Editor: Sarah Elia
A few months ago I came across a webinar on Education Week What Schools Can Do to Help English Learners Thrive. Dr. Heath Grimes, Superintendent of Education for Russellville City Schools in Russellville, Alabama, was one of the speakers on the webinar. As a school leader, he struck me as unusually passionate in his advocacy for English learners (or multilingual learners of English as they are also called). I invited Dr. Grimes to share more about his work for Eduskills in hopes that his experiences can inspire educators across the United States.
Tell us about yourself and how you became so dedicated to supporting multilingual learners.
Dr. Heath Grimes began his career as a special education teacher and football coach in his hometown in Lawrence County, Alabama. After a few short years of being in the classroom and coaching he moved into administration while remaining in his home district. In 2008, he was elected as Superintendent of Lawrence County Schools at the age of 32. During his time as an school administrator and district superintendent he trained heavily in the area of literacy and literacy leadership. During his second term, and after 6 1⁄2 years as superintendent he accepted a job as Superintendent of Education for Russellville City Schools in Russellville, AL. He soon recognized that Russellville City Schools was at a critical juncture in their history. The district demographics had been changing over the past 25 years and this was having an impact on school crowding, culture, and learning outcomes, and was causing instructional challenges. It was during this time that Dr. Grimes realized the need for strong change in leadership and his need as an administrator to be the first learner. Dr. Grimes began his tenure in Russellville by setting high expectations. He often stated to the faculty and staff that there could be no more excuses, namely the large English Learner population. During this time he evaluated the district, faculty, and staff and learned much about the issues at hand. Teachers were overwhelmed and families who had been in the area for generations were leaving the district. People in the school system and the community were concerned about how to ensure a positive outcome for their students and schools. There had been little to no training in the area of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and there was little support financially or instructionally from the Alabama Department of Education because at that point Russellville City’s high ELL population along with a handful of other districts were anomalies in the state. This was the point that Dr. Grimes realized that in order for Russellville City Schools to continue to be a strong and respected school system, he would have to become an advocate for districts with high ELL populations, but also a staunch advocate for all students in Russellville City Schools. He felt that districts with high ELL populations needed financial and instructional support from the Alabama State Department of Education so that ELL education didn’t impede the learning of others and that students in his districts needed to be recognized as students first and not the problem to the impeded learning. Dr. Grimes diligently advocated for coaching and support from the Department of Education and additional funding for high density districts from the Alabama legislature. He invested heavily in professional development for teachers and administrators and began by educating teachers about the cultures of the Hispanic students that were now the majority in the district.
Optimism, patience and kindness are important traits for all who work in education. How do you maintain these traits as a district leader, especially as you advocate for ELs? What keeps your spirits up?
Optimism and being able and determined to envision and believe in positive outcomes is a leadership quality that I had learned through experience is partly a God-given character trait of mine. I wasn’t always as patient as I needed to be but a realistic control of that impatience, I would say, was instrumental in the turnaround. We needed high expectations and we couldn’t make excuses and be OK with where we were, but also understanding but maybe not always expressing that those things wouldn’t happen overnight. I’ve always sought to be kind. As a Christian, I am commanded and taught to be kind so that is very important to me. It was always my hope and prayer and maybe concern for me that my drive for our students and district to be successful didn’t overshadow or overtake my desire to be kind. It is sometimes difficult to be kind and be driven. At least it’s difficult for people to see you as both. As a leader I had to learn through experience that you can be kind, but being kind didn’t mean compromising or lowering standards. I do believe that you can be kind, that you should be kind, and you are more successful when you are kind, but that being kind doesn’t mean you have to be weak. One of the first trainings that I participated in as an educational administrator was focused on The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. I brought that into Lawrence County Schools to all administrators and even trained as a trainer. One of those habits is to seek first to understand before being understood. Again, I’ve learned through experience the importance of this habit. I always try to view decisions and goals through the lens of the other person or consider their viewpoint. It doesn’t mean that I was going to change the goals or lower the standards, but it did help me to be a better leader to see it and try to understand it from their perspective. One specific example of this was within the first couple of years at Russellville when we adopted a “No Excuses” mentality. It was ok for us to not accept the excuse of having a large Hispanic population. It wasn’t ok to ignore that the teachers had not received the proper training or that the principals didn’t have adequate resources to address these challenges.
I was blessed to play on 2 National Championship football teams at the University of North Alabama. Those were some of the hardest days of my life. But our coach, Coach Bobby Wallace, constantly reminded us that the reward was on the other side of the hard work and that if we didn’t put enough hard work in, then all the work we were doing would be for naught. If we could keep pressing on and not give in, the reward would be greater than the sacrifice. I had put that mentality into practice many times in my career prior to working in a high ELL district in Russellville. I had seen the results of sticking to your goals and not lowering your standards. I recognized the importance of being in touch with my team and understanding how they felt and what they needed. I have seen it work. I know that with the right support (a strong board and a great team) that we could accomplish what we wanted to accomplish. As a leader it’s my job to set high expectations and build strong relationships, lead boldly, and hold people accountable.
