Here are four new profiles of some of the winners in a pilot project called Schools of Opportunity, which is highlighting schools that are creating healthy environments for students, teachers and staff. Seventeen schools were named as inaugural winners in initiative to identify and recognize public high schools that seek to close opportunity gaps through practices “that build on students’ strengths” — not by inundating them with tests. (You can see the list here.)

Each high school recognized as 2015 Schools of Opportunity has supported and challenged its students — many of them at-risk — and its teachers, but each story is unique. The first story featured how Colorado’s Centaurus High School fosters a healthy climate for students and teachers. The second profile looked at how one majority-minority school on Long Island, Malverne High School, fosters a college-going culture and builds academic and social-emotional supports around students who need them. The third profile looked at Colorado’s Jefferson County Open School, which has refused to conform to standardization. The fourth looked at Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School in the Bronx, N.Y., which refuses to allow student learning to be driven by high-stakes tests and that attends to the health of the minds of students as well as their physical health. The fifth was about Grand Valley High School in Colorado, which changed its academic culture to challenge all students.

The Schools of Opportunity project is the work of Carol Burris, who just retired as principal of South Side High School in the Rockville Centre School District in New York, and Kevin Welner, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder’s School of Education who specializes in educational policy and law. Burris was named the 2010 Educator of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York State, and in 2013, was named New York State High School Principal of the Year. She took early retirement at the end of the school year to advocate for public education. Welner is director of the National Education Policy Center at UC Boulder, which produces high-quality peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions.

By Kevin Welner and Carol Burris

Addressing the urgent needs of students and their teachers is the fundamental way that schools close opportunity gaps. These schools provide engaging learning experiences, challenge students to achieve at high levels, and provide the supports needed by students and teachers so that those challenges are taken on successfully. In some schools, this may involve focusing on providing strong professional-development supports and classroom resources for teachers; in other schools, it may involve providing challenging, engaging courses and essential wrap-around services for students.

Colorado’s 2015 Schools of Opportunity includes Durango High School, which has extraordinary supports for teacher development, as well as Center High School, which has put in place tremendous wrap-around services, plus more and better learning time for students. It also includes Long View High School and Mapleton High School, both of which have developed exemplary approaches for making education challenging, relevant and engaging. All four of these schools are committed to making their schools safe, healthy places of learning.

(Used with permission)
 

Center High School

Center, Colorado

Principal: Kevin Jones

Superintendent of Schools: George Welsh

Enrollment: 180

Economically disadvantaged students: 90 percent

Located in the remote and rural San Luis Valley of Colorado, Center High School has a 95 percent minority population, 50 percent English language learner population, 30 percent migrant student population. Ninety percent of its students are economically disadvantaged.

Center’s school district recognized that their students’ opportunities to learn required more than conventional academic supports. Student needs are thus addressed through extra learning time and enrichment opportunities after school and during the summer, as well as during the school day; through a strong focus on healthy choices, supportive interactions, and anti-bullying programs; through support staff such as a homeless coordinator, a nurse, and counselors; and through partnerships with links to community health organizations. Additional academic needs, given the school’s remote and poor location, are addressed through concurrent college enrollment and digital and virtual learning resources.

These policies and practices are fairly recent, and the reforms appear to be paying off. The Center High School graduation rate has increased from only 33 percent in the late 1990s, to over 90 percent today. The dropout rate has been lowered from double digits to where it hovers just below 2 percent. While only 20 percent of Center High School graduates in 2004 were engaged in some type of post-secondary education within two years after graduation, that figure had increased to 78 percent in 2013.

Though many odds have been stacked against them, Center High School students enjoy a safe and healthy learning environment. This includes opportunities to explore future career pathways, a wide array of enriching curricular offerings in many areas of interest, and a major focus on the health and well being of each and every student. The school has also focused on creating a strong support system for its faculty and staff. Mentoring, participating in the state’s Boettcher Rural Teacher program, a collaborative decision-making environment, professional learning communities, compensation for extra time, regular observations by administration, and the school’s Teacher Building Leadership Team are all part of that effort.

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Durango High School

Durango, Colorado

Principal: Leanne Garcia

Superintendent of Schools: Dan Snowberger

Enrollment: 1,020

Economically disadvantaged students: 22 percent

Durango High School supports a collaborative learning environment for staff, with strong teacher leadership focused on job-embedded professional development. The school uses a Small Learning Communities (SLC) structure and a unique instructional approach within each SLC. Interdisciplinary teams of teachers meet on alternating weeks to discuss how to engage all students in the learning outcomes their departments have agreed upon. Engagement strategies include practices from Expeditionary Learning (EL), the International Baccalaureate, and STEAM (STEM plus arts). The school’s SLCs work closely with instructional coaches from EL and IB and then develop Critical Friends groups to analyze each other’s lessons and instructional strategies. In two of the SLCs, teachers are developing peer coaching models to allow teacher teams to observe each other’s classrooms and provide feedback on their practice.

