Posts Tagged ‘
at risk students ’
Last week, Dan Jamison and I were invited to help facilitate the Mid-Valley Boys and Girls Club staff retreat in Lincoln City. This Boys and Girls Club serves kids in the Mid-Willamette Valley area within the Albany, Sweet Home and Lebanon school districts and provides a fun, safe and supervised environment for recreational and educational activities. Dan and I were particularly excited about this retreat because Albany and Lebanon happen to be two of our 18 CLASS districts.
Chalkboard was invited to this retreat to provide the Boys and Girls Club with an introduction to the CLASS Project, share current state and federal education policy issues, and also provide a snapshot of some of Oregon’s student data. And we were happy to join, always wanting to build our outreach and share important education-related information with communities throughout the state. This was also a great opportunity for the Boys and Girls Club staff to gain a better understanding of what’s going on with the students and teachers within their school districts—particularly those involved in CLASS.
It also wasn’t hard to say yes to a day at the coast, in Lincoln City where the retreat was held. The day promised to be full of hard work, creative thinking, and a bit of an ocean breeze. And after teaching for 32 years in Albany and serving as a principal at all three levels in the Greater Albany School District, Dan was excited to engage with the club. He even ran into some of his former students!
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Category:
Chalkboard Project, community involvement, extended learning, Student Success |
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Tags: achievement gap, at risk students, Chalkboard Project, CLASS, education partnerships, education statistics, equity, Oregon schools, student achievement, student engagement
Story #1: I teach International Relations at West Linn High, a course juniors and seniors can take to fulfill a social studies requirement. Part way through the spring semester, I was discouraged to realize that over half my 100 IR students were missing assignments. Considering we’d averaged only one homework assignment per week, and a couple of the assignments were quite easy, I was troubled. It is my goal only to assign homework I believe will benefit students, and when they don’t complete homework it hampers their ability to succeed.
So with complete parental and administrative support, I sprang a surprise on students: If you do not complete every assignment, you will not pass this class. Even if you’re earning a passing grade, if you have even one missing assignment, I will enter “incomplete” in the gradebook and you will not receive a credit. Some were shocked, realizing that no credit could mean not graduating.
I was nervous about the new policy. I wondered whether all students would pull through, and if they didn’t, if I’d be willing to be the one obstacle that stood between them and graduation. I wondered whether at crunch time a parent would challenge the policy.
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Category:
community involvement, parent involvement, student achievement, Student Success, Teacher Effectiveness, teaching strategies |
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Tags: at risk students, classroom tactics, college readiness, high school graduation, parent involvement, reflection, student achievement, teacher effectiveness, teaching strategies
Here’s my bottom line: The most important task of a school leader is to embrace the challenge of having a clear and shared vision of equitable outcomes for all students. It is the democratic principle of fairness upon which our country is founded and the basis for truly changing the achievement gaps that now prevail.
With the recent news that only 66% of Oregon students graduate high school, it’s clear that this vision does not “just happen.” It has to be owned and shared by the whole school community. It must be intentional, planned, implemented and supported to be sustainable. It must be evident every day, every week and every month in every classroom. All students, teachers and parents need to know and own a common vision of outcomes at their school. What must each student know and be able to do when he/she graduates? When this is clear and held dear, there is a true school spirit.
All students come from somewhere special, each with different backgrounds, different experiences and different circumstances. The whole of their differences is the beautiful mosaic of school. And when they come through the school doors, they are in a place where equity can happen. But there must be a roadmap for success for each student in each classroom across these differences.
Teachers must lead the way for the students. They must know their students well, understanding them across all their differences. They must ask the question: What does it take for a student to enter a school at one level of achievement, move forward, and then graduate with the highest potential achievement? That’s the daily challenge of teaching, at every level.
