PART 3: FINDINGS - SUMMARY EXPLANATION OF RUBRIC RATINGS Focus Standard 1.1
Focus Standard Meaningful and Challenging Curriculum
Rubric Placement Undeveloped
Summary Explanation of Ratings In the majority of classes, learning was connected or applied to questions or problems connected to student interests, goals, experiences, or communities. In the majority of classes there was no evidence of a push to have all students progress far and attain high levels of mastery. The pacing of instructional time was slow and students spent a significant portion of instructional time either entirely off task or chatting while completing the assigned activity. Most students were not deeply learning the material presented.
1.2
Safe and Nurturing Learning Experiences
Developing
Most classrooms provide a safe, nurturing, and accepting environment, in which positive relationships are built between students and teachers. Students and parents report that the relationship with their Counselor-Teacher-Mentor (CTM) contributes to the safety students experience at school and that those relationships are very important to the students’ successful high school graduation. In contrast to the guiding principle “Education today must inspire young people to struggle for change in themselves and in their society”, the contracts functioned as a behavior modification tool rather than as a student empowerment and leadership development tool.
1.4
Active & Different Types of Learning
Undeveloped
In the majority of Street Academy academic classes students are not developing questions, posing problems, making connections, reflecting on multiple perspectives, or actively constructing knowledge. Students rarely explain, revise, build on or evaluate their own or their peers’ thinking. The pacing of instruction is slow and students spend significant instructional time off
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task, either because there is no significant consequence for not learning the material or because there are no structures and routines to engage all students and scaffold independence and self-sufficiency. 1.7
Students Know What They are Learning, Why, and How it can be Applied
Undeveloped
In most classes, it is not clear exactly what students are supposed to be learning each day or how that learning is connected to longer-term high level concepts, questions, or thinking processes and applications. Most students were not able to correctly articulate the learning objectives or explain the connection between the current day’s learning and long-term outcomes in academic classes. Checking for understanding is not a structured or routine part of classroom practice in most classes, and most students do not receive feedback on their learning daily (there is minimal use of white boards, partner checking, exit tickets, thumbs, etc.).
1.8
Academic Intervention & Enrichment Support
Beginning
Street Academy’s personalized academic program is organized to provide dropout prevention strategies to all of its students through small classes; trusting, supportive relationships between adults and students; teacher communication with students’ families; starting and ending the day in small “advisory” type groups that enable teachers to check in with kids daily; and tutoring embedded into the school day. Students are not aware of exactly what skills and knowledge they need to learn and do not have access to assessment information to monitor their progress towards mastery. The tutoring structure is the dominant academic intervention, and is a system that is grounded in tracking ‘completion’ instead of actual academic learning and proficiency. Many students do not attend their assigned tutoring or intervention classes, or attend without using the time to learn material.
1.10
Equitable Access to Curriculum
Oakland Emiliano Zapata Street Academy School Quality Review 2012-2013
Beginning
Street Academy provides access to A-G classes for all students, does not assign D’s or F’s (which pushes all students to retake courses and graduate A-G eligible), and provides individual academic counseling and connections to students’ families through the CTM
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system. The high rate of No Credits (average of 35 students per trimester, or 33% of the student body) and transfers out (average of 16% of the student body in each of the last three years), and small number of graduates (19 in 2011 and 12 in 2012) point to a challenge the school is facing in ensuring equitable access to curriculum and courses that prepare all students for college. Street Academy staff has not tracked data to monitor and analyze such data points as: students graduating A-G eligible, students who transfer out, students who participate in off-site internships, students who enroll in and complete community college courses, or students who enroll in a 2 or 4 year college after graduation. Without methodically looking at patterns of engagement and achievement at the school (which groups of students are consistently achieving at high levels, which groups of students show growth in their achievement over their time at Street Academy, and which groups of students continue to achieve at unacceptably low levels), the school cannot create strategic, targeted responses to better meet the needs of all of its students. 1.11
College-going Culture & Resources
Beginning
Street Academy CTMs are responsible to monitor each student’s progress towards graduation and post-graduation plans. A college counselor from the TRIO program at UC Berkeley is on campus 1 day/week, and supports students who intend to apply to four year colleges in their application process. The contract system, which parents reported greatly appreciating for the clarity and constant communication it provides, is not modified as students enter 11th and 12th grades in an explicit effort to prepare students to successfully manage themselves after graduation in college and career. The use of contracts as a central organizing system for students (with teachers checking them every day) has created more emphasis on completing the work necessary to graduate from high school than on becoming the independent self-advocates necessary for college success.
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2.1
Safe & Healthy Center of Community
Undeveloped
The building and yard are dilapidated, and many staff, students, parents, and Board members complain about how unattractive and run-down the inside and outside spaces are. Students do not use the campus before or after the school day, and the campus is not used by parents or community members.