Don’t get me wrong, it was tough. Not everyone seeks first to understand. People are often selfish and are more concerned about themselves than others around them. They don’t always value people that don’t look like them or speak the same language as them. Truthfully, I haven’t either. I learned to do that through experience as well. Having a board that supported me was the key to our success. But boards don’t always support multilingual learners because they aren’t the priority in the district. Teachers are overwhelmed and feel that so many multilingual learners add to the difficulty and demands of their jobs. Lawmakers representing a community that as a majority don’t understand the financial focus and value of investment in students that may be undocumented. It can be lonely but I had a great team that believed in me, followed my leadership, and gave honest feedback, and a board that believed in my vision and supported me. I think they could see the end result and that is what sustained me.
Educating multilingual learners of English and providing extra funding for this demographic for professional development, supplemental staffing, after school programs, and resources often becomes a political issue. What advice do you have for fellow educators as they advocate for the best interest of this demographic?
This is all very true and real. Keep the main thing the main thing. Remind lawmakers what we (educators) are here for. We are here for students. They are in their positions to represent everyone, not just the majority. Making the weak strong is doing the best you can for everyone. What happens if we don’t educate ELs? What happens in a district that has almost 40% students who are EL? What happens to those students when they become adults? They are still going to live in your community. Don’t we want them to be educated adults who can better contribute to the community?
Do what is right for students, period. They are our focus. Be courageous leaders and do what’s right for the people we are in education for… the students. It really is simple. It’s not about the adults. It’s not about politics. It’s about what is best for students. Lead that way.
When discussing the rapid change in demographics in your local community for the Education Week webinar mentioned above, you said that you and your district needed time to “mourn, accept, and celebrate”. Can you talk more about this and explain how this mindset can be beneficial for students, staff and community alike?
Yes, so within a year of being hired in Russellville City Schools, the state had contracted with someone to build capacity in all schools for Alabama’s Implementation of a Comprehensive System of Learning Supports to Improve Teaching and Learning and Re-engage Students. It was a statewide initiative. Upon the visit to Russellville the presenter, Dr. Merrianne Dyer who I got to know better, seemed to almost be frustrated with where our conversation for learning supports was going. She pulled me to the side and said Mr. Grimes, it seems that you all are more focused that your district has changed drastically in demographics than you all are about finding a way to support them and she shared about some of her similar experience in Gainesville City Schools, Ga. And she said to me, ‘I think they have to get over the fact that Russellville isn’t the same place as it was when they grew up and went to school here. You all can never move forward until you come to terms with that. We had to do it. I don’t care what you have to do but until they accept that, this district isn’t going to improve or change. We’ve been there. You have to accept it. They may need to mourn it like a death but whatever you have to do you can’t move forward until you accept that. So being the believer in Good to Great, by Jim Collins that I am, you must confront the brutal reality. I called a meeting with our leadership team soon after her visit and I told them we had a week that they could cry, meet, discuss, etc., but in another week I would never accept a high ELL population as an excuse again. A high ELL population was who we were – not an excuse. We could seek solutions but I didn’t want to hear excuses around it anymore. I told them to mourn if they must, accept it, and then we would work together to make it better than it was before and that we would celebrate both that and our diversity. And that was our mantra. And for the most part, that is exactly what we’ve done.
Federal funding is expiring for a lot of schools across the nation and also there are inevitable budgetary cuts. What can schools do to maintain momentum of their support for English learners in the wake of this?
It’s inevitable that schools are going to lose personnel and auxiliary programs. The most real and practical advice I can give is just make sure that those cuts are proportionate. Thirty-seven percent of our students are ELL. If we cut the few ELL resources we have, that impact is going to be exponentially greater for that student population and ultimately makes it harder on all teachers and all students’ instruction. While it might not be the most popular or politically acceptable decision, don’t make disproportionate cuts to English Learner supports. In the end, those types of cuts are cuts to the entire educational program and eventually increases the need for more varied differentiation.
Is there anything that you want readers to know?
If they are in our buildings, they are our students. We should advocate for those students just like we do any other student. Much of this comes back to the question about politics and we are educators. However, being able to navigate the political perspective helps you to be a much more effective educational leader. As much as we accepted and celebrated our diversity, and that was important for our culture and how we educated all students, it doesn’t always move the needle politically. So we must understand it and provide an argument and data that helps those making these decisions support it. For instance, we talked a lot about Alabama’s standing on the Nation’s Report Card. How much impact would it have if students that speak no English are being counted in our data? What if 33,000 EL students moved (closer) to proficient? How much of an impact could that have on our scores? Taking that to the teacher level and looking at data, if your data isn’t moving much, what if you moved the 10 EL students to proficient? How would that affect a teacher’s classroom data, grade level or school data? What happens if we don’t focus on and educate a high EL population in a community? What impact will that have on the community? And finally, if you are concerned about strong academic achievement or a strong instructional program, how much better or easier does that become if we move our students who aren’t proficient to proficient?
Read more about Dr. Grimes’ advocacy of ELLs in Russellville City School District here in Education Week.
