CENTRAL FALLS

An 8-year-old girl sits outside a classroom on a February morning, leaning against the wall as she reads before school. She is waiting for her teacher to arrive so she can play math games on a classroom computer.

Karen Langellier, a third-grade teacher at the Alan Shawn Feinstein Elementary School, appears a few minutes later clutching a large coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts. It’s 7:45 a.m., and Langellier is bustling.

“Good morning,” Langellier says, as she and the student enter Room 9, a sunny classroom with a polished wood floor and an old-fashioned blackboard.

Langellier knows she has just a few moments alone with the girl.

Third-grade teacher Karen Langellier heads into work at Feinstein Elementary School in Central Falls in January, fortified by a large coffee. The teachers at Feinstein have been commended in the state SALT report for their caring dedication to students. “The children here appreciate everything you do for them,” Langellier says. “I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else right now.”

The Providence Journal / Kathy Borchers

“I have some games for you to take home for vacation week and keep,” she tells the student, guiding her to a paper bag full of games — Sorry, Uno and Tilt ’n’ Tumble.

“I’ll keep them for you here and give them to you at the end of the day, OK honey-bun?” she says. The girl nods and goes off to work on the computer.

The following week is February vacation. Langellier is going on a cruise to the Caribbean with her family. She worries about several of her students, for whom a weeklong break from school is anything but a holiday. A couple of her students are staying in shelters. Some live in apartments so bare teachers have donated old sofas, tables and chairs. Several have parents who work double or triple shifts.

Langellier makes a note to add crayons to the bag of games. “Her mom’s working very hard,” she says.

Langellier, 47, has taught in Central Falls for 23 years, 13 of them at Feinstein, where 88 percent of students receive free or reduced lunch, an indicator of the city’s high poverty rate. “There is something special about Central Falls, a camaraderie,” Langellier says. “Once you meet the children, you don’t want to leave here.”

Visitors to the Feinstein School can feel the warmth and vitality in the old building — and get a glimpse of what it takes to be an effective teacher, especially in an urban school. Langellier is one of thousands of teachers throughout Rhode Island who dedicate themselves to meeting the diverse needs of their students, and whose work usually goes unnoticed except by students, parents and colleagues.

An effective and caring teacher is the single most significant factor in a student’s success, and the influence of a well-trained, sensitive teacher carries particular power for low-income and minority students.

“I think very often, particularly in urban environments where students sometimes come from troubled backgrounds, a teacher represents a certain kind of stability,” said Adeline Becker, director of the Education Alliance at Brown University. “That’s a crucial element — someone who makes them feel safe, who values what they bring to the classroom, who focuses on their strengths.”

Feinstein, formerly known as Broad Street School, serves 220 students. The brick schoolhouse is more than 150 years old, but is “meticulously maintained,” according to a team of visitors who conducted the state’s SALT survey on the school in 2002. Principal Maureen Azar, a native of Central Falls, makes sure the school’s 16 teachers have time to meet and plan together every day.

The SALT report also commended the teachers for their dedication to the student population — 69 percent Hispanic, 19 percent white and 12 percent black.

MORE ATTENTION IS NOW being paid to teacher quality, in part because of pressure from the federal education law No Child Left Behind, which requires all students be taught by “highly qualified” teachers expert in their subject areas. In Rhode Island, most of the state’s 13,000 teachers currently meet the state definition of highly qualified.

Some educators are critical of this provision, saying it doesn’t go far enough and merely codifies expected requirements, such as having a college degree. Truly assessing teacher quality is much more difficult, Becker said.

Keeping quality teachers in the profession is also a challenge. Nationally, 40 to 50 percent of new teachers leave the profession within five years, and teacher turnover is higher in urban schools that serve high numbers of low-income and minority students, according to the Education Commission of the States.

Rhode Island mirrors the national trend, said Paulajo Gaines, director of educator quality and certification for the state Department of Education.

“If teachers stay past the first three to five years, chances are higher they’ll stay for their entire career,” Gaines said. “But we know it is more difficult to retain teachers in urban districts. Many times, the less-experienced teachers are assigned to the most challenging schools, and if there isn’t a strong mentoring program, it’s a sink-or-swim situation.”

The irony is that students in urban schools are most in need of experienced, highly qualified teachers. Yet low-income and minority students are more likely than students in suburban schools to have new, unseasoned teachers, according to the Education Trust, a nonprofit advocacy organization.