2.2
Coordinated & Integrated System of Academic Learning Support Services
Developing
The Counselor-Mentor-Teacher structure (similar to advisory), provides a high level of individualized attention, support, and communication to keep students on track and to coordinate support services (social-emotional, mental health, and academic support). Street Academy provides some youth development embedded into its curriculum through the Metamorphosis class, a few of the electives classes, the Political Action events and papers, and the Senior Project.
2.5
Identifies At-Risk Students & Intervenes
Developing
Street Academy’s CTM structure and strong relationships between students and teachers act as a system to identify which students are struggling, why they are struggling, and to refer them to on-campus social-emotional supports (counseling and elective classes). Many adults reported that there are greater needs than the current staffing and partnerships have capacity for, yet the school’s leadership was not actively seeking out additional resources to meet those needs or using data to methodically analyze how current partnerships are being deployed to maximize their effectiveness.
2.6
Inclusive, Welcoming & Caring Community
Developing
Students at Street Academy are safe and free from threat, bullying, and discrimination. Parents credit the relationship with their child’s CTM and the use of the contract for daily communication as powerful ways to work in partnership with them in support of their children. Despite the positive relationships between staff and students, the culture on campus
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lacks joy, enthusiasm, or excitement about school. Students did not report a sense of pride and/or ownership in the school community. 3.1
Collaboration
Beginning
Street Academy teachers meet in PLCs 1/week for lesson planning and classroom systems coaching. There is no accountability structure and minimal coaching support in place to have all teachers backwards plan curriculum from high-leverage learning objectives. PLC time is not being used to routinely look at evidence of student learning (formative and summative assessment data or student work) to understand students’ level of mastery of the learning objectives.
3.2
Data Development & Analysis
Undeveloped
Most teachers do not methodically collect data on exactly what students have learned, or share that information with students and families in ways that engage and motivate students to learn the specific skills and processes outlined in their curricula. Most teachers do not analyze student learning data to identify specific needs for reteaching, intervention, and extension for individual students, or to identify trends and patterns among groups of students to inform programmatic decisions, personnel deployment, curricular choices, and instructional strategies.
3.4
Professional Learning Activities
Beginning
Teachers provide leadership in creating professional learning opportunities at the school, supporting and coaching one another as time allows. New teachers are partnered with veteran teachers for organizational and planning support. Veteran teachers are participating in OUSD’s teacher leader professional learning cohorts. Teachers express a desire for instructional leadership to support improved teaching at the school through observation and high quality coaching.
4.2
Working Together in Partnership
Oakland Emiliano Zapata Street Academy School Quality Review 2012-2013
Undeveloped
The school does not effectively engage families or community partners to get their ideas, input, and involvement with the school as a whole, to support improved programming
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and activities. It was unclear how the school is developing students’ self-determination and selfdiscipline when the focus was on work completion, intense behavior monitoring, and constant individual prodding and one on one support to get students to behave and complete academic work. There are parents and community partners who care deeply about Street Academy, and who represent a significant untapped resource that is hungry to be invited into broader collaborative thinking, planning, and action. 4.5
Student/Family Engagement on Student Progress
Sustaining
The school has an organizational culture, supported by directives from the principal, to encourage all teachers to communicate frequently with families about student academic progress and student engagement in the school community. The contract, which is on paper, is a low tech way for CTMs to access quick basic information about each student’s progress in order to intervene and communicate with parents when there is a problem. Each student’s CTM is expected to maintain contact with the student’s family, and families are invited to contact their child’s CTM as often as they like.
4.6
Family Engagement on Academic Expectations and Opportunities
Undeveloped
Street Academy does not organize opportunities for parents to learn what students are expected to learn at each grade level and in each course, or what quality work looks like. Parents were unable to describe what their child is supposed to be learning in their current classes. Street Academy does not provide regular opportunities for parents to learn what students are learning (through exhibitions of learning, portfolio conferences, etc.) until the last quarter of senior year when students give their Senior Project presentation. Street Academy does not provide training to families about college or career paths.
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4.7
Standards of Meaningful Engagement
Undeveloped
Street Academy has not set goals or planned activities to bring students, families and community into the school to become authentic co-owners of the school. There is a distinct absence of student-initiated activity, excitement, school pride, and ownership amongst students on campus, and students reported that they do not feel they have a voice in decision making for the school unless it has to do with their own classwork/homework/project/choice of elective.
