CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS TO WATCH

Unique to Liberty Middle School is their highly developed program of “situational coaching” which provides teachers with coaching “during” a lesson provided either by select peers, the administration or the resource teacher who supports the program daily. Students benefit not only from the growth this provides teachers, but from having two teachers to support them during class.

Departments meet regularly as teams and following assessments “deploy” students among them to allow for specific, targeted intervention/enrichment. The custom is to have the teacher whose results showed the most success re-teach the students in need of more instruction.

Staff benefit from an early release day once per week to meet in their subject area professional learning communities to collaborate and access student work. Disciplines also have common prep periods and are near each other to offer opportunities for both formal and informal collaboration. In addition, team leaders meet every two weeks to discuss student progress in academics and character. Once a month each department team is provided with a school release day to address focus areas for their team. During these times, they watch a model lesson, co-teach, and discuss how to grow to improve student learning. Peer observation is the norm.

Students in need of additional support can access a Tier III reading intervention class and students that need intervention in either English and/or math can access a flex class Tier II intervention.

The schedule allows for 80 minutes of ELA and 80 minutes of math daily providing ample opportunities for projects, individualized instruction, cross curricular connections, and differentiation within heterogeneously grouped core classes.

In addition to the embedded opportunities for professional growth, Liberty offers training each month within department teams, three days of whole school professional development, and opportunities to attend outside training as needed. Growth mindset is a priority for both staff and students schoolwide.

New teachers are provided the opportunity to push into a veteran teacher’s classroom for two periods per day or to have a veteran teacher push into their classroom two periods per day to offer feedback and support with schoolwide instructional strategies.