School Reform at Crenshaw
School Reform at Crenshaw
We share a commitment to a process of school reform and restructuring through democratic, empowered collaboration among all stakeholders, where all stakeholders are accountable to each other. From this commitment springs a vision for educational excellence centered on the fostering of skilled, culturally-literate, autonomous learners who are well prepared to lead constructive and fulfilling lives.
We see a restructured and reinvigorated Crenshaw High School as a place where:
A. Personalized teaching and learning, and a strong sense of community, help students feel they belong, thereby supporting high student morale, a safe environment, strong attendance, and high academic achievement.
B. Positive, nurturing relationships among students, between students and teachers, and between students and other adults help students to enjoy school and to be interested in learning.
C. Effective support services are provided by adults who know students’ individual abilities, needs, and goals.
D. Students are prepared and empowered for active and constructive citizenship
1. Through engagement with the local community
2. Through student centered learning3. By having input into decisions that affect their lives4. By promotion of integration and mutual appreciation among diverse groups in the school5. By being encouraged and required to think critically about important issues
E. Students' academic achievement is enhanced because
1. Teachers make each other better through sustained and systematic collaboration2. Curricular unity is promoted without sacrificing the creativity of individual teachers
3. Interdisciplinary approaches to teaching and learning are facilitated
4. All stakeholders within the educational process are active and accountable
5. The curriculum is rigorous and standards-based
To support these goals, Crenshaw High School will reconfigure into smaller units (whether called “small learning communities,” “small schools,” or “academies”) by the beginning of the fall semester, 2008. To carry out this restructuring process it is imperative that:
1. Full support be given to the 9th grade academy and the career academies that are currently on campus, namely the Media, Art, and Design Academy and the Business and Entrepreneurship Academy, which may serve as models for successful implementation of “small learning communities” at Crenshaw High School.
2. School Improvement Facilitator Mr. Terrence Dunn be reassigned to Crenshaw High School
3. Administrators, faculty, parents, and students immediately begin to work together in a collaborative manner towards making this vision a reality.
Even as the restructuring process is moving forward, Crenshaw needs support in reaching a number of goals which fall within several distinct strands. Each strand is important in its own right, and the addressing of each will ultimately support a successful restructuring outcome. Over the last 3 years, we have made different levels of progress within different strands. We would expect all reform partners to assist in moving all strands forward.
Instruction
Ø Program of regular, respectful classroom visitations, systematically created by all stakeholders, with feedback going through departments and shaping instructional practices.
Ø Implementation of school-wide student evaluations of teachers.
Ø Parent, faculty, and administrative collaboration to agree on what assessments to use to measure student learning.
Ø Getting results of these assessments into parents and faculty’s hands as soon as possible, along with support for reading the data and incorporating it into instruction.
Ø Implementation of school-wide reading program.
Professional Development
Ø 100% of professional developments created collaboratively between administration, staff, parents, and students, focused on best practices, lesson study, cultural relevance, standards-based education, inquiry-based learning, and active learning.
Ø Expand, with appropriate support, the Academic English Mastery Program (AEMP), the Literacy Cadre, and protocols for lesson study and mutual classroom observations within departments.
New Teacher Support
Ø Capacity for new teachers to receive money for attending series of classroom management seminars held here at Crenshaw.
Ø Capacity to pay for full mentor system for all new teachers.
Student Intervention System
Ø A collaborative process to ensure there is a streamlined and transparent system between classroom, counseling office, dean’s office, intervention office, and administration to provide support to and intervention for (tardy and discipline-related, if necessary) all students. Accountability in following through on this system, and clarity in roles.
Ø Telephones that call off campus for each classroom to facilitate teacher-parent communication.
Ø Plan to fix / upgrade camera system for school.
Ø Potential to have more than one full-time dean of students, elected by the faculty, without increasing class size for other classroom teachers.
Ø Stronger and more consistent relationship with human relations organizations that facilitates regular and ongoing events on racial understanding, diversity, tolerance, violence, etc.
Governance / Single School Plan
Ø Support for School Site Council (SSC) – with its coordinated sub-committees and advisory boards, such as Compensatory Education Advisory Committee (CEAC) and English Learner Advisory Committee (ELAC) – to be the governing body of the school, including administration, elected faculty, elected parents, elected community, elected classified, and elected students.
Ø Support for appropriate trainings and paid time to ensure that these bodies have the knowledge and expertise to lead the school.
Ø Support for the Single School Plan being the living document that drives the school, revised each year by SSC, using data that is provided to them, workshops provided to them, etc., in doing the revisions.
Ø Accountability to the Single School Plan, through workshops for all stakeholders on what it says, what it means, etc., on extra paid time if necessary.
Governance Autonomies
Ø Streamlined way to sustain the merger of School Site Council (SSC) and Local Leadership Council – so that we have only one governing body.
Ø Support for SSC – and its coordinated structures, such as sub-committees, CEAC, and ELAC – to have control over all budgets that come to the school site, not just categorical.
Ø Support for SSC to hire and fire administration, faculty, and staff (consistent with due process and consistent with any guidelines created by Local 99, CSEA, UTLA, or AALA).
