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Our Prior Results


Teacher-Training Workshops:

TFABB’s original and continuing work has centered around one-week training workshops for Toledo’s primary-school teachers, over half of whom have no training beyond a high school degree. From a modest beginning in 1997 training 20 teachers, the August teacher-training workshop has continued to grow and reached a record 278 participants in the summer of 2008. The teachers and the administrative officials see this workshop as the main training event for the teachers each year, and TFABB has come to work closely with the Ministry of Education, local supervisors, and principals to plan the workshop every August.

TFABB has organized and/or funded the summer teacher workshop every year since 1997, with the exception of 2005. We did not hold a teacher-training workshop in 2005 because we were initiating our training program for Toledo’s primary-school principals and planning our new literacy coaches project.

Training Local Teachers at Trainers:

In July 2006, TFABB began a three-year pilot program aiming to formalize our team approach and to solidify a core of local trainers, called literacy coaches.

This pilot-program phase ended in June 2009. Generally speaking, this effort aimed to widen and deepen educational leadership and training ability in the Toledo district of Belize with the goal of further enhancing teacher knowledge and skills–and thus student success–district-wide. More specifically, the three-year program to foster local literacy coaches had two main goals:

  1. Increasing the sustainability of TFABB’s teacher-training efforts in the district by building up a core group of experienced, local trainers (thereby lessening the need over time for visiting trainers); and
  2. Increasing the reach and impact of TFABB’s teacher-training efforts by providing support to Toledo’s teachers over the course of the year–beyond TFABB’s traditional five-day summer workshop (thereby increasing the number of training days and the year-round accountability of individual teachers in implementing the new material)

The annual activities of the three-year program included:

  1. A July training workshop for the literacy coaches led by North American volunteer trainers;
  2. The annual, week-long August training workshop for Toledo’s other 280 primary-school teachers led by the literacy coaches partnered with North American volunteer trainers; and
  3. Two to three one-day, follow-up trainings during the school year led by the local literacy coaches for the 280 other teachers

Project Successes:

Successes from TFABB’s Point of View:

  1. Goal One: Increasing the sustainability of TFABB’s teacher-training efforts in the district by building up a core group of experienced, local trainers:
    The 28 individuals who served in the TFABB literacy-coaching program over the past three years now form a resource pool of well-practiced trainers for the Toledo district. The coaches have had the opportunity to lead and co-lead many training sessions, during both the two to three in-service days each year and during the five-day TFABB summer workshops. They have led or co-led anywhere from 7 to 22 days of training, again depending on the number of years they served in the program. Indeed, the Ministry of Education’s district representative indicated during discussions last summer that he looks forward to calling upon these well-prepared individuals to help meet the district’s training needs for many years to come. For example, the Ministry plans to use several of these coaches to present its workshops this summer. This three-year program marked the first-time that TFABB organized trainings that were fully led by Belizeans. Because our North American volunteers did not have to travel to be involved in every training, TFABB was able to put on trainings for less cost.

  2. Goal Two: Increasing the reach and impact of TFABB’s teacher-training efforts by providing support to Toledo’s teachers over the course of the year–beyond TFABB’s traditional five-day summer workshop:
    TFABB’s in-service days have offered a professional development opportunity that is unprecedented in Toledo; the three training days held during the 2006-07 school year marked the very first time that all teachers in the district gathered for training sessions during the school year. With seven in-service trainings held over the three-year program, TFABB’s local coaches increased TFABB’s training days by nearly 50 percent over TFABB’s pre-2006 totals (from five days per year up to seven or eight days a year). The in-service days have provided invaluable time for teachers to check in, share, and troubleshoot while they are in the thick of the school year. The increase in training days has also heightened a culture and an expectation of professional growth in the local teaching profession.

  3. Another success: District language arts scores up:
    The small percentage of Belizean children who want to go to high school take the Primary School Exam (PSE). Toledo traditionally scores fifth or sixth of the six districts and several percentage points below the national average. This scenario held true in language arts scores for the three years before TFABB began the coaches’ program. In May 2008–two years into our literacy coaches’ program–Toledo nearly matched the national average and came in fourth out of six for language arts. A first!! Also, Toledo’s language arts scores were higher than the district’s math score, which is unusual in a district of second-language learners. The Ministry and other local managers made much ado of these gains when they spoke at various TFABB training events over the last year. Toledo is usually seen as the "hopeless" district by officials in the capital, some of whom have never visited the district’s rural schools because of the difficult travel logistics (e.g., lack of roads). Because they usually feel like the forgotten district, it is easy to understand why Toledo’s educators take such pride in moving up to fourth place for the first time. It is hard to say that TFABB’s programs in Toledo can claim all of the honors for this exciting improvement, but our new mix of using local trainers, adding more training days, and focusing solely on language arts in the last three years certainly did not hurt.