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Category:
education achievement gap, equity, student achievement, Student Success, Teacher Effectiveness, teaching strategies |
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Tags: achievement gap, at risk students, classroom tactics, equity, high school graduation, inspiration, reflection, student achievement, student engagement, teacher effectiveness, teaching strategies
Let me be the first to admit that this may be a weird post for a blog mostly about larger policy issues. But there’s something I’ve been noticing lately that strikes me as odd, something I’m not sure what to think about: students outside of school.
I live near two different high schools, and during the course of a school day, I often see people who seem to be students but curiously don’t seem to be engaged in school activities or on school property. Today it might be two teens flipping skateboard tricks down the street from school; yesterday it might have been a group of kids hanging out at the mini-market a few blocks away; tomorrow it might be two lovebirds holding hands in the park.
I can’t pretend to know school schedules—if students have mornings or afternoons off, or if they’re legitimately on a break for lunch. And I certainly don’t mean to imply that students should be locked away in school buildings for six or seven hours at a time. But I often find myself wondering who’s looking after these children. Is there someone making sure that they are where they’re supposed to be? And as a citizen, what is my responsibility in helping to care for the children and teens in my community?
Some initial research led me to the Portland Police Bureau’s Truancy Reduction Ordinance. Though dealing with truancy starts with the schools and the parents, not the police bureau, this ordinance essentially gives members of the police license to stop and question kids who, like the ones I sometimes see in my neighborhood, don’t seem to be in school when they should be. It’s basically an ordinance that allows police a legislated way to get involved in cases where it seems schools or parents might be failing. And with some exceptions—check the website for details—it says that kids who have not yet graduated 12th grade are not allowed on “any street, highway, park, alley, or other public property during regular school hours.”
So knowing that, I come back to one of my first questions: If I see a kid during school hours skateboarding down my street, do I have any responsibility? I don’t mean that I may be liable for that kid—clearly I’m not. But in the larger sense of responsibility, in the sense that we’re all part of the same community and that kid is becoming the person who will build the world I am part of, do I have an obligation to ask what’s going on?
On the one hand, it’s none of my business what someone I don’t know is up to. I don’t want to assume that some teenager is breaking the law or doing something stupid just because I have some predetermined idea (just for the sake of argument) that kids want to skip school. But on the other hand, schools, parents, and police don’t have eyes everywhere. If it takes a village to raise a child, and I’m part of that village, shouldn’t I step up when I see something that might be amiss? Especially when I know that students who do not attend school on a regular basis are unlikely to graduate from high school, that truancy is often correlated to low achievement and even in extreme cases crime or gang involvement?
I skipped out on school as much as the next person in high school, for things that seemed important at the time: boyfriends, sunny weather, test avoidance. I wonder how things would have been different if people I’d run into had asked me why I wasn’t in school? I don’t want the world to just be a surrogate police force, always looking for other people doing something wrong, but sometimes I worry about these kids. Should I? What do you think a citizen’s role in helping kids through school is?
Category:
community involvement, parent involvement, student achievement, Student Success |
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Tags: at risk students, high school graduation, parent involvement, student achievement, student engagement
Sue Levin is the Executive Director of Stand for Children Oregon.
Last spring, I visited an amazing school in SE Portland – Centennial Learning Center (CLC).
How I got there was ironic. CLC was one of the state’s worst-performing schools, as measured by state test scores. Most of the kids are there because they flunked out or got kicked out of the district’s traditional high school, so the low scores seemed unsurprising.
But CLC’s principal, Jamie Juenemann, asked us to see for ourselves that this is not a failing school. And so, though I was skeptical, we visited. We met with CLC staff and students, where the kids prepare all the meals with vegetables grown in their garden – in between taking core literacy and math classes, and recovering lost credits.
CLC takes kids who’ve hit the end of the road in school and re-orients them toward college. The fact that more than 50% of their students graduate is a small miracle. With so much good happening at CLC, why then was this school on the state’s list? Because based on test scores and 4-year graduation rates alone, this school looks bad.