Ø Support for SSC – and its coordinated structures – to have purview over all broad areas of school policy, including plant aspects, calendar, technology plan, small learning communities conversion, reform programs, etc.
Class Size
Ø Capacity to cap class size in all subject areas at 32 or lower, P.E. at 55 or lower, and Special Ed classes at 14 or lower, while maintaining lower class size mandates in 9th and 11th grade where they exist.
Counseling
Ø Reduce student-to-counselor ratios to national average, 184-to-1.
Support Services
Ø Sufficient campus aides to supervise entire campus, with health benefits so that the school can retain these employees over the long-term.
Ø Two, rather than one, full-time psychiatric social workers.
Ø Permanent funding for two, rather than one, full-time Pupil Services and Attendance (PSA) counselors.
Ø Medical and dental clinic on campus for students and their families.
Ø Two, rather than one, school psychologists
Ø Intervention center where all of these services are located together.
Ø Expansion of Summer Bridge program for incoming 9th graders.
Ø Greater presence of School Safety Officers and School Police.
Technology
Ø At least 8-10 top-of-the-line computers in each classroom, in addition to teacher computer.
Ø Laptop for every teacher.
Ø Professional development support (paid beyond regular, if necessary) for all faculty on how to use these computers, both pedagogically and mechanically.
Ø Support for two full-time technology coordinators or micro-techs.
Ø Dedicated reading lab, math lab, updated computers in all computer classes, and at least 2 dedicated computer labs for classes to use.
Ø Support for other technologies in each classroom – LCD projectors, TV/VCR, etc.
Instructional Materials
Ø Enough textbooks for students to have one at home and class set in each class
Ø New and adequate classroom furniture
Ø Multi-hundred dollar stipend for each teacher to spend on class materials each semester
Ø Support for student-run copy center/resource center to be fully-loaded with materials and supplies
Ø Clear, consistent, time-efficient policy for ordering and attaining supplies
Community and School Partnerships
Ø Deep and consistent relationships with feeder schools that could include collaboration on diagnostic testing and the development of the master schedule, collaboration on consistent academic and disciplinary standards and practices, etc.
Ø Development of a Crenshaw Educational Collaborative that includes the many, many community organizations that the Crenshaw Cougar Coalition parents, administration, UTLA, departments, and individual faculty have worked with over the years – that could include existing organizations focused on school reform and redesign, health issues, civil rights, gender equity, racial understanding, community organizing, employment, college-going culture, etc.
Facilities
Ø Continued work to ensure that campus is inviting, park-like, encompassing of place for student and staff gathering, etc.
We share a commitment to a process of school reform and restructuring through democratic, empowered collaboration among all stakeholders, where all stakeholders are accountable to each other. From this commitment springs a vision for educational excellence centered on the fostering of skilled, culturally-literate, autonomous learners who are well prepared to lead constructive and fulfilling lives.
We see a restructured and reinvigorated Crenshaw High School as a place where:
A. Personalized teaching and learning, and a strong sense of community, help students feel they belong, thereby supporting high student morale, a safe environment, strong attendance, and high academic achievement.
B. Positive, nurturing relationships among students, between students and teachers, and between students and other adults help students to enjoy school and to be interested in learning.
C. Effective support services are provided by adults who know students’ individual abilities, needs, and goals.
D. Students are prepared and empowered for active and constructive citizenship
1. Through engagement with the local community
2. Through student centered learning3. By having input into decisions that affect their lives4. By promotion of integration and mutual appreciation among diverse groups in the school5. By being encouraged and required to think critically about important issues
E. Students' academic achievement is enhanced because
1. Teachers make each other better through sustained and systematic collaboration2. Curricular unity is promoted without sacrificing the creativity of individual teachers
3. Interdisciplinary approaches to teaching and learning are facilitated
4. All stakeholders within the educational process are active and accountable
5. The curriculum is rigorous and standards-based
To support these goals, Crenshaw High School will reconfigure into smaller units (whether called “small learning communities,” “small schools,” or “academies”) by the beginning of the fall semester, 2008. To carry out this restructuring process it is imperative that:
1. Full support be given to the 9th grade academy and the career academies that are currently on campus, namely the Media, Art, and Design Academy and the Business and Entrepreneurship Academy, which may serve as models for successful implementation of “small learning communities” at Crenshaw High School.
2. School Improvement Facilitator Mr. Terrence Dunn be reassigned to Crenshaw High School
3. Administrators, faculty, parents, and students immediately begin to work together in a collaborative manner towards making this vision a reality.
Even as the restructuring process is moving forward, Crenshaw needs support in reaching a number of goals which fall within several distinct strands. Each strand is important in its own right, and the addressing of each will ultimately support a successful restructuring outcome. Over the last 3 years, we have made different levels of progress within different strands. We would expect all reform partners to assist in moving all strands forward.
Instruction
Ø Program of regular, respectful classroom visitations, systematically created by all stakeholders, with feedback going through departments and shaping instructional practices.
Ø Implementation of school-wide student evaluations of teachers.
Ø Parent, faculty, and administrative collaboration to agree on what assessments to use to measure student learning.
