An Interview with Riley Avenue Principal David Enos

"We have miles to go before we sleep."

(January 2008 - Riverhead, NY) A new year invites reflection on past accomplishments and a look ahead to future needs and hopes for the District’s students. Riley Avenue Principal David Enos has been a principal in the Riverhead Central School District for 10 years and is now the longest serving principal. In 2001, he served as co-chairperson for the English Language Arts Task Force, so before the ELA tests began, he shared some of his thoughts.

Question: What is your most pressing concern as a principal of a K-4 school?
Answer: Literacy, literacy, literacy. It’s the most important thing we do at the lower primary level. Our students must be reading on grade level by second/third grade before the wider curriculum hits. A K-4 building is really two buildings. In grades K-2 our emphasis is on developing essential reading skills. Our K-2 students need to be effective decoders, reading fluently and comprehending what they read. There’s a direct correlation between reading levels and what happens later in a student’s learning.

Question: How has the curriculum changed over the last 10 years to facilitate literacy?
Answer: We’ve finally achieved consistency over time. Utilizing Columbia University’s Teachers College’s Reader’s/Writer’s Workshop philosophy has given all the elementary buildings a shared language. We’re all on the same page. We have a cohesive group of K-4 principals, and with Dr. Scricca and Nancy Carney there is some strong academic leadership and a new understanding of the importance of supporting our K-2 teachers. The addition of the literacy and math specialists in each of the K-4 buildings was also a major step forward.

Question: What else is happening in terms of reading, writing, math and science?
Answer: We are now adapting the Teachers College approach to fit the needs of the very diverse set of students that Riverhead teachers have in their classrooms. Our kindergarten teachers have an awesome task. They have students who have had two or more years of preschool and others who have had no preschool. Some are emerging readers and others have had very little exposure to books. This group is inherited by first and second grade teachers, who may have more students than ever before in the classroom with learning and behavioral challenges. We have to get them reading. Some of our students need intensive remediation. That’s where differentiated instruction comes into play. Every child deserves an individualized education program these days. Teaching is a challenging profession.

Question: How does the program accomplish that?
Answer: The TC reading program encourages the use of wonderful literature. Nobody takes a basal reader to the beach. We have to get our students to experience the love of reading. That’s a major task in a culture dominated by television, video games and the internet. Fewer people at all ages are reading. The TC program is also a leveled reading program, so students can start at their own reading level and progress from there.

Question: How do phonics and grammar fit into the program?
Answer: We’re looking at that part of the program again right now. We have a program called Phonographix that helps our youngest students learn to decode and build words. This is currently under review. We’re also using data analysis to determine what areas of learning our students and teachers need to work on. For instance at Riley, we’re working on improving our students’ ability to find the main idea in a passage and look for supporting details. It’s not enough to be good decoders. Our students have to comprehend and learn from the material they’re reading.

Question: What is the connection between the rest of the curricula and Balanced Literacy?
Answer: First, it’s still all about reading. Much of math literacy now is about reading and comprehending the problem, which is often in the form of a word problem. Our students also have to be able to write math statements to explain how they got the solution. We also chose the Science 21 program that we use because it involves journaling and writing. Reading and writing are central to all areas of the curriculum. It’s also important that our students are writing with a purpose. The TC philosophy fosters the love of reading and the love of writing. You learn to write by writing on subjects about which you are passionate. It’s important that writing assignments are authentic. Recently, we had a group of first graders who wrote letters to the President of the United States about the dangers of Aqua Dots. In addition, their authentic concerns were recently outlined in Riley’s monthly newsletter.

Question: What does teaching the “whole child” mean to you?
Answer: As a principal, I’ve always placed an emphasis not just on academics but also on Character Education. A student is never too young to learn the importance of giving. Recent research has shown that one’s EQ (Emotional Quotient) is just as important as one’s IQ (Intelligence Quotient), and even our youngest learners should learn teamwork and the joy of helping others. We give our students a lot of opportunities at Riley to “reach out” to the community, but again it has to be authentic if it is to be meaningful. Our projects and causes are real--our students see how their efforts can make a difference to a homeless person at Maureen’s Haven or someone in the community who doesn’t have enough to eat.

Question: You have been fortunate to have phenomenal support and participation from the parents in the Riley community. Has that changed?
Answer: Our parent support is still phenomenal, but I have sensed that the collective stress in the community is growing. Time has become a precious commodity. People are being stretched thinner and thinner and there are more and more demands on their time and energy. They’re worker longer and harder, putting in more hours. We’ve discontinued some of our weekend social programs because we sense that people don’t have the time and energy to do it all.

Final Question: So, what would you like to see in this District as you look ahead to 2008?
Answer: I’m optimistic. I think the District is moving in the right direction. I’ve seen tremendous growth in our ESL learners. In this global society, I would love to see our students learning another language, so that they could read and write fluently not only in English but in another language. With a consistent ELA program, we can begin to integrate and expand other elements of the curriculum. Riley has been recognized by the state education department as a “high performing school.” I want to keep improving and building on our many strengths. I think that we’re moving in the right direction, but as Robert Frost wrote, “We have miles to go before we sleep.”