before you could build that culture of student learning, then.

Genie Baca: 14:31

It's all about teacher capacity.

Susan Lambert: 14:34

Yeah.

Genie Baca: 14:35

Our teachers wanted to do more. They just didn't have the capacity to do it. They were doing everything they could and learning about teacher efficacy along the way. And what does that look like? And how do we do that?

Susan Lambert: 14:47

That's great .

Genie Baca: 14:48

And I don't know how to do that, but we're gonna show you and we're gonna help you.

Susan Lambert: 14:52

All right . So you mentioned that four years ago, you all started to change the way that you taught reading. What happened? What was that process?

Genie Baca: 15:01

Well, it was the first year, and we were one of the ones that volunteered. And I will tell you what happened. I think you heard me saying our teachers were the hands-down best lesson planners. I could , I still have copies of them in our system. So we lesson planned , we unpacked standards, we made our assessments , we did it all , but it took hours. So our teachers were working such late hours, like 5:30, 6. We were staying so late preparing, and everybody was good at what they did, and it was kind of keeping us out of school improvement, but teachers were just getting worn out. And so when we had the process of the end of the year, when you do your needs assessment and your campus improvement plan , one of the sections you have to do is processes and procedures. The teachers did say, "We need a different procedure. Like, we gotta figure out something different." And so I remember when I did my end-of-year evaluation with my boss, my assistant superintendent, I brought that up and said, you know, "My teachers, they're worn out."

Susan Lambert: 16:07

Yeah.

Genie Baca: 16:07

And they're looking for something different. And so that just happened, a month later, our superintendent got notified. So we went through, four years ago, our whole entire staff went through, we were one of the first campuses in our district that went through the 14 modules of the Science of Teaching Reading and got trained on it. And so we had all this training.

Susan Lambert: 16:29

Okay. And for those listeners that aren't aware of this in Texas, can you explain what that looked like in the state of Texas, in terms of that training?

Genie Baca: 16:37

Yes . So it's quite intense. There's quite a, there's 14 modules and it's like in Canvas. Ours was in Canvas. So we had a presenter that was attached to us that would come to our campus and we would do Module One. And so we'd have homework assignments in Module One where we'd have to read things and go ahead and do certain parts of the module. And then we would come together and solidify our learning with our module. There were artifacts we had to do to turn in and get graded. We had to pass the whole process of the Science of Teaching Reading. Like, not only did we have to do the 14 modules, we had artifacts and we had to pass our artifacts. We had to pass all the assessments in there . So after Module One, you would have like a little quiz, several quizzes in there, and then like a summative assessment in Module One. And they were broken up. Like, you know, one module might be about how important language is to reading and how the brain works with speech and reading and , you know, learning about Scarborough's Rope or, you know, the Simple View of Reading. We pretty much learned what we should have learned in college. Or maybe we learned real quickly in college, but we didn't understand it 'cause we didn't come back to school and apply it.

Susan Lambert: 17:51

Mm-hm.

Genie Baca: 17:51

And so we had had the training, we were still doing our old ways of guided reading and balanced literacy as we were going through this training. And then that's when our teachers, we have new learning under our belt. What we're doing in class really is not matching what we just learned that the state asked us to do. So we were like, well , "The state asked us, this is required for all administrators, all teachers, but really what we're doing in Tier 1 instruction or in RTI isn't matching what we learned." And so our teachers are starting to question, 'cause one of the things we have really built , if you see my little sign there, "Learning is required."

Susan Lambert: 18:30

Yeah.

Genie Baca: 18:30

That is our mantra, for our kids, our parents, for everybody. And so they're learning and now they're questioning. And so that's when we, I tell my boss, "It's time for something different. My teachers are needing something different." And then we get a call that summer after Texas teaching the Reading Academies. And our commissioner of education wants us to try an HQIM.

Susan Lambert: 18:53

HQIM is high-quality instructional materials.

