Shirley Hopkinson, though a D.C. public school principal, can’t be called anything but a teacher. To try to catch her in her office at Barnard Elementary School would be pointless, as the longtime educator spends her hours instructing her staff in an unusual, hands-on style.
Mornings start with a meeting during which employees collaborate on the latest teaching research or about how to reach students through geometry.
Lunch, rather than a break, is another opportunity for teaching, this time a tutorial for students. In these sessions, Hopkinson models her style of instruction to staff.
The rest of the day is spent floating from room to room, checking in on, say, the progress of third-graders’ poetry or administering practice tests to students so they won’t freeze when it’s time for the real thing.
“She’s always here, and she’s constantly teaching to everyone close to her,” said Sandra Montgomery, the school’s counselor for the past decade. “It’s like going to graduate school, working here. … The doc has something working.”
Hopkinson’s hands-on style is perhaps the reason for her school’s academic success.
Last year, Barnard students saw their D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System scores rise more than 30 percentage points both in reading and math.
Compare that to the 27 schools that have failed the tests five times and will have to be significantly restructured.
Nine years ago, when Hopkinson came to Barnard, two-thirds of the study body was on free and reduced-meal programs and came from nearby Petworth.
Now, two-thirds of students come from out of boundary, with a high percentage of them offspring of embassy workers drawn to the successful programs.
Hopkinson said the turnaround was achieved through a laserlike focus on data-driven teaching.
As such, it is rare to find a wall of the building not papered with bar graphs of student test scores broken down toevery possible derivation.
The collective mindset also revolves around three slightly altered Rs — respect, rigor and reflection. Reading, too, remains an emphasis, with the principal calling it a “tool for change.”
“We haven’t had a playground that was adequate, so I designed a morning reading program. Whereas at other schools they come in and run around, these kids immediately begin reading,” she said.
Going back to her teaching days, Hopkinson was known for her extreme dedication to students.
She’d cook elaborate, homemade meals for school meetings to coax parents to get involved. And she’d use her own earnings to pay for classroom supplies that didn’t fit into the budget.
It’s a practice in which Hopkinson still engages, though to a lesser extent. She frequently makes small gifts to help support programs at Barnard.
“I have a music program, performing arts, full-time P.E., dual language,” she said. “My students are not deprived of anything.”