Teachers — such as Langellier — who started their careers in urban schools and have remained, deserve recognition, Gaines says. “Teachers who make it through those early induction years in urban schools and stay demonstrate they are committed to the work,” she said.

But urban or suburban, what makes a teacher effective is pretty much the same.

In Becker’s opinion, a good teacher must have three attributes: mastery of the material, a caring disposition and an understanding of his or her students, both culturally and academically.

Julie Wollman, dean of the education school at Rhode Island College, says effective teaching is part art and part science, rooted as much in the relationship between teacher and student as in the training and experience of the teacher.

“Teachers constantly have to adapt,” Wollman said. “A good teacher can see everything going on in the classroom and have a sense of who’s engaged and who needs more help.”

Wollman, a classroom teacher for eight years, says a lot of what teachers do goes largely unseen — hours a day of planning lessons and grading papers. “A lot of teaching has to do with hard work and commitment,” she said. “It is draining. But it’s also the most rewarding profession. That’s why you have good people staying in teaching.”

GOOD TEACHERS ARE always learning. Langellier reads books about teaching and does research on the Internet on the weekends. She works closely with a literacy coach at her school and participates in summer training sessions to learn how to more effectively teach reading.

Langellier also enjoys relaxing each summer, saying it helps her to “recharge” for the coming school year. She and her husband, Ed, who is a vice president at a Foxboro fabric company, have a 13-year-old son, Andrew, who is an eighth grader at Gallagher Middle School in Smithfield.

Langellier attended public schools in Pawtucket and received her bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in elementary education from Rhode Island College. She always knew she wanted to be a teacher.

She was not a particularly strong student in her early years, saying she didn’t get good grades until junior high school. Yet her favorite teacher was Mrs. O’Reilly, who taught fourth grade at Flora Curtis School.

“What I remember is how she made me feel,” Langellier says. “She made me feel good about myself, even though I knew I didn’t always get it, and she knew I didn’t always get it.”

Langellier wants her students to feel that same caring and support. She often crouches down when speaking with her students, making sure to make eye contact. She sits with them in a circle when they read stories. She exerts a calm authority, only occasionally using a small xylophone to quiet the third graders when they become rowdy. Usually, a firm “boys and girls” is sufficient.

The hardest part of her job, she says, is figuring out the needs of her 22 students, many of whom are learning at different speeds. “I think I’m a lot better at that than I was 10 years ago,” says Langellier, who earns Central Falls’ top step, which begins at about $66,000 a year. “I’ve learned a lot more.”

No Child Left Behind, the sprawling federal law that rolled out five years ago, helps and hinders teachers, Langellier says. She likes the law’s focus on each student’s needs and the amount of detailed information on student progress provided by the new state tests and reporting system.

“But I don’t like all the testing,” Langellier said. “There is so much testing.”

As important as test scores are, it is just one way Langellier gauges her success as a teacher.

“I look for how motivated those kids are to go on to the next thing and want to learn more,” she says.

Langellier also talks to her students each day about their lives, families and interests. “If they can talk to me, I know they feel comfortable with me, and I want them to be able to not only learn, but to make mistakes,” Langellier says. “I want them to try things and not be afraid. If they have a hard time with something, that’s OK. I tell them no matter where they are, in reading or anything else, that’s OK, because we are all here to be better and to learn together.”

Langellier is considered a leader at the school, and colleagues and the principal frequently turn to her for ideas and advice. They see her as an effective manager of her classroom, one who is able to relate to the backgrounds and talents of all her students.

“You walk into her classroom and you can’t tell who is [an English-language learner] or who is special ed.,” said Principal Azar. “She has high expectations of everyone, which is a sign of an excellent teacher.”

ON THIS WINTER morning, about 20 students make their way into Room 9, bundled in winter coats and chattering away.

“Good morning, boys and girls,” Langellier says, and the students respond in sing-song unison. “Good Mor-ning, Miss-us Lan-ge-llier.”

Together they say the Pledge of Allegiance, and the students begin gathering their reading books. As a federally financed Reading First school, a program designed to boost low literacy skills in urban elementary schools, students at Feinstein have a 90-minute block of reading every morning.