Genie Baca: 18:56

We were like, "Sure, let's, what else do we have to lose? Let's, let's do this." And so that summer, in summer school, we just played with it, 'cause it was nothing like we've ever done before. So they gave us permission to play with it in summer school, which was, thank go,d that was amazing that we had time to... "What does this mean?" And "What?" And "Gosh." And then August came and we started it. And what was nice was, first thing, even though I say our teachers made the most incredible lesson plans, the first thing they realized after probably a few weeks into the HQIM, which covered all of Science of Teaching Reading, was we would've never been able to produce this high-quality lesson plans. Like ,that was the first thing, even though they were working hard, these lessons that we were given that were, you know, written by people with doctorates and curriculum writing , we were just missing the boat. And so, it was a rough start. I will tell you, it wasn't an easy start, but , about October, we were flowin'.

Susan Lambert: 20:04

Hmm . Well, we'll come back to that. So, I'm gonna go all the way back to when you were going through the Texas Reading Academies. You were learning alongside your teachers at the same time. Is that right? You were, were you all doing these modules together?

Genie Baca: 20:19

Yes, but you gotta realize, I was a balanced literacy trainer and a reading recovery teacher going through this.

Susan Lambert: 20:24

Yes!

Genie Baca: 20:25

I would be like, "Oh." It was so hard for me. My teachers, they took it like, "Oh yeah—

Susan Lambert: 20:31

Tell me more about that. How hard was that for you?

Genie Baca: 20:37

So hard. So hard because, not that I was brainwashed or anything like that, but for 33 years, not 33, we've been 29 years, I guess. 29 years. My whole belief system, everything I spoke on, believed, argued, fought for. Everything I did was all about balanced literacy and guided reading. The three-cueing sources and , you know , that, and so it was a hard change for me. It was, I had to see it happen and see what our, the difference before I changed my belief system. I went through the course and there were some parts of Science of Teaching Reading. "Yeah, I get this, this makes sense." The comprehension part, you know, the knowledge building. Yeah, we don't, "This would be good for our second-language learners," but my whole mind frame was leveled readers, three-cueing sources, stay two hours in your reading block, reading below grade level. And now I look back at it and I'm like, "Oh my God." We were doing Tier Two in Tier 1 for 29 years and never thought once that we were hurting kids. You know?

Susan Lambert: 22:02

Do you remember a particular moment? You said you had to see it, was there a particular moment you can remember when it was like, "Oh, this really clicks!"

Genie Baca: 22:11

I tell people all the time. So my teachers, it's a thing, every time, every few weeks, put new learning out in the hall. So we have visitors here all the time. And so when we do a walk, we can just quickly tell what's going on in each classroom. But the writing that our kids produced in September, October, November, the quality, for the first time in our lives, kids were spelling words correctly, not phonetically. That blew my mind. It just blew my mind. And I was like, "Oh my God, this stuff is really working." And it didn't take long. It really was the first semester of us doing the systemized, the skills, the phonics. It was fast. Not everybody's that way. We got some veteran teachers, you know, that still have a hard time with it. But me leading a new way, I couldn't just lead my campus into the Science of Teaching Reading if I didn't open myself up to, maybe I was wrong. And so I had to, I had to have that little , " Okay, well." You know, it wasn't easy, but it really took me looking at student work to prove that what I had been doing all these years wasn't working.

Susan Lambert: 23:35

You know, it's so curious to me that you use writing as an example, because one of the myths about the Science of Reading is that we're, you know, we're only talking about what it takes to develop skilled readers, but the fact that reading and writing are so reciprocally related. Right? Yeah. It's really interesting that you saw that come out in their writing. That's really cool.

Genie Baca: 23:58

So, we do an hour of phonics, explicit phonics training every day . But beforehand, is this embarrassing to say? I am really embarrassed to say what I'm fixing to say. We did maybe five or ten minutes of word work on the horseshoe table when we had the kids with us at the guided reading table. But that was the extent of our phonics work. Five or ten minutes of word work, and off we went. And now that we are devoting an hour of the day, it's just—.

Susan Lambert: 24:28

And it—

Genie Baca: 24:30

Go ahead.