 

Successes from the Participants’ Point of View: (beyond the successes mentioned above)

From the Coaches’ Point of View... a few illustrative quotes:

  1. Making an impact on teachers and children:
    • "I see ‘TFABB’ when I go into classrooms (word walls, student writing notebooks, lesson plans)... I feel like I have a part in that."
    • "I enjoy hearing positive feedback from teachers about their classroom successes and their students’ successes."
  2. Working side-by-side with the North American partners:
    • "The TFABB workshop has really changed. The Belizean coaches are also decision makers and leaders during the workshop."
    • "I enjoyed working with the North American partners."
  3. Being seen as an expert/mentor/leader:
    • "I enjoyed the opportunity to share knowledge and skills with other teachers."
    • "I have had several teachers approach me for extra, informal meetings to go over the tools and approaches."
  4. Improving principal supervision: "Being a coach has been very good for my job as a principal. With TFABB’s checklist tool, it is clear what elements I should look for in my teachers’ lesson plans and instruction."
  5. Getting to know other teachers in the district

From the Ministry of Education’s Point of View:

  1. Filling a gap: "The TFABB in-service program has been very helpful because the Ministry is not able to afford all of the trainings that TFABB provides."

From the Teachers’ Point of View:

  1. Participants in the workshop and in-service sessions led by the coaches felt that they received solid and useful information.
  2. Teachers feel it is important to have Belizean presenters, who can relate to and understand what teachers are going through and what is expected of them.

Training Preschool Teachers:

For most of TFABB’s eleven-year existence, the Toledo region where TFABB works has not had preschools in the rural areas. Lack of access to preschool plays a role in the many obstacles facing Toledo’s older children, including their struggles to learn English, keep up with their national counterparts in testing, and indeed avoid dropping out of primary school altogether due to frequent repeating of grades.

In the last three years, the Belizean government has made a concerted push to bring preschool to all children, including a new national preschool curriculum. The number of preschools in Toledo has jumped from three to twelve, with a plan to add several more each year. We are optimistic that each of the district’s 40 villages will one day have a preschool to help prepare their children for success in primary school and beyond.

As TFABB has long seen the need for preschool in Toledo’s rural areas, we were eager to begin working with the growing population of preschool teachers. In 2007, we added preschool training to our week-long August workshop.

Principal Training Workshops:

In August 2006, TFABB and the University of Belize completed a year-long training program for over 40 of Toledo’s 49 primary-school principals. This represented the first formal principal training for the majority of these individuals, many of whom also teach full time. Three-day workshops took place in August and December 2005 as well as April and August 2006. TFABB provided funding and some on-site training support.

The training program for new principals outlined the basic roles of a principal and covered the needed skills for community relations, recordkeeping, budgeting, report preparation, supervision, and facility maintenance.

While the training for new principals might be considered an introduction to the "nuts and bolts" of being a principal, the program for experienced principals encouraged these educators to formulate a grander vision for ongoing quality improvement in their schools. They developed a strategic plan for student success and learned how to mobilize school and community support behind that vision.


Donating Supplies and Books:

Back in 1997, when we held our first training workshop, lack of supplies, paper, and teaching materials was a big obstacle to the teachers we worked with. This was an ongoing source of frustration to everyone, and was primarily the result of insufficient funds.

Providing the necessary teaching supplies and educational books to support the skills developed in the annual Teacher-Training workshops is an important part of TFABB's mission. Since inception, we have purchased and donated over $100,000 worth of requested teaching supplies, materials, and books to the schools of Toledo. The true value of the books and supplies we have purchased over the last 12 years has really been at least $200,000, since we have generally received a 50 percent discount on all of our purchases. Additionally, we have shipped many hundreds of boxes of donated supplies and books gathered in school book drives (thousands and thousands of books gathered from teachers in St. Louis, Buffalo, Houston, Shelbyville, TN, and many other places).


School-Related Construction:

2003: Blue Creek Teachers’ House

TFABB undertook its first school-related construction project in the summer of 2003, when 31 North American volunteers traveled to Toledo to build a teachers’ house in rural Blue Creek village. The new house allows teachers posted in Blue Creek to focus on teaching and becoming part of the community, rather than a long and arduous hitchhiking commute from the town of Punta Gorda where they live.

2005-06: Santa Cruz Community Library

Fifteen U.S. volunteers spent their 2005 winter holidays in Santa Cruz, Belize, mixing mortar, sawing rebar, and laying cement blocks to help build a library for use by community members and the village’s primary school. Santa Cruz is a small village of 430 people in a remote part of Toledo, Belize’s poorest district and home to the majority of the country’s indigenous Mayan population.


TFABB volunteers helped build a Library in Santa Cruz during 2006 New Year's holiday!
The U.S. volunteers worked alongside 35 Mayan community members, who donated their time not only that week but also for several weeks before and after to lay the foundation and finish the roof. Such village involvement was especially heartening in a community that suffered from long-standing mistrust between the villagers and school personnel. A new principal, a Peace Corps volunteer, and community leaders worked hard over the prior year to rebuild trust and to unite everyone behind the project.

Increased access to education is crucial in the Toledo district, where less than 15 percent of children attend high school, 52 percent of the Mayan population is illiterate, and 56 percent of the population is indigent. No child from Santa Cruz has ever graduated from high school. TFABB and the local Belizean education authorities are confident that the library–along with the newly rekindled community involvement in and excitement about the school–will play a key role in increasing the number of children in Santa Cruz who finish primary school and go to high school.

Former TFABB Board member Karen Cueni-Tillet and her Belizean husband Karl Tillet led the group. The U.S. volunteers ranged in age from 14 to 78 and traveled from Texas, Washington, California, Florida, South Carolina, and Indiana. One enthusiastic volunteer, Larry Cruse, raised an extra $1,800 when he returned to the U.S., allowing the villagers to build a concrete roof on the library so that it can also serve as the village’s hurricane shelter.


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