Enhancing Quality Instruction - School Site Reports
As part of our top goal to Strengthen quality instruction by improving engagement and rigor for all students, Sequoia Union High School District (SUHSD) wants to provide you with a snapshot of what our school sites are doing to support this goal at the school site level.
Carlmont has restructured its All Staff meetings to facilitate discussion around engagement and curriculum. Additionally, they have brought in a trainer for the entire Science department to receive training in Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and provided release time for the Science department to plan for the implementation of NGSS.
Carlmont teachers are also benefiting from the school’s investment in new trainings. Recently, they have implemented the Constructing Meaning and Quality Teaching for English Learners (Q-Tel) Training with the goal of getting 100% of their teachers trained for student engagement.
Recognizing the power of peer-to-peer interactions, Carlmont provides time for teachers to collaborate on Wednesday mornings to discuss best practices and calibrate rigor within each subject area and department.
Carlmont is also engaged in a bell schedule analysis where they are piloting two different bell schedules, one each semester. The intent is to address their 2017-18 WASC goals related to student stress.
At East Palo Alto Academy, a team of twelve teachers and staff members attended the AVID Conference in San Diego. Staff developed a plan for the year , which includes interactive notebooks and a specific focus on Active Reading strategies to support the content coursework.
For the 2019-2020 school year, the EPAA staff is also engaged in deepening their work in Project Based Learning (PBL) through the implementation of the PBL Works professional development system hosted by the BUCK Institute. PBL Works supports teachers in Project Based Learning, which engages students in learning that is deep and long-lasting. PBL can be transformative for students, especially those furthest from educational opportunity.
Staff are excited to build upon the PBL work with a critical eye on assessment through the process of a Portfolio Defense of Learning. With the coaching aid provided by Envision Learning Partners, a senior graduate profile has been established. East Palo Alto Academy teachers and staff are elated and building momentum to grow in so many powerful ways that are enhancing instruction and improving engagement and rigor for all students.
This year, the professional development focus at Menlo-Atherton has been on building the classroom community and engaging all students with rigorous content.
Last month, M-A teacher, Lara Gill, and district coach, Elizabeth Placencia, presented a workshop, Assignments Matter, to all teachers across departments that highlighted ways of adding rigor to current assignments.
The training focused on the following questions: How can I increase students’ exposure to rigor in my classroom? What does a rigorous assignment look like in my content area? How can focusing on rigor make students more engaged with learning and prepare them for their professional lives? Teachers then worked in Cycle of Inquiry teams to think about assignments for their courses and what they could do to increase the rigor.
M-A Bears are also engaged in aquaponics projects (Science), Socratic seminars, evaluating primary sources, simulations (Social Studies) close reading, citing textual evidence (English), thinking classroom strategies (Math), projects in action (Career and Technical Education), musical performance and stagecraft (Visual Performing Arts).
At the beginning of the 2018-19 school year, Redwood began restructuring its academic culture and has made instruction their catalyst for change. Their weekly staff meetings begin with a time to share best practices, celebrate one another’s work and consider cross-curricular connections.
Along with supporting every teacher’s work in the classroom, it is equally important to recognize that strong instructional practice is integral in creating a school culture where all students are developing literacy skills in every class and thinking critically about the world and its connection to their lives. Redwood has on-site instructional coaches who continually observe teacher practices and then meet with them during each of the 6-week grading periods to discuss, develop and implement appropriate strategies for structured student talk and vocabulary development across all subject area classes.
To facilitate movement toward the District goal of student engagement and rigor in each classroom, professional development sessions are built into their staff meeting time. This professional development (PD) is created and presented in collaboration between Redwood instructional coach, Jessica Mass, and District instructional coach, Elizabeth Placencia. The sessions are designed specifically for Redwood’s context, student population and staff.
Last year, Redwood introduced quarterly award ceremonies, including honor roll, which recognize students' academic improvement and achievements. On a more frequent basis, Redwood teachers send postcards that communicate students’ successes to families. In addition to Redwood’s four Career and Technical Education (CTE) pathways, the English department has introduced a College Readiness course that helps prepare students for the transition to college and supports them in applying for scholarships. The new College and Career Center further supports students’ post-secondary goals. Finally, the new honors English class has the highest attendance in the school, which serves as an indicator of the shift that Redwood is making to a school in which academic excellence is valued by both teachers and students. Redwood plans to expand honors sections across subject areas.
Carlmont High School
Carlmont teachers are also benefiting from the school’s investment in new trainings. Recently, they have implemented the Constructing Meaning and Quality Teaching for English Learners (Q-Tel) Training with the goal of getting 100% of their teachers trained for student engagement.
Recognizing the power of peer-to-peer interactions, Carlmont provides time for teachers to collaborate on Wednesday mornings to discuss best practices and calibrate rigor within each subject area and department.
Carlmont is also engaged in a bell schedule analysis where they are piloting two different bell schedules, one each semester. The intent is to address their 2017-18 WASC goals related to student stress.
