Some teachers were loud and lively, others calm and straightforward. The same concepts were being covered in each room, but to a casual observer, the lessons seemed varied and colorful rather than canned. And for teachers with emergency permits, the ready-made lessons may offer a quicker route to organized instruction. Ichinaga likes the way Open Court covers a breadth of material and breaks down the process of teaching students how to read. She laments that while teachers learn how to interact with students, how to command discipline, and how to validate students' feelings, they do not learn how to teach a child how to recognize sounds, letters and words in order to read.
Teachers score the tests and turn in the results to the principal.
Based on these results, the principal can assess where to focus intervention strategies for the next unit. With them, teachers know what each of their students needs, and the principal can determine what each teacher needs. One of the school's most successful interventions, according to the principal, has been to retain kindergartners until they have the skills to begin first grade. When they do start first grade, they can keep up with the demanding workload. Similar interventions are used for new students, each of whom is carefully placed by Ichinaga after a series of assessments.