Susan Lambert: 24:30

It must be beyond just phonics, though. So phonics like in a, so you're talking about your hour that you're spending on those skills, it's phonemic awareness and it's phonics and it's writing and it's reading connected text, right? So it's not just strict phonics instruction. Is that right?

Genie Baca: 24:47

Right. Because it also builds, as they're learning phonics, well, so the cool thing is they're learning skills. And it's all systematic. It's all done in a correct order. But what is so cool about how the designers of this, is they, first graders, they're learning skills in their phonics curriculum. But when they get their reader that they're gonna read, texts, ongoing text, they've been taught every skill that they need to be able to read that text. And it's just, the layout is just amazing that , and it's not, you know, when people think of decodables , you think it's that one sentence on a page? No, it is stories. And there are decodables. They're working on fluency on those skills and those readers. But when I saw those readers for the first time, I said, "These are decodables? Oh my God. This is great text that kids are reading on." And so just to get to see kids learn everything they need to know. And not all kids, we catch 80, 85% in Tier 1 instruction. And then, of course, in Tier Two, we have to be systematic in Tier Two and catch those kids who are not getting it all in Tier 1. But just the language development that is in every aspect of the curriculum is amazing.

Susan Lambert: 26:14

So I wanna go back to another myth, which is, there's a myth that some of these evidence-based practices or Science-of-Reading-based practices are only for monolingual learners. But you're using the Science of Reading approach in a school that's very much about many, many languages. So what was it that you thought, "Wow, this is really working, this is working for my multilingual learners as well, and it's serving them."

Genie Baca: 26:42

Well, I think it's serving every child we have in the seat, whether they're monolingual or they speak two or three languages, what works is it is a systematic approach to learning how to read. It is done in a progression of what every kid needs. And so, where the difference before, I will tell you, I think it's the biggest thing I see and why it's working, is for the, not the first time, but it's just, we're more focused on it than we have ever been, is kids articulating their learning in class. And so, like, if you came and you sat in my classroom, you would see that every teacher holds every kid in the classroom, when they're in skills, knowledge, it doesn't matter, science, math class, whatever class you are in, every teacher holds kids to answering in complete sentences. And then let's just talk, 'cause we're talkin' ELA here. When we're in skills and we're working on work, everything is, we teach, it's like the habits of discussion, building on to what you learned yesterday or building on from a skill you learned earlier in the lesson. And let's talk about it. Let's, "Explain it to me. What do you understand? What do you know? Now let's apply it." And that's what I see the big difference is because before we did a systematic phonics instruction, I would see, and I was even okay with it, and I dunno why I was okay with it , but we had so much of an expectation and we thought that it was okay if your kids could answer you orally, take that response as, they got it, where everybody else, your monolingual kids had to prove to you on paper or if they were, you know, back then, we would call it "boxes," where they had to, you know, slide a box like " liiieee," liiieeee in a box. Or answer a question. We would make our monolinguals answer, write out the sentence or answer a question, where our second-language learners, we would sit there and say, "Well, if they can answer you orally, take that and move on." And sometimes I'm so embarrassed that I'm actually saying some of this stuff out loud. But what the Science of Teaching Reading did, it kind of, and I will tell you, a monolingual kid, some of them might move a little faster and acquire the skills faster. But what is so neat about it is, as you're going along in the units, in the skills, there's assessments along the way that you can look at and see, "Okay, gosh, these kids got it. They're, you know, these kids, eh , they're kind of there . They don't have 'em all, you know, an RTI, I'm gonna put 'em with the classroom teacher. These kids, they're missing it by a big chunk. What are we gonna do?" So our question and our data dialogues , we always answer two things.

Susan Lambert: 29:37

Okay.

Genie Baca: 29:38

What are we doing in RTI? Obviously, so in RTI, your kids that, on your skills test, that they're missing, how are you gonna address it these next few days in your RTI? But we also make teachers make a plan in Tier 1 instruction, because—

Susan Lambert: 29:55

Ahhhh.

