FWISD looks to demo teacher model to boost reading. Here’s how it worked elsewhere
For years, officials in the Fort Worth Independent School District used the same strategy to try to boost student achievement: Offer coaching and guidance to teachers and hope that, as they got better at their jobs, higher test scores would follow.
District leaders now acknowledge that strategy wasn’t working. So beginning next year, Fort Worth ISD will try something new. Instead of having instructional coaches who work solely with teachers, the district will ask those staffers to split their time between teaching their own classes and acting as coaches for other teachers.
Although the strategy isn’t in widespread use nationwide, Fort Worth ISD isn’t the first district to try it. Located in southern California’s Inland Empire region, the San Bernardino City Unified School District has used the model for a little over a decade. Although it hasn’t translated into gains in student achievement, school leaders there say the strategy has given the district’s rookie teachers better opportunities to learn from their more experienced colleagues.
“There is so much value in teachers being able to observe other teachers,” said Yosan Hailemariam, an elementary school principal in San Bernardino.
Fort Worth schools adopt demo teacher model to boost reading
During a school board meeting in March, Fort Worth ISD Superintendent Karen Molinar announced that the district would move to a demonstration teacher staffing model starting with the beginning of the upcoming school year. Those teachers will spend part of their time acting as instructional coaches and mentors for other teachers, and the rest of the time teaching their own classes.
As a part of the plan, Fort Worth ISD is cutting campus instructional coach, district content coach and dean of instruction positions and repurposing them as demo teacher jobs. All of those staff members provided support and guidance for teachers, but had little direct interaction with students. Molinar told the board that moving those staff members into demo teacher jobs will allow the district to get some of its most effective educators back into the classroom, while still allowing them to work with less-experienced colleagues to hone their skills.
The move is a part of a broader effort to put more resources into literacy. Fort Worth ISD’s reading scores have been stagnant, with the percentage of third-graders meeting grade level on the reading portion of the state test generally hovering between 28-35% over the past decade. That lack of progress has led to outcry among city leaders over the past year, including from Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker, who spoke at a Fort Worth ISD board meeting in August to call on board members to do more to boost student performance.
Since then, Fort Worth ISD’s board has passed a resolution naming literacy as its top priority, approved a resignation agreement with Superintendent Angélica Ramsey and hired Molinar to run the district. Aside from the demo teacher plan, Molinar has discussed a number of strategies for improving reading scores in Fort Worth ISD, including standardizing instruction across the district, training teachers to teach reading and stepping up testing for reading disabilities like dyslexia.
San Bernardino tried demo teacher model for new teacher training
San Bernardino City USD’s demo teacher program differs slightly from Fort Worth ISD’s. Like in Fort Worth, San Bernardino’s demo teachers have a dual teaching-mentoring role. But in San Bernardino, one of their chief duties is to keep their classrooms open at all times so other teachers can come watch them work with students and deliver lessons. Demo teachers also help the district design curriculum, deliver professional development training for other teachers and work with videographers to produce videos of them teaching their own classes.
Shana Smith, San Bernardino City USD’s assistant director for employee development, said the district rolled the model out in 2013. The program was primarily a response to the large number of new teachers the district hired every year, Smith said. District leaders wanted a more formalized way of showing early-career teachers what effective instruction and classroom management looks like, she said.
Smith said the program hasn’t translated into noteworthy gains in student achievement. On last year’s state test, about 33% of the district’s students met or exceeded grade level in reading, and 21% did so in math. Like many districts, San Bernardino City Unified has struggled to rebound from the academic losses its students saw during the pandemic, she said.
But the program has helped the district do a better job of getting its novice teachers up to speed, Smith said. Before the program existed, anytime school leaders needed to show novice educators an example of what good teaching practices looked like, they had an informal list of teachers they could ask, Smith said. Before moving to the district’s central office, Smith worked as a mentor for new teachers for years. Every time she asked a colleague to let her bring a few new teachers into the classroom during a lesson, it amounted to her asking for a favor, she said.
“They would say yes, and I would try and compensate them in some way, by bringing them a little basket or something,” she said.
By formalizing that process, the district helps school leaders make better use of its most experienced teachers, Smith said. And because those educators get compensated for their efforts — through extra pay, not just baskets of treats — school leaders and mentor teachers don’t have to go through their buildings begging for favors when they want to bring new teachers in to observe, she said.
Demonstration teachers also handle the district’s New Teacher Academy, a three-day training session where a few hundred new hires learn everything they need to know before the first day of school, as well as a two-day professional development session for all teachers before the beginning of the school year, Smith said.
One of the program’s biggest advantages comes from the fact that the teachers offering guidance to less experienced colleagues are still in the classrooms themselves, Smith said. Before the change, the only people the district had available to do professional development for new teachers were central office staff members, many of whom hadn’t worked as classroom teachers in years. Teachers who are still in the classroom can offer better insight because they have more current knowledge of what strategies work and how to use them, she said.
SBCUSD demo teacher model lets rookies watch veterans at work
Hailemariam, the San Bernardino elementary school principal, said the benefits of the program extend beyond the campuses that have demonstration teachers. Hailemariam’s campus, E. Neal Roberts Elementary School, doesn’t have a demo teacher on site. So when she wants new teachers to watch their more experienced colleagues at work, she takes them to other schools nearby so they can see how those campus’ demo teachers handle things like classroom management and specific strategies they use with their students.
Having those rookie teachers see firsthand how a long-tenured educator goes about the job can be valuable, Hailemariam said. When teachers hear about instructional strategies in a training session, it generally feels theoretical, she said. Hailemariam, who was a demo teacher before she became a principal, said observing more experienced teachers gives new hires a chance to see how those ideas look in a real-world setting.
Amy Klein, a demo teacher at an elementary school in San Bernardino, said the qualities that make someone a good teacher won’t always make them a good demo teacher. Like every other educator, demo teachers need to be innovative and willing to try new ways of keeping students engaged, she said. But a good demo teacher also needs to be comfortable with other adults coming into their classroom periodically to watch what they’re doing. Klein said she knows many top-tier teachers who won’t apply to be demo teachers because that aspect of the job makes them uncomfortable.
But Klein said the outside observations are one of the parts of the job she finds most helpful. After other teachers watch her at work, there’s always a debrief. Although she’s been teaching for 26 years, Klein said she always learns something new from the early-career teachers during those conversations.
Ultimately, what Klein likes most about being a demo teacher is that it allows her to work with other teachers without having to give up being a classroom teacher. While she acknowledged that the dual responsibilities the job carries can be a lot to manage, it’s a rewarding role, she said.
“It is a lot, and I love it.” Klein said. “I mean, to me, I have the best of both worlds.”
This story was originally published May 2, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
