There is a group of teachers at CHS working to develop a school-within-a-school for students who are not successful in our traditional school structure, so I thought this article might be helpful in determining how to effectively create a transformative community. They have identified the importance of parent and community involvement, and I was hoping to meet with some concrete examples.
While the article provided a description of the key characteristics needed for transformative communities, it did not share a lot of concrete examples of how the schools demonstrated these qualities. I think it would have been helpful to be able to "see" these qualities in action.
One interesting point that was made caused me to think about the family visits our district has been doing for the past 2 years. The statements about "forcing doesn't work" ring true. (See excerpt below.) I think we should have continued with the program being voluntary after the pilot year rather than making it mandatory for all faculty. If it was beneficial to those parents and students, it would have expanded through the endorsement of those involved. As it is now, there is a lot of resentment on both sides and I don't see more connection between the school and parents than I did prior to this program's implementation. At this point, I think we need to bring teachers and parents together to discuss whether there is a way to make this program more authentic and to clearly define its on-going goals so that it is not a "one and done" connection with families. It would have been interesting to see the ways in which the sample schools from the article created their family connections.
Crandon High School has a C.A.R.S. program, which is Crandon Alternative Resource School. It is our school within a school for kids who need alternative to tradtional high school classrooms. They still attend school and have a classroom, but are given alternative assignments, hours, tests, etc. They still graduate at the end and walk at graduation, as well as receive a diploma. I'm not sure if it was created to lessen the drop-out data, or to actually help learners be more successful. My family had a pretty bad experience with the school recommending a family member enter this program because they weren't seeing success within the classroom. However, they were really just giving up and had nothing else to refer my in-laws to.
ReplyDeleteJody, this is really interesting to read and hear, as I also teach with Julie and have been working on this program development, at least in the early stages. I don't think that Crandon was on our initial list of schools that we knew had a program like this. I will pass it along to my principal.
ReplyDelete