Genie Baca: 29:55

If you have anybody not accessing that Tier 1 instruction, you can't just spend an hour teaching and just keep leaving 'em behind every day and an hour and an hour behind. So what we have our teachers do in planning is, "Where in your lesson are you gonna make it accessible to those kids who are falling behind?" So our teachers always have somebody with them in planning every day. They either have a coach or a curriculum specialist. Somebody is with them when they internalize their skills lesson, when they internalize their knowledge lesson. And so we either have their exit ticket out and looking at what their exit ticket was and how are we gonna address their exit ticket in tomorrow's lesson, or if it's data, if it's an assessment, what are we gonna do with the kids who don't have it yet? And so we are not gonna just wait for RTI.

Susan Lambert: 30:50

Yep .

Genie Baca: 30:50

Most of my kids who are struggling in class are kids who have a technology addiction. And so my hardest kids to reach are kids who live on a tablet or live on a phone or get to play video games. And so their brains are rewired for the graphics behind that move so fast. And they can't attend to my teacher who is not moving, like what they're used to, you know ? And so for the first time, I have pre-Kers coming to my school, which I've never seen before, who really, monolingual, refugees, it doesn't matter, they're coming with such limited language, and it doesn't have to do with, because their parent doesn't speak English, more than "No one's speaking to me at home."

Susan Lambert: 31:40

Yeah.

Genie Baca: 31:40

"No one's asking me how my day went. Nobody's having a conversation with me when I'm sad, or reading a book to me at night and asking me what that book's about." We are, most of our kids in pre-K are testing qualifying for speech, and I've never seen anything like it before. They're my harder-to-reach with the skills and the Science of Teaching Reading.

Susan Lambert: 32:04

Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about, you mentioned the importance of oral language development. How do you leverage that oral language, then, within the schooling environment, especially for your multilingual learners, to help them then make a connection to both reading and writing?

Genie Baca: 32:20

Well, one of the things, like I was talking earlier, our teachers, when they internalize their lessons, they plan their turn-and-talks, but they also plan who they're gonna ask what question to . And so even though they pretend they're pulling sticks, they know, "I'm calling on so and so because yesterday they struggled with this part yesterday. So today I'm calling on this child for this." And so one of the things they do is , when a question is asked and say they—everything's always required a complete sentence when asked a question, but it's, "Can you tell me more? Okay, you answered the question pretty correct, I'll take that as an answer, but can you tell me more about that?"

Susan Lambert: 33:02

Oh, extending.

Genie Baca: 33:03

Extending their conversation, or asking kids, or asking their partner, their turn-and-talk partner, "Would you build on your partner's answer? Can you build on that?" Or if they really don't have an idea, well, "Listen to your partner, call on somebody," but the kids know, "I didn't know it, but somebody else is gonna answer it, then I have to repeat the answer that somebody answered for me in class." But that's something we do in planning, that we plan out, and making sure that there's no learned helplessness, 'cause that was an issue we've had in the past.

Susan Lambert: 33:38

Sure.

Genie Baca: 33:39

And that you're holding kids accountable for the entire product. And that's been a new thing. Before we would take that one-word response or a couple-word response, or even just that sentence that, eh , for the most part, that's correct, but what was the exemplar answer? What was the exemplar answer you were really looking for, and holding kids to the exemplar answer or working your class to getting to that exemplar answer. And so I think that has upped the ante when teachers have learned how important language is for a kid to learn how to read and write. Without language, you're not gonna have a good reader. And so we have had to really be more systematic in our planning to make sure that we are getting there.

Susan Lambert: 34:26

Hmm . Yeah. That's a little bit, it makes me think a little bit of the professional development coupled with high-quality instructional materials is really. Powerful to know where you need to sort of, you know, adapt to your local context especially.

Genie Baca: 34:41

Yes.

Susan Lambert: 34:41

Like for you. One other question. What about involving caregivers in the community? How does that work for you all there?