In fact, 17 of those 18 ‘worst-performing’ schools are high schools – which suggests that calling out low-performing schools is not useful if all we’re doing is blaming the end of the pipeline for what comes out of it.
Instead of asking which schools are failing, we need to ask what are our most effective schools doing right, and how do we promote those practices everywhere?
CLC teaches us a number of lessons.
1. All students can learn when talented and committed educators believe in them. Inside CLC and every successful school is a core of committed professionals who are motivated by a passion for teaching, because they are good at it. In a thriving school, these educators get support, training and tools from principals and district staff who share their mission and values.
Good teachers have no problem taking responsibility for their students’ success. They simply want the rest of us–administrators, parents, community leaders, and elected officials– to be accountable as well. (more…)
Category:
Early Learning, education achievement gap, education reform, Teacher advocacy, teacher performance evaluations |
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Tags: activism, at risk students, Chalkboard Project, education partnerships, education reform, high school graduation, Oregon schools
Recently I came across the following words:
What do the good schools have in common? Good schools enjoy some core of community support and recognition that the public school is an essential building block of that community. Good schools enjoy positive action, not just lip service.
The spirit of public school reform must be adopted by the whole community if it is to make a difference. We will continue “at risk” as long as public schools are abandoned by the very constituencies they need to survive. These grassroots activists – parents and others – are essential to reversing erosion, promoting excellence, and demanding equity.
How long must the wake-up call echo before it is heeded by the citizenry as a whole? In towns all across America, persistent criticism, massive flight and despair – especially by the middle class – continue to drain our public schools and our urban centers of important energy, resources, and diversity. How long before we agree that equity in education (i.e., good public schools for everyone) is the solution to most of our ills. And how long before community-minded individuals, not just public school parents, begin to own this problem?
How long indeed? These words were written by former Parents for Public Schools Executive Director Kelly Butler more than fifteen years ago!
That brings me to the debate over school reform – or more aptly stated – the lack thereof. Is it any wonder that many in our communities look upon school reform with an arched brow and skeptical frown? What has brought us to this culture of intractability? This head-in-the-sand ethos is selling our kids short and is a luxury we can no longer afford. When the keepers of our educational systems spend months and years arguing about how many minutes it’s okay to teach kids. When we argue over whether parents have the right to fully participate in improving student achievement at their school or their district. When any mention of evaluation draws cries of standardized test and not a concerted effort at determining what and who is effective for our kids. When every question from every side is met with vitriol and defense, and every answer is hissed at and spun to oblivion. Then the debate becomes intolerable.
The mantle of this debate must be taken up by the very people who have long been left out – parents. (more…)
Category:
education achievement gap, education reform, parent involvement, Student Success |
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Tags: activism, at risk students, collaborative culture, education reform, Oregon schools, parent involvement
Due to budget cuts and low seniority, I have had the privilege (or curse) of teaching at three different schools in the past two years. All three schools are in the same district, but each is vastly different in culture and climate. My current school is literally just up the hill from one of those where I was last year, but it seems like stepping into a different world.
My two former schools were Title 1 schools, where the pressure to meet benchmarks was stressful for teachers and kids. The meeting load, paperwork, and planning for multiple levels of learning took so much time that collaboration and thoughtful lesson planning seemed to take a back seat. The most high needs school lacked funding for innovative projects and hands-on teaching that is so beneficial for kids with little enrichment at home. Most of the dollars coming into this school were used for much-needed personnel and not for supplies, field trips, and innovative teaching tools. Now that I am at a non-title school not only do I have more capable students, I also have a bevy of talented volunteers, and a large PTO cash flow. These aren’t the kids that desperately need trips to get out of the neighborhood and experience life, but they are the ones that receive these benefits. Last year on my one field trips to OMSI, one of my kids asked what the Willamette River was. They had never taken a look at the river! This year as my kids write narratives, they recount stories of skiing and trips to Hawaii.