East Palo Alto Academy
For the 2019-2020 school year, the EPAA staff is also engaged in deepening their work in Project Based Learning (PBL) through the implementation of the PBL Works professional development system hosted by the BUCK Institute. PBL Works supports teachers in Project Based Learning, which engages students in learning that is deep and long-lasting. PBL can be transformative for students, especially those furthest from educational opportunity.
Staff are excited to build upon the PBL work with a critical eye on assessment through the process of a Portfolio Defense of Learning. With the coaching aid provided by Envision Learning Partners, a senior graduate profile has been established. East Palo Alto Academy teachers and staff are elated and building momentum to grow in so many powerful ways that are enhancing instruction and improving engagement and rigor for all students.
Menlo-Atherton High School
Last month, M-A teacher, Lara Gill, and district coach, Elizabeth Placencia, presented a workshop, Assignments Matter, to all teachers across departments that highlighted ways of adding rigor to current assignments.
The training focused on the following questions: How can I increase students’ exposure to rigor in my classroom? What does a rigorous assignment look like in my content area? How can focusing on rigor make students more engaged with learning and prepare them for their professional lives? Teachers then worked in Cycle of Inquiry teams to think about assignments for their courses and what they could do to increase the rigor.
M-A Bears are also engaged in aquaponics projects (Science), Socratic seminars, evaluating primary sources, simulations (Social Studies) close reading, citing textual evidence (English), thinking classroom strategies (Math), projects in action (Career and Technical Education), musical performance and stagecraft (Visual Performing Arts).
Redwood High School
Along with supporting every teacher’s work in the classroom, it is equally important to recognize that strong instructional practice is integral in creating a school culture where all students are developing literacy skills in every class and thinking critically about the world and its connection to their lives. Redwood has on-site instructional coaches who continually observe teacher practices and then meet with them during each of the 6-week grading periods to discuss, develop and implement appropriate strategies for structured student talk and vocabulary development across all subject area classes.
To facilitate movement toward the District goal of student engagement and rigor in each classroom, professional development sessions are built into their staff meeting time. This professional development (PD) is created and presented in collaboration between Redwood instructional coach, Jessica Mass, and District instructional coach, Elizabeth Placencia. The sessions are designed specifically for Redwood’s context, student population and staff.
Last year, Redwood introduced quarterly award ceremonies, including honor roll, which recognize students' academic improvement and achievements. On a more frequent basis, Redwood teachers send postcards that communicate students’ successes to families. In addition to Redwood’s four Career and Technical Education (CTE) pathways, the English department has introduced a College Readiness course that helps prepare students for the transition to college and supports them in applying for scholarships. The new College and Career Center further supports students’ post-secondary goals. Finally, the new honors English class has the highest attendance in the school, which serves as an indicator of the shift that Redwood is making to a school in which academic excellence is valued by both teachers and students. Redwood plans to expand honors sections across subject areas.
Sequoia High School
For two days in December, Sequoia experimented with a new bell schedule. During these two days, 45 flexible minutes were shoehorned between the second block period and lunch. Students selected from a variety of options on how to spend this time based on needs and priorities they self-identified.
The teachers, staff, parents, and students on Sequoia's Site Council and Leadership Team have been grappling with the question of how to create more time for the past 18 months. Committees and subcommittees have deliberated on the relative pros and cons of shorter lunches and advisory periods, eventually landing on a regular (i.e., twice weekly), flexible period to be beta-tested this year with an eye on full implementation in 2020-21.
Sequoia’s leadership was also mindful of the pressures on students to complete homework or get help from teachers. Students with after-school commitments such as performing arts, athletics, caring for a younger sibling, or a job will greatly benefit from an additional 90 minutes each week to complete their schoolwork or get the help they need. Down the road, flexible time built into the week will allow Sequoia’s team the time to complete mandated surveys or assessments with limited interruption to regular instructional minutes. Visits from college admissions representatives, career panels, counselor presentations, and mindfulness activities such as yoga and meditation are other ideas students might benefit from during this time.
At Sequoia, there is recognition of the strong connection between autonomy in learning and academic success, as well as providing students with authentic opportunities to identify their own priorities.
Sequoia Adult School has been addressing the goal of strengthening instruction in a number of ways. The school has greatly increased the use of instructional technology in the classroom with the goal of better engaging students and improving assessment and providing feedback about their progress. This includes digitizing high school equivalency practice exams to make the results more accessible to students and teachers in the classroom.
With a signifiant number of new teachers, professional development has focused on unpacking the California Standards for the Teaching Profession, in preparation for teacher evaluations, with a focus on the standards dealing with engaging and assessing students for learning. Students are also surveyed each quarter with the feedback shared individually with teachers, giving them the opportunity to improve their practice. To promote engagement, teachers also incorporate activities that are highly relevant to students such as civics units on the census, digital literacy and information about transitioning college and employment after completing their courses at Sequoia Adult School.
