Closing UNI lab school presents challenges, drawbacks

Closing the Malcolm Price Lab School at the University of Northern Iowa presents some logistical and scheduling challenges for education field experiences at UNI, but it also offers an opportunity to expand partnerships with area school districts and to try new models, UNI administrators say.

But opponents of the June 30 Price Lab closure, recently approved by state regents as part of UNI budget cuts, say they fear the quality field experiences offered for UNI education students at Price Lab cannot be replicated elsewhere, and that scheduling and travel to different locations for the training will be added burdens.

“I can participate in extracurricular or volunteer opportunities at (Price Lab), or be involved with other programs there that I normally wouldn't if the school was maybe a half-hour away,” Erin Thomsen, a 22-year-old UNI junior in elementary education from Naperville, Ill., said. “It kind of seems to me to be a step backward.”

UNI President Ben Allen and College of Education Dean Dwight Watson acknowledge losing the proximity of Price Lab will be one of the biggest hurdles in planning new models for students to get the field experience they now have at the lab school. But they say UNI will build the travel time into schedules and provide transportation for students who need it. Watson also believes this can be a chance for innovation, to build on collaborations with school districts in classrooms that are more akin to what UNI students will face when they are teachers.

“The lab school is icing, a little icing on the cake, but the cake is still rich,” Watson said of UNI teacher education.

With the closure, the nearly $3.3 million UNI allocated from the general fund this year for the lab school will go toward cost savings, expanding the Professional Development School partnership with area schools to replace the lab school field experiences, and to new research and development efforts that will happen around the state to replace Price Lab programs, officials said.

Of the lab school's $5.6 million budget this year, about $3.3 million came from the UNI general fund, which is made up of state funding and tuition dollars. In addition to that money, Price Lab this year got nearly $2.1 million in open enrollment revenue, which is mostly the per-pupil funding the school gets per student from the state to support instructional costs. Those per-pupil state dollars will follow the students to whatever district they attend next year.

Recent years of state cuts resulted in about $24 million less to UNI, necessitating budget reductions, UNI officials say.

Ideally, the state would provide the funding to support both Price Lab School and the Professional Development School partnerships with area districts, Becky Hawbaker, coordinator of the development program, said.

“The loss of the lab school presents immediate challenges and risks in maintaining the high quality of both the field experiences and the school's R&D function,” Hawbaker said via email. “However, it also offers an incredible opportunity to rapidly scale up a PDS model across a diverse range of schools and to ramp up the intensity of those partnerships.”

Price Lab School is one type of field experience for UNI education students, but they also go to districts for classroom visits, observations and co-teaching. Price Lab sees about 500 “level two” UNI education students each year, who spend about 13,000 field experience hours in the school. Another 700 to 800 UNI students spend time at Price Lab for methods classes that have field experience at the school.

It's replacing those hours for level two and level three students that's the biggest issue. Level two students must spend a minimum of 25 hours in the classroom. In level one, two and three combined, UNI students must log at least 80 hours of classroom time.

Level two students at Price Lab are heavily focused on assessment, said Nadene Davidson, interim director of UNI's Division of Teaching, which oversees field experiences and Price Lab. Students teach segments, reflect on what they did and how it impacted achievement in the classroom, then reteach the segment or move on to the next segment, Davidson said.

Price Lab teachers are trained in this deep assessment and spend time working with the UNI students on it, lab school Interim Director Lyn Countryman said.

“One thing here is the teachers have time to talk to those students, and they know that's their focus,” Countryman said. “So for the 25 hours they're in the class, you probably spend another 15 to 16 hours with them in mentoring about what they're doing and reflecting.”

Under a new field experience model, it may be hard for teachers in other school districts to find the time to spend on such things, said Countryman, who has been at UNI since 1990 and is in her second year as interim director.

“We are fighting for teacher education and the quality of teacher education that comes with this model school,” she said.

Price Lab teachers would bring their expertise to the new model, Watson said, but they would be freed of the responsibility of teaching kindergarten through high school students at the lab school. One idea is to distribute Price Lab teachers who are tenured UNI faculty to local schools, to work on-site with UNI education students getting field experience through a PDS model, Watson said. UNI also could provide funding for stipends or leave time for a district's classroom teachers who participate, he said.

Superintendents from the Cedar Falls and Waterloo school districts, where UNI has for several years had the PDS model on a small scale, say they would guarantee field experience placements for UNI students.

“When you have all of those people working in collaboration, we all learn from each other,” Cedar Falls Superintendent David Stoakes said. “So the more UNI faculty we have in our buildings, it's that much better for everybody.”

Sarah Montgomery, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction, teaches 25 UNI students in a semester-long integrated social studies and literacy methods cohort that works about three hours per week with sixth-graders at Lincoln Elementary in Cedar Falls. She hopes the PDS partnerships between UNI and local schools will ramp up in response to the Price Lab closure. Her UNI class meets at Lincoln, and what she teaches supports the elementary school curriculum.

“It's really tight theory to practice,” she said.

But one Price Lab instructor said her time spent teaching high school students at the lab school better informs her instruction of UNI students. Physics instructor Karen Breitbach teaches UNI students three mornings a week and in the afternoons teaches high schoolers. The small size of her lab school classes means she can do hands-on activities that keep her students engaged, and she uses those experiences to help her UNI students who are learning about teaching.

“We know what they need to be able to do, we know where they come from, we know what works,” she said. “And I have time to interact with my university students. That is all so critical.”

Malcolm Price Laboratory School

• Mission: Located on the University of Northern Iowa campus, Malcom Price Laboratory School is a prekindergarten through 12th grade school that is a setting for clinical teacher education and research at the early childhood, elementary, middle, and high school levels for UNI students and faculty.

• History: The campus building now known as Sabin Hall was home for campus laboratory school activities from 1914 to 1953, when the elementary portion of the Price Lab School opened. The high school wing of the school opened in 1955.
• Enrollment: 366 students in prekindergarten through 12th grade as of Feb. 2012
• Budget: $5.5 million in 2011-12

Source: University of Northern Iowa

Who Price serves

Students

•  Students in the Cedar Falls school district in grades kindergarten through 12 who reside in Price Laboratory School's attendance zone can choose to attend the school.
•  Kindergarten through sixth grade students in Cedar Falls who live outside the attendance zone can tuition-in to the Lab school if space is available, as enrollment limitations are set by the state.
•  Cedar Falls students in grades seven through 12 residing outside of the attendance zone can apply to attend and are accepted based on space and availability. If accepted, they do not pay tuition because per-pupil state funding follows the student to Price Lab.
•  Kindergarten through grade 12 students from other school districts can apply for open enrollment to the Lab school. Waterloo Community School District, which has a diversity plan, can deny the open enrollment application for a student to exit their district. The Lab school accepts students based on space and compliance with state open enrollment guidelines and enrollment limitations.

UNI students

•  Level 1: 30 hours total, three hours once a week for 10 weeks, most placements are within 50-plus metro-area schools. Typical activities: Observing, data collecting, clerical assistance, creating or preparing learning materials, providing small group or 1:1 instructional assistance, being exposed to teacher duties
•  Level 2: 25 hours total, ideally one hour per day every day for four weeks, most placements are at the Price Lab School. Typical activities: Observing, journaling, active interactions with students, writing a work sample to plan and implement two related lessons to the entire class.
•  Level 3: Elementary and middle level education: 40 hours in a one-week block. Secondary level education: Varies by program. Placements are in the metro area, with statewide, national and international options available. Typical activities: Observing and becoming involved in all instructional aspects of the classroom; ideally are teaching for full day at end of the week, under the supervision of the mentor teacher.