Genie Baca: 34:49

So, we have monthly parent meetings here where our parents come in and they learn... My basic topics, every parent meeting, of course, I always tell parents, bedtime, how many hours of sleep your kids need. Technology, obviously we talk about technology, we talk about attendance and whatever data we have, we give the kids, their parents, their current data and try to explain to them with the translators, what does that look like? And so one training we had , every parent that came got a book about learning what their kid's love language is, and learning how to do that. But one of the things we've added on this year, which I think, to see it was really amazing. Our preK parents, have invited our parents twice up into the classroom, and they have to rotate through centers with their child.

Susan Lambert: 35:37

Oh, fun . So, yes. And the teacher's teaching the parents as the kids rotate, and when they go to, say, the Lego center, and the teacher's showing the parents how to play with their children and how do you ask questions while they're playing, you know, like how do you engage them in language and conversation and then maybe when they're in the reading center, how to read a book and how to, you know, how to do those things. And so parents have come up to the school and got to rotate through with their child and got to see how, what their child was learning, obviously, which is important. But the teachers have done a good job in preK explaining to parents, "What would this look like in your house?" Like bedtime, at night. Like, "What kind of questions, when you read to your kids, do you ask?" And so , you know, and then of course we have our basic, at nights, where we do fall carnival and things like that, pass out free corn that's been harvested and things like that, where our parents come up, open house and school programs , I said, but for the most part is, that we engage with parents, is parent meetings and what we've started this year with preK. That's great. That's great. Before we get to some of the lessons learned, I know probably our listeners are dying to know, you talked about four years ago starting this change to more Science-of-Reading-based practices in the classroom. Has it had an impact on student outcomes?

Genie Baca: 37:04

Oh , huge impact. So before we did Science of Teaching Reading, you know, the pyramid , where, you know, it's, yes, 80 to 85%, you get in Tier 1 and then what Tier Two, but ours was always upside down, where 85% of our kids were struggling. You know , our pyramid was the opposite way, no matter what we did. But for the first time, I'll use our second graders that we currently have, they've had STR for kindergarten, first, and second. They've had they're on their third year, and we truly look like the correct triangle where we have 10 to 15% of kids that are still not quite there, that are still struggling, that are still behind. But the majority of, 85% of our kids are accessing grade-level materials. And I do wanna say, woo-hoo, something that's really been amazing, we're on our third year , and for the first time in RTI and second, third, fourth and fifth, are our kids who are being very successful, are doing novel studies in RTI.

Susan Lambert: 38:14

Oh, that's great.

Genie Baca: 38:15

Yes. And so, you know, for the first two years we did skill lessons in RTI, but we finally got kids to where they are true readers who can read for meaning and can enjoy a novel study during RTI, while the other kids were still working on doing skilled lessons in RTI. And so that's, that right there , is a big win for us that we have gotten there with our kids. And being able to do that every day in RTI for a huge number of our kids yet to do the novel studies during RTI. So , I think thats a big woo-hoo. Yeah.

Susan Lambert: 38:53

Congratulations.

Genie Baca: 38:55

Thank you.

Susan Lambert: 38:55

Side note, if you hear any, like, thunder or anything in the background, we have a huge thunderstorm coming through right now, so—.

Genie Baca: 39:01

Okay.

Susan Lambert: 39:02

It might get a little noisy. Let's talk about lessons learned as you look back. What are some lessons learned for you?

Genie Baca: 39:11

Well, I , so, one of the things we learned in Science of Teaching Reading, which , gosh, I don't know why I didn't know this before. So when kids are hearing their teacher teach and talk, or the teacher's reading them a read aloud, what small part of their brain is ignited? You know, you see those little brain scans? And how much? And so prior, you know, if you didn't stay on an AB guided reading book all year long, you know, but how much , I just think about prior to the three years we've been on, how much ignition we were doing in a brain. Like how much access was that brain turning on? But when you got, when we learned in the Science of Teaching Reading that when they are talking while they read, like they're reading texts, how the whole brain turns on, is amazing! So prior to, what I would say, before the Science of Teaching Reading, we did a lot talking to our kids. We did a lot of read alouds to our kids and maybe asked a couple of questions. And we still, I mean our , even though we call our knowledge building a read aloud , it's not the same read aloud we did prior. It is engaging more. But what I think about what we do in kinder second semester, first and second grade, with our readers, and the amount of texts that our kids are reading, and I think if I could see a brain scan of my second-grade kids now compared to a brain scan to my second-grade kids four years ago, and I think, what a disservice we did to our babies back then. And now that we know better? And we know more about the research , and that how speaking and reading go together , we're just getting smarter. We're just learning more about how reading works, how the brain works, how kids acquire knowledge, and we just have to be smarter, I guess, in how we do things.

