II. Continuity of Services
RETURN TO SCHOOL 2022-2023 SCHOOL YEAR: SUPPORTING LEARNING ACCELERATION, ACADEMIC RENEWAL, AND THE SOCIAL, EMOTIONAL AND MENTAL HEALTH OF STAFF AND STUDENTS
Mathematics and Literacy Learning Acceleration
As a district, we have invested in mathematics and literacy education supporting positions such as Reading Specialists, Literacy Intervention Teachers, and Mathematics Coaches. Building on the success of the underlying programs associated with these positions, we seek to expand the footprint of our mathematics coaches to include middle school and expand the role of our Reading Specialists to have a specific focus on academic coaching. We will also seek to expand the number of qualified tutors working at our schools to support both literacy and math. Finally, our secondary department supervisors for these two disciplines will be relieved of teaching duties (0.2 FTE) in order to have maximum time to coordinate academic programming and supervise expectations within a high quality discipline-specific instructional model.
School Engagement, Social Justice and Social Emotional Learning
In an effort to engage and support all students, we will continue to emphasize social emotional learning (SEL) within our curriculum and our school structures. We have secured resources focused on social emotional learning such as Second Step materials and independent reading titles that will support our SEL strategies for direct instruction and flesh out our classroom libraries. We will maintain the integration of both SEL and Social Justice instruction within Morning Meeting at the elementary level, Advisory in the middle school, and Community at the high school as well as our ongoing work to refine and deepen our curricular connections to these key levers.
We will expand our Saturday GOAL Academy to include all middle school grades. This three hour program will be focused on literacy, numeracy and school engagement. The program’s focus targets attitudes and dispositions equally with skills. The backdrop of literacy and numeracy content provide a context and framework for the instruction of communication and collaboration skills, note-taking, and conversations to influence student perceptions regarding themselves and their school experience.
We have expanded our staffing within the Office of Equity Advancement to support our community outreach programming and our vision for equity and anti-racism. We also seek to expand our work under schools-to-careers to increase opportunities for students to engage in job-shadowing and internships as an engagement strategy. This work will be integrated with our ongoing work related to the Mastery Experience graduation requirement and our Vision of the Graduate.
Finally, we have teams of teachers and instructional leaders at all levels engaged in professional learning and curriculum materials development to support our ongoing commitment to SEL, equity, and social justice. Outcomes of this work will contribute directly to classroom instruction and staff professional learning activities.
Pupil Services: Supporting Students with Individualized Education Plans
Pupil Services, in collaboration with Curriculum and Instruction and the Office of Equity, acknowledge the need to support students, caregivers, and families moving forward as we embark on a more “traditional” school year. We acknowledge that students and families may need enhanced and individualized supports with social and emotional learning and skill acquisition. We want our students to be engaged in meaningful learning and this requires many layers of support. In addition to maintaining our Child Find obligations of identifying students with disabilities and our systematic support of students through the PPT and 504 process, we will provide the following additional layers of support.
In general, students with IEPs have experienced gaps in skill acquisition as evidenced by data on goals and objectives. Some students have been affected by changes in intervention modes and methods. Post-secondary (transition-only) students have not had the opportunity to access the community for vocational and independent living training.
Additional special education staff at the elementary and secondary levels will allow for smaller class sizes for specialized instruction and re-acclimation support. An additional Teacher of the Deaf will allow specialized staff to provide needed intervention and coordinate student services. Finally, a community-based bookstore will provide post-secondary students critical access to vocational training.