SCHOOL WEBSITE

PROGRAM(S) PARTICIPATED IN: Sprint 2014, Solution 2014-2015

TEAM MEMBERS

Stacy Stewart, Principal
Albert Cordero, Music Teacher/Bilingual Educator
Analleli Muñoz, Dual Language Coordinator
Jannette Moya, 3rd Grade Teacher
Jason Pitak, Science Lab Resource Teacher

ABOUT THE SCHOOL

School Type: Small
Grades served: Pre-K-8
Enrollment: 531

PROBLEM

Limited staff and time to adequately meet the diverse linguistic and academic needs of our students in the area of literacy.

SOLUTION

We revamped our master schedule from a traditional model to a five-week rotation specials schedule with the purpose of adding resource teachers to the guided reading rotation, allowing cohesion for the resource classes, and cross-grade and cross-content teacher collaboration.

KEY LEARNING

Our first hurdle was establishing buy-in from our colleagues- ranging from explaining the rotational nature of the schedule and outlining the benefits to both students and teacher teams and reaffirming their voice in the process.

Our empathy work helped us better understand our students’ mindsets and attitudes towards their learning. The feedback was key in deciding that the complete overhaul of our existing schedule was necessary as a means of meeting the literacy needs of our students and strengthening our exploratory classes. Analyzing the student interviews addressed our need to create more opportunities for collaborative learning. Furthermore, our students expressed the desire to be involved in classes where they are actively engaged and challenged.

BY THE NUMBERS

• Hours input by team: 75
• Students impacted: 284
• Additional educators impacted: 18
• Community members: 1

REFLECTION

The students and Resource Teachers value the continuity of meeting daily with leads to a deeper understanding of concepts. In addition, the homeroom teachers and resource teachers are able to collaborate more effectively to connect what is being taught in the classroom and what they are exposed to in the resource class.

PLANS TO SCALE

We plan to continue iterating our schedule to meet the needs of our students during guided reading. In addition, we will extend the innovation to provide responsive math instruction through a guided math model.