Susan Lambert: 41:15

Hmm . And thoughtful, it sounds like you really talk about and examine and look at the things that are happening in the classroom and how the students are responding. And I think that's really important too. Well, a couple of things I wanna say thank you for all your transparency here. I think you said a couple times in the course of this recording, I can't believe I'm saying this, it's so embarrassing. But I think for that transparency for others, others have felt that way, too. I know I have felt that way, too, on my learning journey here. So I just wanna thank you for being transparent about your own learning journey. I think that's really important.

Genie Baca: 41:46

You're welcome .

Susan Lambert: 41:47

So, you know, before we wrap up, do you have any final thoughts for our listeners? Any words of advice or wisdom?

Genie Baca: 41:55

If you are one of those districts or one of those schools have who have been putting off this research, go for it, is all I can say. It has paid off. It's made a believer of our teachers, our parents, the teachers, administrators. You are gonna see students, a well-rounded reading student, somebody who can read, somebody who can write, somebody who can deeply have discourse over what they're learning , that are excited about what they're learning, and they remember what they're learning. Our third graders exactly remember what they learned in knowledge building in the lower grades. And they still can talk deeply about everything they've learned in the prior years. And so I think that's been a big difference, is we are doing curriculum and we're doing the Science of Teaching Reading is creating and solidifying learning and building all those foundational skills that we need in primary. And it's very systematic. It's done very thoughtful and it's well planned , what we need to do to get kids to learn how to read. It's so amazing to go in a classroom and see them having, talking about empathy and how the characters feel and how the characters change over time. And you can really get into some meaty conversations because they're finally, before the reading, the text took all their cognitive load, you know , it took everything because they were so far behind in reading and trying to decode the words and, you know? That's where their brain power went. But now that kids know how to read? And they can spend their cognitive load on, "Oh my God, I can't believe that happened in the story!" And "Oh my God, it broke my heart when that happened." And that's been amazing to see that kids get to put their energy on things you would've wanted them to do all the time instead of just working on decoding texts, that's such a hard struggle for 'em . And so I would say go for it. It is an experience. It's not too hard, the first couple of months, you know, it's like figuring it out. But once you get figuring it out, it moves pretty quick.

Susan Lambert: 44:13

That's amazing. Well, thank you for sharing your wisdom, your wise words, your, you know, struggle through the journey . And congratulations on all your success you've had there.

Genie Baca: 44:23

Thank you.

Susan Lambert: 44:24

And thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.

Genie Baca: 44:27

You're welcome. It was nice seeing you.

Susan Lambert: 44:31

Thanks so much for listening to my conversation with Genie Baca, Principal at Eastridge Elementary in Amarillo, Texas. Check out the show notes for links to some of the resources we discussed. Also, join the conversation about this episode and this series in our Facebook discussion group, Science of Reading: The Community. Next time, we're closing out our miniseries exploring how the Science of Reading serves multilingual and English learners. To do that, we're hearing from an amazing young educator about how he brings the Science of Reading to his bilingual classroom.

Arturo Valadez Saenz: 45:08

Sometimes we are operating in a reactive way, waiting all the way 'til the unit assessment to look at the standards and identifying those trends . However, we have the power to collect data during formative assessments on a daily basis, just by walking around, walking around. Look at what their students are producing in the moment.

Susan Lambert: 45:32

That's coming up next time on Science of Reading: The Podcast. Science of Reading: The Podcast is brought to you by Amplify. For more information on how amplify leverages the Science of Reading, go to amplify.com/ckla. Thank you so much for listening.