TEAM Charter Schools

Science teachers Esther Winbush (TEAM Academy) and Ranjana Reddy (Rise Academy) were awarded $10,000 each as two of ten teachers nationwide to be awarded the KIPP Excellence in Teaching Award. In front of almost 2,000 fellow KIPP teachers at the annual KIPP Schools Summit in Orlando last week, Esther and Ranjana joined the elite club of past winners that includes TEAM Schools teachers Heidi Moore, Marc Tan, Sha Reagans, Lauren Grayson, and Tia Morris.

Esther Winbush, according to her nominator, Marc Tan:

“Numbers don’t lie: Esther has been able to get her students to succeed more consistently on the New Jersey state tests than any other teacher in the history of TEAM Academy. In the 2005-06 school year, her first at TEAM, her students’ proficiency rate on the New Jersey Grade Eight Proficiency Assessment (GEPA) was at 80% while Newark’s average proficiency rate was 49%. In the 2006-07 school year, 79% of her students were proficient on the GEPA, compared to Newark’s average rate of 48%. Last year, when New Jersey switched to the Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (ASK), 81% of her students were proficient, compared to Newark’s average rate of 66%.

Despite these impressive numbers, it would be a travesty to sum up Esther’s impact on the school with just test scores. When one steps into Esther’s classroom, her high expectations for her students and her commitment to teaching her students to become critical thinkers are immediately evident: one usually finds thirty students one hundred percent engaged in a lab, which they must work in cooperative groups to execute with minimal direct instruction. Esther coaches her students to problem solve independently, and anecdotal evidence from students suggests that her class is one of the hardest, yet most loved, classes that students take during their four years at TEAM Academy. Esther is frequently seen afterschool tutoring individual students, running makeup labs, or coaching students on how to independently take care of the many reptiles that live in her room.”

Ranjana Reddy, according to her school leader, Drew Martin

“First and most importantly Ranjana’s kids LOVE her. For the last two trimesters that we have tracked student survey responses Ranjana’s scores have been off the charts. She had an average of 3.76 (out of 4) on responses by students… Her consistency with dealing with behavior infractions coupled with her incredible skills to manage her class using “soft” moves is unlike any other teacher I’ve ever witnessed. A quick nod of the head, brief eye contact, a swift hand motion, or a gentle hand on the shoulder solves the vast majority of her problems. Ranjana always somehow manages to take the least invasive approach to managing a behavioral situation in her class and rarely, if ever, does it ever escalate… Last year, while designing the new 6th grade curriculum, Ranjana managed to differentiate every lesson for every IEP student in her 5th grade science class. She designed binders for every student to track the objectives that they had mastered. She then came up with a pull out schedule that would make it so that various IEP students would receive individualized instruction at their level twice a week.

For the 3 years that I’ve known her Ranjana has inspired me and every person that has had the good fortune to be within her sphere of influence to want to be better people. Kids, teachers, and school leaders alike, have all been privileged to work with such an impressive and dedicated educator.”