The Connection

Herndon Elementary School Principal Teresa Fennessy wants her school to be the place that everybody wants to send their children.

“That’s my aspiration and my dream for this school,” she said.

Now that she is here in her dream job, she is here for the long haul.

“I hope I’m here until I retire,” she said. “I really want to see the success of this school.”

She considered a career in education while she attended college in California, but she initially chose to enlist in the Air Force ROTC. She was a service member for 10 years and a reservist for another 12 years.

Her husband Mike Fennessy was also a member of the military, which required them to live in Germany, England, Spain, Colombia and various states throughout America.

“I’ve lived everywhere, so I’m not really from anywhere,” she said.

But she couldn’t escape her true calling.

“It wasn’t until I had my kids and I took my daughter into her first-grade classroom on the first day of school and I walked in and went, ‘This is where I want to be. I love kids. I love working with kids.’ It just felt like home for me.”

It took her some time to earn her teaching certification, but she completed her training 20 years ago and has been teaching in Fairfax County ever since.

“I’ve done a lot of different things,” she said.

She is fluent in Spanish and taught English as a second language (ESL) at Timber Lane Elementary School in Falls Church.

She then moved on to teach fifth and sixth grades at Oak View Elementary School in Fairfax.

Next, she taught Spanish at South Lakes High School in Reston.

She then worked as assistant principal for seven years at London Towne Elementary School in Centreville.

She has been on the job in Herndon since late November. She has drawn from her previous experience to manage her new school.

London Towne had a high number of ESL students and more than 50 percent of the student body was economically disadvantaged and living below the poverty line, according to Fennessy.

“Herndon is a little bit higher [population living below the poverty line], but not much,” she said. “It’s similar in both the Hispanic population, English language learners and students who are also struggling financially.”

Approximately 58 percent of Herndon Elementary School’s 860 students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, according to Fennessy.

This means that a majority of her students’ families earn less than 130 percent of the poverty level (qualify for free meals) or have incomes between 130 and 185 percent of the poverty level (qualify for reduced-price meals).

Because of this, Herndon Elementary School is a Title I school, which means the school qualifies for Part A (Title I) of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act. This legislation provides financial assistance to schools with high numbers or high percentages of children from low-income families to help ensure that all children meet challenging state academic standards.

This means that every student at the school is provided with a free breakfast and a free lunch, Fennessy says. However, some of their students are not meeting state academic standards.

The Standards of Learning (SOL) tests for Virginia Public Schools establish minimum expectations for what students should know and can do at the end of each grade or course in English, mathematics, science, history and other subjects.

“In the past, our kids have struggled a little bit with meeting those assessments, but I’m really confident that we’re on the right trajectory,” she said. “We’re moving up and I believe we’re going to be meeting those state requirements.”

She says the tests can be very stressful for children, especially ESL students because they are only offered in English.

ELEMENTARY AND MIDDLE SCHOOLS are fully accredited if their students achieve 75 percent or higher pass rates in English and 70 percent or higher pass rates in mathematics, science and history, according to the Virginia Department of Education.

Herndon Elementary School did not meet its accreditation benchmarks for the 2015-16 school year in English or science, according to the Virginia Department of Education. It received a 72 percent pass rate in English and a 62 percent pass rate in science.

“I think to teach at a school like this, you have to be a Navy SEAL of teaching,” she said. “That’s because you’ve got to be able to make connections with the kids, you have to be able to really know the content area and make learning interesting, and also know how to reach back and help students when they are struggling with a concept.”

At London Towne, Fennessy’s students could participate in a two-way Spanish immersion program, where they would be taught math and science in Spanish.

Through a lottery admission process, Herndon also allows fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students to participate in a French immersion program. Most of the students are learning French.

Also through a lottery admission process, kindergarten, first-, second- and third-grade students at Herndon can participate in a two-way Spanish immersion program. This program is balanced with speakers of Spanish and students who are learning the language.

“That’s all they hear,” she said. “They’re spending half of their day being taught in that language.”

It helps connect the Spanish-speaking and English-speaking students to each other, she says.

“We’re trying to make our kids global citizens,” she said. “I think it kind of broadens our kids’ thinking.”

While people who are living in the country without legal permission worry about the Trump administration ramping up deportation in Spanish-speaking communities, Fennessy is committed to all her students.

“I don’t pay attention [to her student’s citizenship status],” she said. “I just know I’ve got English learners who come to school every day and it’s my job to help them learn.”

She spends her time focusing on the things that she can control.

“My No. 1 goal is to develop a school culture where everyone who walks through the building is a learner who is constantly working to make things better and is never satisfied with the status quo,” she said. “The ultimate goal is making our students successful.”

She referenced her Navy SEAL metaphor again, noting that they never give up on working or believing that they can do their job.

“It’s a never-ending quest for what we can do to just grow ourselves as educators,” she said.

She has been looking at adding professional development opportunities for her teachers to help them with their quest.

“[My staff] are learners and want to get better at what they’re doing and that’s what excites me every day that I walk in,” she said. “To be a Navy SEAL, it takes training and dedication and we have dedicated teachers here,” she said.

She wants to bring the Literacy Collaborative to the school, a national comprehensive literacy training that was designed by reading experts Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell in collaboration with teachers and university teams at The Ohio State University and Lesley University.

The program trains individuals to be literacy coaches who can better assess students and teach them with the best type of instruction methods that will help them learn and understand the reading and writing process. This coach then passes on the information and skills to other teachers at the school.

She is also open to the concept of flexible seating, which was just beginning to be experimented with at her last school in Centreville.

This is when classrooms have unassigned and flexible seating in shifts where students alternate between seating structures and activities with different teaching styles. This allows students to lie on the floor, sit at low tables on their knees, sit in chairs or wiggle seats (therapy balls or air cushions), or even stand up all in the name of improving student collaboration, communication, critical thinking and concentration.

“The teachers from my old school who are doing it — one was a sixth-grade teacher and the other is a first-grade teacher — love it,” she said. “The kids love it.”

While it’s not high on her agenda, she would let her teachers try it out if they were interested.

What is high on her priority list is updating the school’s technological capabilities. She hopes of meeting a goal of acquiring enough laptops for every student at the school.

“We’re looking for ways to integrate technology into the classroom so that students are using it in ways that will complement what they’re learning and make it more interesting,” she said.

MAKING THIS GOAL a reality will require working with the town of Herndon and playing with the budget, she says.

“We’re going to have to be creative, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to be giving up on our goal,” she said. “That’s the way our world is moving. [Our students have] grown up using tablets.”

While her generation did not grow up using smartphones and tablets, she is keeping up and started using Twitter last year under the handle, @TeresaFennessy.

“I’m a Twitter novice,” she said. “I need to carry my phone around more so I can get pictures and tweet about things. I’m growing too, just like everyone else.”

Her latest tweet, as of Monday at 3:30 p.m., was a retweet of a photo of students eating in the cafeteria by one of her sixth-grade teachers, Stefanie Vestal, that said: “The salad bar was a big hit today!”

While she cannot take credit for her school’s brand new salad bar, she is glad that FCPS is making it easier for her students to eat fresh fruit and vegetables.

When Fennessy isn’t focusing on her students, she likes to unwind with her family at Lake Anna in Spotsylvania.

She lives with her husband and “diva” beagle named Guinness in Burke. Their daughter Kelley and son Grant have graduated from college and are living in the area.

She also likes to get caught up in mystery novels and is a fan of John Grisham, who is known for writing thrillers.

She is currently reading the “Jack Reacher” series by British novelist Lee Child.