Ø Getting results of these assessments into parents and faculty’s hands as soon as possible, along with support for reading the data and incorporating it into instruction.
Ø Implementation of school-wide reading program.
Professional Development
Ø 100% of professional developments created collaboratively between administration, staff, parents, and students, focused on best practices, lesson study, cultural relevance, standards-based education, inquiry-based learning, and active learning.
Ø Expand, with appropriate support, the Academic English Mastery Program (AEMP), the Literacy Cadre, and protocols for lesson study and mutual classroom observations within departments.
New Teacher Support
Ø Capacity for new teachers to receive money for attending series of classroom management seminars held here at Crenshaw.
Ø Capacity to pay for full mentor system for all new teachers.
Student Intervention System
Ø A collaborative process to ensure there is a streamlined and transparent system between classroom, counseling office, dean’s office, intervention office, and administration to provide support to and intervention for (tardy and discipline-related, if necessary) all students. Accountability in following through on this system, and clarity in roles.
Ø Telephones that call off campus for each classroom to facilitate teacher-parent communication.
Ø Plan to fix / upgrade camera system for school.
Ø Potential to have more than one full-time dean of students, elected by the faculty, without increasing class size for other classroom teachers.
Ø Stronger and more consistent relationship with human relations organizations that facilitates regular and ongoing events on racial understanding, diversity, tolerance, violence, etc.
Governance / Single School Plan
Ø Support for School Site Council (SSC) – with its coordinated sub-committees and advisory boards, such as Compensatory Education Advisory Committee (CEAC) and English Learner Advisory Committee (ELAC) – to be the governing body of the school, including administration, elected faculty, elected parents, elected community, elected classified, and elected students.
Ø Support for appropriate trainings and paid time to ensure that these bodies have the knowledge and expertise to lead the school.
Ø Support for the Single School Plan being the living document that drives the school, revised each year by SSC, using data that is provided to them, workshops provided to them, etc., in doing the revisions.
Ø Accountability to the Single School Plan, through workshops for all stakeholders on what it says, what it means, etc., on extra paid time if necessary.
Governance Autonomies
Ø Streamlined way to sustain the merger of School Site Council (SSC) and Local Leadership Council – so that we have only one governing body.
Ø Support for SSC – and its coordinated structures, such as sub-committees, CEAC, and ELAC – to have control over all budgets that come to the school site, not just categorical.
Ø Support for SSC to hire and fire administration, faculty, and staff (consistent with due process and consistent with any guidelines created by Local 99, CSEA, UTLA, or AALA).
Ø Support for SSC – and its coordinated structures – to have purview over all broad areas of school policy, including plant aspects, calendar, technology plan, small learning communities conversion, reform programs, etc.
Class Size
Ø Capacity to cap class size in all subject areas at 32 or lower, P.E. at 55 or lower, and Special Ed classes at 14 or lower, while maintaining lower class size mandates in 9th and 11th grade where they exist.
Counseling
Ø Reduce student-to-counselor ratios to national average, 184-to-1.
Support Services
Ø Sufficient campus aides to supervise entire campus, with health benefits so that the school can retain these employees over the long-term.
Ø Two, rather than one, full-time psychiatric social workers.
Ø Permanent funding for two, rather than one, full-time Pupil Services and Attendance (PSA) counselors.
Ø Medical and dental clinic on campus for students and their families.
Ø Two, rather than one, school psychologists
Ø Intervention center where all of these services are located together.
Ø Expansion of Summer Bridge program for incoming 9th graders.
Ø Greater presence of School Safety Officers and School Police.
Technology
Ø At least 8-10 top-of-the-line computers in each classroom, in addition to teacher computer.
Ø Laptop for every teacher.
Ø Professional development support (paid beyond regular, if necessary) for all faculty on how to use these computers, both pedagogically and mechanically.
Ø Support for two full-time technology coordinators or micro-techs.
Ø Dedicated reading lab, math lab, updated computers in all computer classes, and at least 2 dedicated computer labs for classes to use.
Ø Support for other technologies in each classroom – LCD projectors, TV/VCR, etc.
Instructional Materials
Ø Enough textbooks for students to have one at home and class set in each class
Ø New and adequate classroom furniture
Ø Multi-hundred dollar stipend for each teacher to spend on class materials each semester
Ø Support for student-run copy center/resource center to be fully-loaded with materials and supplies
Ø Clear, consistent, time-efficient policy for ordering and attaining supplies
Community and School Partnerships
Ø Deep and consistent relationships with feeder schools that could include collaboration on diagnostic testing and the development of the master schedule, collaboration on consistent academic and disciplinary standards and practices, etc.
Ø Development of a Crenshaw Educational Collaborative that includes the many, many community organizations that the Crenshaw Cougar Coalition parents, administration, UTLA, departments, and individual faculty have worked with over the years – that could include existing organizations focused on school reform and redesign, health issues, civil rights, gender equity, racial understanding, community organizing, employment, college-going culture, etc.
Facilities
Ø Continued work to ensure that campus is inviting, park-like, encompassing of place for student and staff gathering, etc.
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