I can also tell you that for the same pay, I worked much harder at the Title 1 schools than I do now. I wrote out lesson plans for two assistants, ran 5 reading groups, managed 6 special ed students, and accommodated curriculum for 17 English Language Learners. The nagging feeling of inadequacy hung with me the whole time I was there. I knew that if I secured a permanent position there, I would burn out. This year, my class size is the same and the grade the same, but this year I can actually eat lunch. Today, I had a parent come and grade papers for me!
My message is this: teachers teaching in areas of high poverty need:
- more dedicated time for collaboration
- higher pay because of increased hours worked out of class
- lower class sizes
- a greater variety of resources in order to offer catered instruction
- a group of capable classroom volunteers for support
- a fundraising machine such as grant writers or sponsors
Until we address these inequalities, there will continue to be a high rate of teacher burnout and turnover at those schools where stability and experienced teaching is most desperately needed.
Category:
education achievement gap, education reform, parent involvement, Student Success, Teacher advocacy, teacher compensation |
2 Comments »
Tags: at risk students, collaborative culture, education reform, Oregon schools, parent involvement, school funding, student achievement, teacher frustration
I’ve recently finished reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. Like his other books, the stories and subject matter are both engaging while at the same time wide-ranging. But in the end, I felt that this was his most passionate, and most personal, book to date. I admire his bravery and am also grateful to him for being willing to tackle a subject matter that has been staring us in the face for so long: Cultural legacy affects academic engagement, educational achievement, and lifelong “success.” If we want more of our growingly diverse society to be “successful,” then we need to face that head-on.
Although I thought he was brave for being willing to broach a topic that most policy-makers would avoid like the third rail, I was a little disappointed that Gladwell still falls short of offering much in the way of specific reform recommendations. He does call out the KIPP schools as being particularly successful with low socio-economic demographic kids, and cites personal discipline and hard work (from homework to keeping your shirt tucked-in) as main factors for students’ excellent results.
Perhaps what he offered is enough, however. It is up to our own local policy-makers to tackle the tough issues of what to do with the issues of cultural legacy. The question is: If our representatives take on these issues, will we support them?
Category:
education achievement gap, education reform, research, student achievement |
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Tags: at risk students, education reform, KIPP, student achievement
7:00 AM. I unlock my classroom, sit down at my desk, and pull out my stationary. Before checking my email, before sifting through papers, before twisting open the thermos lid to sip my sweet morning caffeine, I write a letter:
Alicia,
I want to let you know that you’ve been on my mind a lot this week.
I cannot describe how refreshing it was to start the new trimester with you in my class. Your passion, independence, strength, and willingness to expose your heart are an inspiration to me, as you model confidence and individuality for your peers. Your smile, energy, and love for writing are contagious… I guess I just want you to know how much your presence brightens my day and keeps me inspired to teach. (more…)
Category:
teaching strategies |
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Tags: at risk students, inspiration, student engagement, the extra mile
Last night I returned home after an intense, fun-filled week at Outdoor School. It was a blast! I have about a hundred stories I could go on and on about—campfire skits, lightening storms, mystery meatloaf, catching fish—but there’s one that stands out above the rest, one that I will remember and be sharing for years to come. It is a story that proves ALL kids can and will learn when provided the necessary, high-quality support and ample opportunities for authentic and interactive engagement. It is a story of transformation. A story of possibility.
Meet Christopher: a 6th grade boy, academically disengaged, low confidence, apathetic, defiant, a behavioral disturbance in class, barely getting by with D’s, a difficult home life, and permanently labeled “at-risk”. Chances are, you know a Christopher. And if you’re like me, you’ve expended an enormous amount of energy hoping to tap into his psyche—figure out what stirs his curiosity and ignites his fire—to help him find value in learning so he may benefit from his education. (more…)
Category:
teaching strategies |
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Tags: at risk students, learning styles, student engagement
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