Her girls get an education, and a good listener

This is part of an occasional series on members of the

2005 All-USA Teacher Team, USA TODAY's recognition

program for outstanding K-12 teachers. Winners share $2,500 awards with their schools.

To nominate a teacher for the 2006 team, visit allstars.usatoday.com.

MANASSAS, Va. -- The six girls in Dawn Rutland's class at New Dominion Alternative School take turns reading aloud a newspaper column about violence among girls. The writer quotes a man who says he'd rather face a man with a gun than a woman.

"Stop," Rutland says. "Why would someone say that?"

The middle-school students have a few ideas: Girls get in your face; girls pull hair; girls don't fight fair. Mostly, girls hold grudges. "Girls can't let it go," Rutland concludes. "If there was a spitting incident weeks ago, now it involves everyone."

By and large, these girls know conflict. They have been referred to New Dominion for a range of reasons, including behavior problems, truancy, failing grades and court order. Some struggle with poverty and broken families and are veterans of counseling and anger-management programs. Though they are just entering adolescence, they look much older. One is visibly pregnant.

"These girls are here because they don't get along at other schools," teacher/administrator Susan Flores says. "We work on the Prince William County standard course of study. However, the goal here is to work on kids' behavior. Dawn is the queen of behavior."

Rutland, 43, a veteran teacher who always gravitated to at-risk students, has taught at New Dominion since 1999. To directly address some of those reasons a man would rather face a man with a gun than a woman, Rutland volunteered last year to teach an all-girl class. She understands them, and she can make a difference, particularly at the middle-school level.

"It's a time in their life I can still impact change. It's a critical period in a child's life, the middle-school years," she says.

Setting the tone

Rutland's classroom is unabashedly feminine, decorated in pink and black, silk flowers and faux pearls. A scented candle helps set an "after 5" tone to encourage formal language , even as school starts with breakfast at 7:30 a.m.

Math and language arts are always on the agenda, but how much students can learn depends on their frames of mind. From the first "Good morning!" Rutland pays careful attention to her students' mannerisms, their interactions and how they take in information. Sometimes, she makes tea for a girl who has had a rough night. Emotional needs have to be addressed before learning can take place.

"There are peak times of receptivity," she says. "The most you can do is pour all you can into them while you have them."

Some students come in reading below grade level and tend to avoid reading when possible. Rutland uses periodicals and a variety of publications to draw their interest, and she creates a supportive environment to read aloud.

"Kids are most vulnerable when they're reading aloud. You can help pronounce, but not laugh or make comments," she says. By early March each year, Rutland has her students reading well and confidently enough to read to preschoolers for Dr. Seuss' birthday.

"If they can read, the world is an open book for them," she says.

Different worlds

Getting children to see a larger world starts with meeting them in theirs. Rutland grew up in North Philadelphia, on the dividing line between two gang territories. Her upbringing and calm, non-judgmental demeanor give her credibility with her students.

She is like a teacher, girlfriend and mother all rolled into one. You can talk to her about anything, says former student Rossilyn Griffith, 14. Rutland won't tell you what to do but what you need to know. And even if her advice isn't much different from what another adult might say, Rutland has a way of breaking things down in a way you can understand them, Rossilyn says: "She is someone you can believe in."

Says Rutland: "If you gain their confidence and they know you genuinely care, you can redirect them. You gain their respect. You have to be a good listener, and I don't think you can be a condescending listener."

It's not pity, she adds.

"You want better for them because you know they're capable of it. People say, 'You teach bad kids.' No, I teach kids who've made mistakes."

For Rutland, a single mother, it's a 24/7 job. She has tracked down runaways and mediated family conflicts. All her students have her cellphone number, and they use it. They call her at 10 at night for help with their homework and at 3 a.m. with personal problems.

Rutland keeps her cellphone on all the time. She'd much rather students call her for advice than turn to whomever else may be available -- such as a 13-year-old peer.

"To me, if they're willing to tell you, that's half the battle," she says.

When she first started teaching, Rutland says, she tended to take on all the baggage her students brought to her classroom. Over the years, she has learned not to do that. She is guided by a larger sense that she's doing what she was born to do.

"I believe every kid I have, I have for a reason," she says. "They're supposed to be in my class for a reason."

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