Kathy Cummins

    It is with the greatest pride and pleasure that I recommend Mrs. Kathy Cummins for San Diego City Schools Teacher of the Year.  Mrs. Cummins creates in her students the highest level of joy in and capacity for learning, while their work demonstrates extraordinary levels of academic rigor and achievement. I fear that I lack sufficient words to describe the level of teaching and learning that I have witnessed in her classroom, but I will, nonetheless, attempt to convey that here.
    Trained in Colorado, Mrs. Cummins has had approximately 15 years of practice with the literacy strategies that we are working so hard to implement in our school district.  These she has internalized and applies with exceptional skill, keenness of intellect, and sensitivity to her students' individual needs.
    As Peer Coach/Staff Developer for Dingeman Elementary School, I have had several opportunities to watch Mrs. Cummins teach. Her lessons are remarkably tight, and are expertly planned so that her purpose is threaded throughout the day and across curriculum areas.
    To assist her students as they work to master the literacy strategies, Mrs. Cummins designs and produces special response logs for her students. The log sheets are color coded to remind students of the purpose of the lesson, provide a cumulative list of the strategies learned so far, and to emphasize the strategy that they are currently working on. In addition to their response logs, students set weekly goals for their learning and reflect on their goal attainment at the end of each week. These tools and many more that she creates enable Mrs. Cummins' students to work independently for long periods of time. Because she has empowered her students to work so well independently, Mrs. Cummins is able to confer with them individually as they work, checking for understanding, providing extra support or extra challenge when needed. The children are experts in using their purposefully designed classroom to facilitate their own learning. Each of them has maximum ownership of his/her own learning.
    Everyone who visits Kathy Cummins' classroom is quickly struck by the consistency with which she uses the language of literacy with her students. Students and teacher regularly converse about meta-cognition and schema. They use the correct names for the literacy strategies, text patterns, literary craft, etc. The children's comments to their teacher and to each other reflect their deep understanding of the literacy concepts that they have learned, and their ability to reflect upon their own learning to a level way beyond normal expectations for second graders.
    It occurs to me that of all the skills and information that Mrs. Cummins' exquisite teaching skill imparts to her students, the most important knowledge that her students are acquiring is how to manage their own learning. Her class, more than any I have ever observed, is incredibly adept at setting their own learning goals and assessing their own progress toward those goals. One has to spend only an hour or so in her classroom to notice that her students have learned to be committed, successful learners. They are learners on a mission!
Were her accomplishments in the teaching of literacy her only achievement, Kathy Cummins would be worthy of the honor of Teacher of the Year. But she goes way beyond that in her teaching of all other subjects. She is an accomplished musician and ties music in with all curriculum areas. She has a very extensive science background and designs take home experiments for her Scientist of the Week to share with his/her family and classmates. Through careful and extensive planning, she is able to interconnect all curriculum areas, reaching all her students through their individual talents and passions.
    Although she most humbly declines to be called an expert, Kathy Cummins' teaching expertise has benefited students and teachers throughout our district. Many, many teachers have been brought by the Institute for Learning to visit her classroom and to watch her teach. Most of the teachers at our own Dingeman school site have had an opportunity to observe in her classroom also. This week, I hosted a group of seven other Peer Coaches who watched her teach a Shared, then a Guided Reading lesson. One of the Peer Coaches remarked that Mrs. Cummins' lesson was the finest demonstration of Guided Reading that she had ever seen at any school.
    Not only has Mrs. Cummins very graciously hosted visitors to her classroom, she has spent many hours providing extra help and support for those teachers. For our Peer Coach visit this week, she met with me prior to the day to share her plans and Guided Reading text she planned to use. She made copies for our guests of the texts that she would be using, and spent a lot of time preparing a detailed explanation about her planning and the lessons that had preceded the lesson we would watch. She also made extra copies of all the materials that she was giving to her students, so the Peer Coaches could take them back to their school sites as examples. After our visit, Mrs. Cummins gave up her recess to debrief with us about her lesson planning and answer many questions.
    Mrs. Kathy Cummins is a treasure to our school, and to our school district. Her dazzling teaching skill and her major contribution to the learning of the teachers and children of our district make her a most deserving choice for Teacher of the Year.

Sincerely,
Charlyne Barad
Peer Coach/Staff Developer