5.2
Partners with Students and Families in Decision Making
5.4
Vision Driven
Undeveloped
Beginning
Students and their families are rarely involved, through any leadership structures, in monitoring results of school programs and creating/revising improvement plans, participating in key school planning decisions in support of student outcomes, or providing input in hiring and evaluation processes. Staff, students, and parents proudly describe Street Academy’s vision as providing an individualized, caring school community, with curriculum grounded in studying and celebrating students’ cultural heritages while engaging them in questioning, studying, and becoming active participants in the world around them. That vision does not appear to guide all aspects of the school’s programs and activities, and it was not clear that the curriculum, instructional strategies, and school organizational features intentionally and effectively support the vision and guiding principles.
5.5
Focused on Equity
Beginning
Although the adults working at Street Academy believe passionately in the school’s social justice vision, many of the school’s practices do not lead to equitable and excellent results for all students. When many teachers, the principal, and other school support staff described the difficulties they’ve had with students (discipline in the classroom, low levels of work completion, poor attendance, chronic tardiness, etc.) they referred to the fact that because the school is under-enrolled, they must accept any students who apply, which
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means that they are enrolling students who “do not buy into the mission or process of the school” and who need more resource than the school has to give. This explanation of student rates of achievement and attrition contradicts the vision and mission of the school and represents a significant equity challenge. The school needs leadership from its principal and Board of Directors to chart a course that builds on its powerful vision and tremendous legacy to deliver on the promise of excellent educational outcomes for Oakland’s at-risk youth. 5.6
Supports the Development of Quality Instruction
Undeveloped
There are no consistent instructional practices in place across the school based on expected student learning outcomes, student needs, and the school vision. Although teachers take leadership for their own curriculum development and provide support to one another, there is no teacher leader with the authority to set the course for classroom practice, no clear process by which curricular decisions are made school wide, and no supervision support or accountability for teachers to common agreements.
5.9
Culture of Mutual Accountability
Beginning
The staff at Street Academy demonstrate a tremendous sense of shared responsibility for the well-being of their students and the school community, and function in a highly collaborative way to make school decisions and provide support to students. A teacher created Street Academy’s Student Information System “Emiliano” as a way to help the school collect and monitor outcomes data. Many members of the school community do not voice all of their ideas and hopes for the future of the school out of deep respect for and loyalty to the principal. Many members of the community reported not feeling entitled to raise difficult topics or dropping those topics quickly if they were not taken up by the school’s leadership.
5.10
Organizational Management
Oakland Emiliano Zapata Street Academy School Quality Review 2012-2013
Undeveloped
The school has experienced a 33% decline in enrollment over the last five years, and the leadership has not effectively responded to the dire need for a strategy and campaign to recruit students.
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The school does not offer competitive salary and benefits for staff and continues to lose valuable teacher leaders because of it, and the leadership has not effectively responded to the dire need to create a sustainable funding model. The school is at a crossroads, and needs leadership (principal and Board of the Street Academy Foundation) to step up, address these issues, and bring this pioneering school into a new era of excellence, fully in tune with current best practices around curriculum and instruction, family engagement, student leadership, uses of data and technology, etc.
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PART 4: FOCUS STANDARDS RATINGS CHART Quality Focus Focus Standard Indicator Standard 1 1.1 Meaningful and Challenging Curriculum 1 1.2 Safe and Nurturing Learning Experiences 1 1.4 Active & Different Types of Learning 1 1.7 Students Know What They are Learning, Why, and How it can be Applied 1 1.8 Academic Intervention/ Enrichment 1 1.10 Equitable Access to Curriculum 1 1.11 College-going Culture & Resources 2 2.1 Safe & Healthy Center of Community 2 2.2 Coordinated & Integrated System of Academic Learning Support Services 2 2.5 Identifies At-Risk Students & Intervenes 2 2.6 Inclusive, Welcoming & Caring Community 3 3.1 Collaboration 3 3.2 Data Development & Analysis 3 3.4 Professional Learning Activities 4 4.2 Working Together in Partnership 4 4.5 Student/Family Engagement on Student Progress 4 4.6 Family Engagement on Academic Expectations and Opportunities 4 4.7 Standards of Meaningful Engagement 5 5.2 Partners with Students and Families in Decision Making 5 5.4 Vision Driven 5 5.5 Focused on Equity 5 5.6 Supports the Development of Quality Instruction 5 5.9 Culture of Mutual Accountability 5 5.10 Organizational Management Oakland Emiliano Zapata Street Academy School Quality Review 2012-2013
Rubric Rating Undeveloped
Undeveloped X
Beginning
Developing Undeveloped Undeveloped
X X X X X
Developing Developing Beginning
X X X X
Beginning Undeveloped
X X
Sustaining
X
Undeveloped
X
Undeveloped
X X
Undeveloped
Beginning Beginning Undeveloped
X X X
Beginning Undeveloped
Refining
X
Developing
Undeveloped
Sustaining
X X
Beginning Beginning Beginning Undeveloped
Developing
X X
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