For Briana Oliver, teaching math isn’t all about the numbers. It’s about relationships, too.

“One student came in this morning to say, ‘My head hurts. I didn’t get any sleep last night,’” Oliver said. “So instead of us doing what we normally do to check in, I’m like, well, we can check in this way. We can put our heads down and take a moment because this time is built for our community anyway.”

Oliver teaches seventh grade math at i3 Academy, a public charter school on Birmingham’s east side. The school opened in 2020.

“My classroom may not always be the most conventional,” Oliver said, “but we’re always angling it from the direction of doing what’s best for the whole child.”

Oliver’s methods appear to be working. Her seventh graders made impressive gains on the state’s standardized test, known as ACAP, last spring. Those gains are important, because if you only look at which kids are proficient, you won’t get the whole story.

Read more Ed Lab: To improve at math, do students simply need more instructional time?

Last year, 10% of the school’s seventh grade students reached proficiency in math. Statewide, 21% of seventh graders were proficient in math.

But Head of School Martin Nalls believes his school’s proficiency level is something to celebrate compared to where many students started when they came to i3 Academy over the past three years. Many students arrive two or more grade levels behind, he said.

That means teachers have to double-down on moving kids forward, setting ambitious and accelerated goals. They don’t just aim for one year of growth; they want to boost current middle schoolers even further and prepare them for high school.

Charter schools aren’t magic bullets for the problems students and teachers face. But Nalls and his teachers said that his school’s ability to do two key things across grade levels – accelerated learning and tailored instruction – creates big gains in student achievement.

“The goal is always growth,” Oliver said. “And if the goal is always growth, we can build confidence in them and we can make them feel like, okay, we can get to the next level.”

Accelerating learning

Accelerated learning – pushing students farther, faster – gained traction during the pandemic as students fell behind because of school closings and other COVID-related measures.

“It’s like compound interest,” Nalls said. “It pays huge dividends in the long run.”

Acceleration begins with figuring out what students currently know. Students take the NWEA MAP test, a national test that shows where a student is compared to their national peers. The MAP is given three times a year: at the beginning, middle and end of the school year. Based on the results, students set goals for where they want to be by the next time they take the test, giving them ownership in their learning. i3 teachers and coaches are aggressive with goals, but say they keep them achievable.

Nalls and middle school principal Tamala Maddox dug into seventh grade scores on both the state ACAP from last spring and the NWEA MAP test.

A series of charts prepared for i3 Academy’s stakeholders and reviewed by AL.com shows both ACAP proficiency and growth numbers. Specifically, the charts show what percentage of students grew at each of four levels. The higher the growth from one grade to the next, the higher the level.

The proof of the school’s current strategy is in the numbers: Growth scores that show how much students learned from one year to the next. And the seventh grade knocked their growth scores out of the park, according to data Nalls shared.

“Our seventh grade scores were just so impressive,” Nalls said.

Nalls has plotted students’ growth from fifth to sixth grade and from sixth to seventh grade. In seventh grade math, 64% of students grew at the highest level – level four. Statewide, 20% of students achieved level three and 39% achieved level four, according to the school.

In English language arts, 47% of seventh graders at i3 Academy grew at a level four, compared with 39% of students statewide.

But is growth just a way to distract from low proficiency scores?

“Not at all,” Nalls said. “My philosophy is that everybody can focus on proficiency. But if you’re not proficient, your only pathway to proficiency is growth.”

Unlike proficiency results, the percentage of students who grow at each level is not shared publicly by the Alabama Department of Education. Instead, the state obscures percentages by using weights, like 0 points for students on level one, and 1.5 points for students at level four – to award “Academic Growth Points.”

As such, there’s no way to know how i3 Academy’s growth compares with other schools in the area.

On a different set of charts, Nalls showed seventh graders’ high rate of growth on the MAP in both English language arts and math was.

“From the fall of ‘22, to the spring of ‘23,” he said, “their growth in ELA and math was in the 99th percentile. That’s nationwide.”

Learning and growing

This year’s eighth graders – the ones with the huge growth in math last school year – were the first group of sixth graders to attend i3 Academy’s middle school. Some attended i3 Academy in the fifth grade during the school’s opening year in 2020.

Eighth grader Breaja Williams, who first attended i3 Academy in the sixth grade, said i3 approaches learning differently than her previous school.

“I feel like no matter how smart you are,” Williams said, “I feel like everybody is treated the same. So maybe she might be better at math than me, but I might be better at history. We still get treated the same.”

Williams said teachers at her former school pushed students to stay on the same pace as their classmates, which wasn’t always possible.

She and AnnaBelle Edwards, another eighth grader, took an accelerated math class with Briana Oliver. As the year progressed, more and more students joined as Oliver invited them.

“I was just like, I don’t want to kick anybody out,” Oliver said. “If that potential is there and we’re meeting that need, we want to keep on stretching that.”

Nalls and Maddox said their mission is to take kids where they are and work to move them forward.

“We are targeting them, where they need to be,” Maddox said. “It’s just one step at a time … They will be better than they were when they arrived.”

Oliver teaches one accelerated class and three classes of seventh grade math. She believes focusing on growth is important, especially for students who may not have had much success in math in school so far. They work on competing with themselves and improving skills and strengths.

I3 doesn’t just depend on classroom teachers; instructional coaches meet individually with students after each round of MAP testing to set those goals. They talk about scores and ask students if they feel like the tests represent their capabilities. They also assess whether students have any problems at home or at school that may impact scores.

“From there,” Oliver said, “they set goals for the next point because we take the MAP three times a year.”

Edwards, Williams’ eighth-grade classmate, also started at i3 Academy in the sixth grade. She said the way teachers help students set goals for learning and growth gives her something to aim for.

“I think MAP gives us a goal that we can work forward to,” Edwards said, “and it feels good to meet that goal. You want to get that goal so you get better.”

Oliver, who is in her seventh year of teaching, previously taught at a non-charter public school. She said one of the benefits of teaching at i3 Academy is the autonomy to make decisions about what best works for her students.

“It’s not just autonomy,” she said, “but also support to be able to try different things. Just to be able to see that this works, or hey, this might not work. But we tried it and we know now that it does not work.”

Oliver has added something new this year – a program called IXL that allows students to work independently that adapts to their level of learning. The test helps her track student progress and be intentional about growth.

“I’m very competitive. So like last year? Okay, great. Let’s beat that.”

“We have high expectations for students,” middle school principal Maddox said. “But we’re there each step of the way to help them meet that expectation.”