Langellier begins with a few minutes of “Red Hot Reading,” an exercise to improve reading fluency. Students read out loud as Langellier times them. After 60 seconds, students add up how many words they’ve read. The goal is to have the third graders reading 120 words a minute by the end of the year. About half the class has already reached that goal.

“Did you understand what you read?” she asks. “Sometimes it makes more sense if you read it a second time. That’s something to remember. If you don’t understand something, you can re-read it.”

She separates the students into small groups, delegating each to a different area of the sunny classroom. Langellier moves among them, crouching to spend time with several students reading above grade level. She’s given them a more advanced story to read. Next, she conducts a mini-lesson with students reading at grade level. Then, she goes to a table at the front of the room to spend time with three special-education students, taking over from Linda Nadeau, a teaching assistant she shares with the third-grade special-education teacher Jennifer Scott. While Langellier has a homeroom of 22 regular education students, several times a day she and Scott swap students.

The students’ reading scores are improving. In September, five students were reading significantly below grade level. By February, just one boy, a special-education student, remained in that category, but he, too, had made significant strides.

“His level was pre-primer, which means the very beginning of first grade,” Langellier says. “He’s now at second-grade level. He still needs some help with spelling, but he’s made a great deal of progress.”

MIDMORNING, THE students break for a snack. Langellier takes the opportunity to continue a conversation about visiting places that the students had started in reading class, getting them to talk about their lives. She asks how many students have been to Boston. Just a couple of hands shoot up. Three or four say they’ve traveled to New York City.

“Christopher went to Kansas City to visit relatives,” Langellier tells the class. “Tell us what it was like there? Were there a lot of buildings?”

Another student, Jake, talks about a recent trip to Roger Williams Park Zoo.

“Jake went to the zoo for free with the Feinstein Junior Scholars card you all have,” Langellier tells the class. “Did anyone have to pay or could you bring a guest?”

She grabs a package of Saltines from her desk and walks around the room, subtly pausing at the desks of students who have not pulled out food, about half the class. “Would you like a snack?” she asks. The students nod and say “thank you.”

At Feinstein, like at other urban schools, Langellier and her fellow teachers spend part of their time trying to fill in the education gaps of their students. Some of the students may not read a lot at home or don’t have the opportunity to travel, she says.

“They come in with bigger deficits that we have to fill in,” Langellier says. “I feel this is the critical year, the in-between year. They are not babies and you have to get them ready for what is coming.”

Last year, just 24 percent of students at Feinstein tested proficient in reading and 21 percent scored proficient in math. This year, the school showed improvement, with 40 percent meeting the standard in reading and 30 percent hitting the bar in math.

“My goal is to have all of them reading at grade level by June,” Langellier says.

IN THE AFTERNOON, Langellier teaches writing. Langellier and Scott, who teaches a class across the hall with seven special-education students, combine the two classes for core subjects. While Langellier teaches writing to half of the students — about 15 — Scott teaches the other half math.

The teachers decided to divvy up the classes because Langellier is stronger in language arts and Scott feels more comfortable with math.

There’s another reason, though. Langellier and Scott figured out last year that by integrating their classes for reading, writing, math and science, students of different levels would be taught together and classes would be smaller. Principal Azar agreed to the plan, and says the arrangement, now in its second year, is going well.

Langellier says the collaboration is not unusual. It happens a lot at Feinstein, and she credits the school’s collegial atmosphere with helping her sharpen her skills as a teacher. “It can be very lonely if you come into your classroom, close the door and try to figure it out alone,” she says.

On this afternoon, Langellier’s students work on a composition about polar bears.

“Do you need a pencil, honey-bunny?” Langellier asks a student who hasn’t started to write yet. “I know it’s hard to start.”

She asks the boy what he thinks is the most interesting aspect of polar bears. “I think it’s very interesting they don’t have eyelashes and they have two layers of fur. What do you think?”

At the end of the day, Langellier reads her class a story about a third grader who is having a bad day, gesturing and altering her voice with each character, laughing with the students at the funny parts.

At 2:15, the students begin gathering their coats and backpacks.

“It’s going to be cold, cold, cold tonight, so I want you to have a good night and button up,” Langellier says. She wishes them all a fun vacation week. “But make sure you get to bed early Sunday night, so you’re ready to come back to school on Monday.”

Her students line up by the door, ready to descend to the buses.

Langellier asks one girl to stay behind.

A moment later the girl walks out the door carrying a paper bag full of games.

jjordan@projo.com