Across the school, staff members meet every Monday for 90 minutes to collaborate on curriculum, instruction, and assessment practice. The schedule balances time between department collaboration and SLC professional learning communities. It is in this structure that school staff members receive job-embedded professional development related to both their content and their instructional practices to support the needs of individual students.

Each of the professional learning communities (PLCs) has a teacher leader and is supported by an administrator. Each department and SLC has a designated leader who also serves on district and building leadership teams. Staff members have ownership in setting the agenda for each meeting and facilitating conversations focused on student achievement. As an example, the school’s PLCs are currently engaged in work around common formative assessment. They create common assessments for student learning and understanding. Following the assessment, teachers then come back together to review results and develop an action plan to address the gaps in student learning.

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(Used with permission)
 

Mapleton Early College High School

Thornton, Colorado

Director (Principal): James Long

Superintendent of Schools: Charlotte Ciancio

Enrollment: 253

Economically disadvantaged students: 57 percent

Mapleton Early College High School (MEC) is a blend of two instructional models—Early College, which supports a college-going atmosphere, and Big Picture Learning, which supports Learning Through Internships and Volunteering (LTIV). The school’s advisory program is key to student success. MEC is one of five small high schools created in Mapleton School District when the district decided a decade ago to transform itself into an all-small-school model.

When students enter MEC, they join an advisory that they will stay with for ninth and tenth grades. During this time, students are introduced to the LTIV program. Ninth graders participate in large-group volunteer opportunities at local assisted-living facilities. As students progress through the LTIV program, they find new placements in elementary schools, bakeries, hospitals, auto body shops, and many other local businesses.

When students enter their junior year, they join a new advisory and have an opportunity to apply to MEC’s Early College Program. Through a partnership with Front Range Community College, MEC students in the Early College Program can earn an associate’s degree at the same time as they earn their high school diploma, staying in school for an extra (fifth) year to receive both. MEC pays the tuition. In addition, MEC offers single college classes to academically eligible students beginning their sophomore year.

Throughout, both the Early College and the LTIV approaches rely heavily on project-based, individualized, authentic learning, grounded in the community. MEC’s Director (principal), James Long pointed to the advisories as particularly important: “Our motto is One Student at a Time. We live that by ensuring that teachers create an individualized learning plan for each student in their advisory. These advisories become like a second family for many students. They work together, learn together, play together, laugh and cry together.” He added:

We focus on relationships first, building bonds between students and teachers before we tackle academics. When students know that you care about them as an individual and as a person first, they’re willing to work for you in a way that they wouldn’t work for somebody with a more traditional take on education. We have to build trust with every student because without it there can be no relationship and thus no academic achievement.

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(Used with permission)
 

Long View High School

Lakewood, Colorado

Enrollment: 60

FRL: N/A (too few students to report)

Long View High School serves an “alternative school” role. It is sought out by students struggling with life or academics, but the school’s approach is one of enrichment, not salvage. It engages the students with a curriculum that is rigorous, relevant, varied, and enjoyable. The school’s mission is to provide a classroom-based, personalized education that takes the ‘long view’ of each student’s future, stressing learning over simple credit recovery.

Many of the school’s students previously felt bullied, harassed, and discriminated against. A significant portion has been physically, sexually, or verbally abused; others have suffered a traumatic brain injury. It is also common for the school’s students to have experienced the death of someone close to them earlier than life expectancy, often through violent means. Long View students see their school as an educational safe haven. The school is thus grounded in the premise that that no one can learn effectively in an environment of fear.

The small size of the school is designed to foster a family-like atmosphere where genuine interactions can happen between and among all school members throughout each day. The school’s safety is nicely linked to its concept of community and connection to the larger community through service learning, guest speakers and experiential field trips. All of this reflects the school’s core goals: being a community, learning from the larger community, and contributing to that community.

The school’s motto is “Learn to Love to Learn,” with the goal being to use the students’ time at the school to create the foundation for their growth throughout life. Non-traditional lessons help students integrate classroom learning with self-learning, and then with the grandness of the world around them.

The school uses multi-age grouping and relies heavily on informal assessments to determine students’ academic needs and to modify instruction to continually reach, challenge and support students. Again, the strong community and the strong bond between students and their teachers makes this effective and makes Long View a school of opportunity.