New teaching plan in place in Palm Beach County School District

Students in kindergarten all the way through high school will feel the effects.

This as the Palm Beach County School District implements a new teaching plan.

It's reading time in Mrs. Kelly's 7th Grade class.

For teachers and students at Tradewinds Middle School in Greenacres a majority of the districts new teaching plan was put in to place last year. We asked reading teacher Kendrah Kelly what advice she has for the many teachers and parents who question the new district wide initiative.

"I would just tell them to give it a try, said Kendrah Kelly. "The kids actually benefit."

But administrators at the school admit this is no cake walk for teachers.

That's because they must now incorporate seven new practices into their classroom and teaching style.

One of the biggest concerns: whether this will take away from a teacher's individual style.

"It's not taking the creativity away--the creativity is still there--the teachers have to follow the bench marks," said Kirk Howell who is principal at Tradewinds Middle.

It's fair to say, some do disagree with Howell's opinion.

It's easy to take a look around Mrs. Kelly's classroom and see the practices in place.

"The adjustment is really with the instructors, kids are an open book," said Howell.

A big change for teachers is how they organize their lesson plans.

"I'm not going to say it was easy last year," Howell added.

Mrs. Kelly says now that she's had a year to learn the new plan she likes it...but says it wasn't easy.

"It's a lot of information to thrown at us at once, said Kelly. "It's hard when your dealing with the kids, the curriculum, bench marks while also knowing the FCAT is right around the corner."

Principal Howell says Tradewinds Middle Schools letter grade jumped from an "A" to an "A plus" after they started this new plan last year.