This last year has been full of airplane rides and early mornings for the School Partnerships team here at Inflexion as we work with school leadership teams up and down the West Coast. Listening to the radio on one of my late night drives home from the airport, I caught part of a Freakonomics interview with the managing director of a team that started as part of the British government known as the Nudge Unit.
The Inflexion Approach is rooted in organizational theory and recognizes the critical role identity plays in developing schools and systems that serve all students well.
I often find myself thinking about the role structural racism plays as we aim to ensure all students are ready for college, career, and life. And more importantly, what can we do to combat structural racism with the intent of realizing readiness for all students?
Over the past two years I have spent time in high schools up and down the west coast, as a consultant around college and career readiness. In my role I wear many hats, but working with students is what I enjoy most—listening to their voices, and asking them what they think is best for their education and the world they live in.
The leadership team realized that for their Multi-tiered System of Support (MTSS), it was critical that individual student’s unique strengths, interests, aspirations, needs, and family and community supports are recognized, so that effective decisions can be made to maximize students’ inclusion in the school.
Over the past two days our executive director, Matt Coleman, joined three EPIC team members, Carmen Gelman, Brandi Kujala-Peterson, and Matt Kim, in Costa Mesa, California at the 2017 National MTSS Professional Learning Institute.
Over the past year, as the leadership team at South Junior High in the Anaheim Union High School District worked on MTSS implementation, they realized how challenging it is for large schools to know the academic, behavioral, and social-emotional needs of each and every student that walks through the doors.
In 2015, Valley High School’s academic outcome data showed that students needed explicit support and practice developing the literacy skills necessary to be successful in postsecondary opportunities without remediation. Valley had been the lowest performing high school in the county for several years in a row, and had a reputation as a school with a multitude of discipline problems and low academic rigor.
Waipahu redesigned the school, incorporating career pathways, small learning communities (SLCs), and design thinking as key levers for change. The career pathways and SLC focus was designed to support high levels of student ownership of learning, captured in the school’s motto: “My Voice, My Choice, My Future.”
Opening a new high school in an established district is a challenge that can be daunting in many respects. Mountainside High School in the Beaverton School District (Beaverton, Oregon) is no exception. A team from EPIC worked with the Mountainside leadership team to help clarify the importance of shared cultural identity and its role in the success of the school.