From Good to Great in Puerto Rico

Developing a High-Quality Spanish Literacy Program

Vimenti School in San Juan, Puerto Rico, is a dual language K-6 school, serving 274 students with 36 teachers. The school is a two-generation project committed to the economic development of families and whose mission is the eradication of child poverty in Puerto Rico. Since the pandemic’s interruptions, Vimenti has focused primarily on strengthening language skills in students’ first language—Spanish. The school’s leaders knew that getting instruction right was critical for their students, as a strong academic foundation is a key factor in ensuring young people have multiple pathways to thriving lives and careers.  

While there was potential and readiness for change, the school faced a challenge: How could they elevate teacher practice in Spanish language arts and empower students to become proficient readers, writers, and thinkers in their native language? 

Multilingual learners do best when teachers celebrate the linguistic and cultural assets that they bring to the classroom. With that in mind, Vimenti leaders wanted to provide their teachers with concrete models of what high-quality teaching and learning looks like in Spanish. In 2023, they brought in TNTP’s signature in-service teacher professional development program, Good to Great, which strengthens teacher practice by centering high-quality instructional materials and leading teachers through carefully structured cycles of planning, teaching, and reflection. Since 2015, TNTP has led this program with over 700 teachers in 12 states, focusing on multiple subjects and grade-bands and a range of student populations. 

Working closely with the leadership team at Vimenti, TNTP began with an analysis of the school’s current instructional landscape for Spanish language arts. This important step helped us better understand the learning environment, the teachers, and the students. Based on that deeper awareness, TNTP created a tailored approach that would coach educators on how they could better meet their students’ needs. The customized professional development and teaching intensive program consisted of three core components: 

1.  School Landscape Analysis – Listening and Learning:

• Led focus groups with teachers  
• Conducted classroom observations  
• Completed a curriculum audit  
• Met with school leaders 

2.  Professional Development:

• Co-constructed an instructional vision
• Built deep understanding of teacher identities
• Focused on pedagogical practices of close reading and daily writing, effective question sequences and lesson internalization 

3. Teaching Intensive:

• K-6 teachers implemented one week of lessons during their morning reading block. 
• Every afternoon teachers participated in reflection and planning sessions to analyze student work and prepare for the next day’s instruction. 

We invited educators to dive deeply into the importance of high expectations and grade-appropriate assignments for their students. During the one-week teaching intensive, Vimenti teachers spent the morning reading blocks implementing lessons and devoted the afternoons to reflection and planning sessions. 

From Developing Lessons to Lessons Learned

The TNTP team developed grade-appropriate lessons for teachers to implement, offered intensive professional development, accompanied them during their instruction, and facilitated guided reflection of student achievement so they could successfully plan for the next day’s instruction. Seeing students succeed showed Vimenti teachers what their students were capable of, and in turn, raised teachers’ own expectations for how they must structure instruction to boost academic achievement. 

Had I seen a [close reading] question like this… I am 95% sure I would have said ‘skip that one, you will not be able to answer it’… but exposing them was good and led to great results.”” — Third-grade teacher, Vimenti School 

Higher Teacher Expectations Lead to Increased Student Engagement

When we compared classroom observation data between the first and last observations, the results were dramatic. The percentage of students responsible for thinking in the classroom jumped to 75 percent, a stark contrast from initial observations where this was only observed sparingly if at all. Similarly, work requiring students to use textual details to demonstrate understanding saw similar gains. The percentage of teachers indicating high expectations for their students also increased from 50 percent to 67 percent after the one-week teaching institute.  

Following the institute, one second-grade teacher shared, “[Students] are more capable than we give them credit for… you realize that they could do it… we put limitations on them ourselves.” 

Teachers weren’t the only ones recognizing this mindset shift. We started and ended the program by administering student surveys, to ensure students had a voice in evaluating their academic experiences. Student sentiment improved over the week, with more students reporting that their teachers’ higher expectations encouraged them to do their best in class. Blending high expectations, solid instruction, and grade-level content, including culturally relevant texts, had begun to unlock immense potential for both students and teachers. 

Through our customized professional learning experience, TNTP created opportunities for Vimenti’s teachers to jumpstart instructional improvement and challenge their expectations of what their students could achieve. Teachers could see the immediate impact of their instructional improvements in real time, and with coaching support, began to shift the ownership of the learning process to their students. In just one week, students wrote significantly longer responses to questions, included more evidence from the text in their answers, and dove into more complex topics, demonstrating a deeper understanding of the texts.   

In partnership with school leaders, we ensured Vimenti’s teachers worked with high-quality, culturally relevant texts that were on the appropriate grade level for their students, empowering them to focus on accelerating learning for students, rather than on struggling to catch up from pandemic setbacks. Overall, Vimenti’s teachers and students had the chance to discover and develop new identities for themselves as educators and learners. The strong results give us confidence that the Good to Great summer institute catalyzed a continuous improvement cycle that will have an ongoing impact for Vimenti students.  

Contact us to learn more about how Good to Great can strengthen instruction in your school system.