The teachers, staff, parents, and students on Sequoia's Site Council and Leadership Team have been grappling with the question of how to create more time for the past 18 months. Committees and subcommittees have deliberated on the relative pros and cons of shorter lunches and advisory periods, eventually landing on a regular (i.e., twice weekly), flexible period to be beta-tested this year with an eye on full implementation in 2020-21.
Sequoia’s leadership was also mindful of the pressures on students to complete homework or get help from teachers. Students with after-school commitments such as performing arts, athletics, caring for a younger sibling, or a job will greatly benefit from an additional 90 minutes each week to complete their schoolwork or get the help they need. Down the road, flexible time built into the week will allow Sequoia’s team the time to complete mandated surveys or assessments with limited interruption to regular instructional minutes. Visits from college admissions representatives, career panels, counselor presentations, and mindfulness activities such as yoga and meditation are other ideas students might benefit from during this time.
At Sequoia, there is recognition of the strong connection between autonomy in learning and academic success, as well as providing students with authentic opportunities to identify their own priorities.
Sequoia Adult School
With a signifiant number of new teachers, professional development has focused on unpacking the California Standards for the Teaching Profession, in preparation for teacher evaluations, with a focus on the standards dealing with engaging and assessing students for learning. Students are also surveyed each quarter with the feedback shared individually with teachers, giving them the opportunity to improve their practice. To promote engagement, teachers also incorporate activities that are highly relevant to students such as civics units on the census, digital literacy and information about transitioning college and employment after completing their courses at Sequoia Adult School.
TIDE Academy
One of the core features of TIDE Academy is an interdisciplinary and project-based curriculum. In order to facilitate this educational model, cross-curricular planning time takes place after school every month. Math teachers collaborate weekly before school to align curriculum, discuss pedagogy, and reflect on math pathways. The English and Social Studies departments collaborate at the start of each quarter to align skills and topics in the curriculum for the quarter. In addition, the TIDE team collaborates on their grading practices and trauma-informed care.
Trainings are also a key focal point at TIDE Academy. All staff has participated in multiple trainings using Canvas to support student access to content and equitable grading practices. Teachers have been trained in common practices such as Complex Instruction, Culturally Responsive Teaching Practices, Positive Behavioral Intervention & Supports (PBIS), and Constructing Meaning (CM).
At TIDE, there is a concerted effort to move students away from a fixed mindset and help move them towards a growth mindset. Students are being asked to do challenging work , which shifts away from the norm of perfectionism and instead honors the process of learning. For example, in Social Studies, students use Newsela to set reading to their own reading level. Reading guides in English and Spanish are provided to support comprehension by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. In Math, content-rich problems are given with multiple points of access, and mastery can be demonstrated through multiple methods.
At Woodside High School, the Science department is implementing Next Generation Science Standards with aplomb. Student Scientists are given the space to investigate phenomena and are encouraged to draw their own inferences based on evidence. They are actively engaged in practicing science through experimentation. Student scientists collect data with authentic instrumentation in real-time and interpret their own results, which promotes critical and computational thinking.
To assist with this shift in content and instruction, Woodside, through the generosity of their Foundation, has invested in equipment, detracked [FMR1] 9th grade Biology and added Physics as a choice for 9th graders. In addition, they have provided release time for teachers to align assessments, starting with Biology.
The NGSS Physics classroom enables Wild Cat scientists to design model cars to protect an egg and build Rube Goldberg machines to study energy transfer. Biology student scientists test water quality in fish habitats that they've created, and complete DNA fingerprinting during the Biotech unit. All the while, Wild Cat chemists measure the Albedo solar radiation for climate change.
Trainings are also a key focal point at TIDE Academy. All staff has participated in multiple trainings using Canvas to support student access to content and equitable grading practices. Teachers have been trained in common practices such as Complex Instruction, Culturally Responsive Teaching Practices, Positive Behavioral Intervention & Supports (PBIS), and Constructing Meaning (CM).
At TIDE, there is a concerted effort to move students away from a fixed mindset and help move them towards a growth mindset. Students are being asked to do challenging work , which shifts away from the norm of perfectionism and instead honors the process of learning. For example, in Social Studies, students use Newsela to set reading to their own reading level. Reading guides in English and Spanish are provided to support comprehension by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. In Math, content-rich problems are given with multiple points of access, and mastery can be demonstrated through multiple methods.
Woodside High School
To assist with this shift in content and instruction, Woodside, through the generosity of their Foundation, has invested in equipment, detracked [FMR1] 9th grade Biology and added Physics as a choice for 9th graders. In addition, they have provided release time for teachers to align assessments, starting with Biology.
The NGSS Physics classroom enables Wild Cat scientists to design model cars to protect an egg and build Rube Goldberg machines to study energy transfer. Biology student scientists test water quality in fish habitats that they've created, and complete DNA fingerprinting during the Biotech unit. All the while, Wild Cat chemists measure the Albedo solar radiation for climate change.
