TEACHERS OF THE YEAR

Wendell Williams Elementary School Principal Brenda McKinney clearly recalls her first year in charge: student food fights in the cafeteria, parental domestic disputes on campus and an exodus of teachers from the staff.

Teachers had stopped believing in students, McKinney said.

Attitudes were so bad, "I told my staff: 'You don't have to like the kids, but you do have to respect them,' " McKinney said.

That was four years ago, when half the teaching staff chose to leave the Las Vegas school on J Street, north of Adams Avenue.

This year, McKinney has a different story to tell. All Williams Elementary School teachers -- with the exception of two who are retiring -- plan to return for the 2008-09 school year.

It's not because the staff has a contractual obligation to stay, although the district does require new teachers to remain in place for two years.

Teachers said it's because of McKinney, whom they credit with changing the school climate and showing her confidence in them.

"She really lets us do our jobs," said fourth-grade teacher Sara Przytulski, who once contemplated leaving Williams.

Kevin Batista, an early reading specialist, said McKinney is "more like the teacher down the hall than a dictator."

On Wednesday, McKinney honored her teachers by naming all of them as the school's Teachers of the Year. During the awards ceremony, she hugged individual staff members and called them her sons and daughters.

McKinney said her strategies for creating a new sense of team were sharing leadership, giving staff opportunities for input and allowing collective decision-making.

She also worked to improve relationships among teachers.

One example Batista gave involved McKinney rebuking him for criticizing a colleague's teaching style.

She told him to come to her first if he had a problem with a peer.

Williams is a challenging school for McKinney and her staff.

Clark County School District accountability reports show that it serves a low-income community where all students were eligible for the free and reduced lunch program last year.

Student transience is a problem as well. In 2006-07, 53 percent of Williams' students left before finishing the school year.

Many students live in public housing and are part of families that move frequently.

"It's one of our problems," McKinney said.

But Williams is overcoming those obstacles to make academic improvements, McKinney said. For two consecutive years, the school has met the academic progress standards established by the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Four years ago, just 11 percent of fifth-graders tested were proficient in math. This year, 58 percent of Williams fifth graders tested were proficient in math, McKinney said.

To produce results, McKinney said she's shown her tough side to students by sometimes canceling extracurricular activities such as flag football and dances if grades are poor.

"They were mad at me, but I said, 'I am sorry; your scores are at the bottom,' " McKinney said.

Now, teachers constantly challenge students to improve their grades from week to week. They also are required to memorize a list of behavioral standards that includes coming to school ready to learn.

Teachers said the decline in staff turnover has helped to focus students.

"They were used to people leaving them," Przytulski said.

Przytulski said she and McKinney arrived at Williams the same year, one as a first-year teacher and one as a first-year principal.

"She was still learning herself," Przytulski said of McKinney.

This year, the 58-year-old McKinney could have retired after completing 30 years as an educator. Instead, she plans to keep working.

The teachers asked her to stay, McKinney said.

"I'm going to make it 36 years."

Contact reporter James Haug at jhaug@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4686.