CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS TO WATCH

Highly implemented program of CHAMPS (Safe and Civil Schools) provides a positive school culture and compliance to behavioral expectations.

Strong school focus on student engagement and literacy skills across all content areas through the use of: Thinking Maps, Higher Level Questioning, Close Reads, Text Dependent Questions, Writing Across the Curriculum and other participation strategies. Implementation data gathered through observations are used to determine next steps and staff development needs.

With the goal of producing lessons that balance conceptual and procedural understanding, teachers submit one team lesson plan per month in which administrators and coaches provide constructive feedback followed by classroom observations.

Staff provides bi-monthly parent education opportunities to help parents support students’ academic, social-emotional, and behavioral needs. Parents are also invited to be involved in “learning walks” of classrooms.

Teachers have identified essential learnings, developed district pacing guides and give frequent common assessments to inform their work as professional learning communities. Assessments include selected response questions, constructed responses, and end of unit performance assessments.

Through the use of a co-teaching model both resource teachers and instructional coaches “push-in” and team teach with general education teachers to maximize support for targeted students. In addition, a learning center is available for all students as well as mentoring, tutoring, Homework Club and the MESA program.