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2003-2004: AYP English Language Arts
2003-2004: AYP Math
2002-2003: AYP English Language Arts
2002-2003: AYP Math
2001-2002: AYP English Language Arts
2001-2002: AYP Math
In the 1999-2000 school year, Torch Middle School in Los Angeles County scored only 445 on California’s Academic Performance Index. This low level of performance went hand in hand with a school climate generally characterized by poor student behavior. There was a gang or crew presence on campus. Fighting and using marijuana were common occurrences. Students were often late to school or absent altogether. Graffiti and other forms of minor vandalism were frequent problems. Classroom disruptions, student suspensions and expulsions were high in number. Torch also suffered a shortage of experienced, trained teachers, in large part because the difficult teaching conditions led to high turnover. In the 2001-2002 school year less than fifty percent of the teaching staff held full teaching credentials. But as a result of an intensive change effort, by 2004 Torch’s API score had risen to 663. Discipline problems have decreased dramatically and teacher morale and quality are greatly improved. In August 2001, a new principal, Joe Medina was assigned to Torch Middle School by the Superintendent of the Bassett Unified School District with the mandate to “turn Torch around.” He had been successful in doing just that for an elementary school in the district. Medina initiated his tenure by asking all staff to read the California Department of Education document, Taking Center Stage. Taking Center Stage is designed to help California's educators successfully implement standards-based education for middle grades students. It provides clear recommendations on how schools can align standards, assessment, accountability, and curriculum to ensure that all students meet grade-level content standards. While staff began to study this document, Torch contracted with the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) to provide outside expert evaluators in the areas of English Language Arts, mathematics, and English language acquisition. These observers highlighted areas needing improvement at Torch and helped the school develop a corrective action plan to address these issues. LACOE then helped the school develop a process to monitor the plan’s implementation. The single most important finding of the evaluators was that the Torch faculty required extensive training to be able to meet the challenging needs of most students. Torch needed to develop a strong professional development program to give teachers the knowledge and skills required to implement standards-based curriculum, instruction, and assessment in order to improve student performance. Professional Development The external evaluators identified a range of areas in which teachers needed training: how to implement the California curriculum standards, strategies for teaching English Learners, how to teach reading and writing across the curriculum, how to teach math as a language-based discipline. They needed to learn how to use data to assess individual student’s need, and to practice better classroom management. Finally, they needed to learn to work together as a professional learning community. In an effort to address these specific weaknesses two cohorts of teachers and administrators attended the LACOE School Leadership Academy. The academy took the cohorts slowly and methodically through all the strategies so they could learn the concepts well enough to take them back to the school and successfully apply them with the rest of the staff. The Torch cohorts continued to attend the Academy for three years. They shared what they learned with the other Torch teachers at two month-long summer institutes, attended by all staff. The cohorts also shared at weekly meetings with the other teachers who taught the same subjects and grade levels, and at the full faculty monthly professional development meetings. At the outset of this reform effort the faculty began an extended dialog about the nature of the school, and gradually a shared mission, vision and sense of values began to emerge. The basic structure for this growth was the development of collaborative teams that shared a common purpose. Teachers were asked to band together to plan and reflect on all aspects of their teaching. The teams were of three kinds. The smallest consisted of the two teachers who shared a cohort of approximately sixty students. They came to know their group of students in great depth, sharing successful teaching strategies, good approaches for soliciting parental support, and effective ways of handling particular students. The second of the three teams consisted of all the teachers who taught the same subjects at the same grade level. This group came to understand the California curriculum standards for their content areas at considerable depth. They learned how to establish a calendar with a scope and sequence that fit their needs and those of the particular students they taught. They learned how to plan units and lessons together, how to pool resources and evaluate their efforts. The third team was the faculty as a whole. This group met at least once a month to read, reflect, and discuss the larger ideas they were trying to implement. Standards-based Curriculum & Instruction While the Torch faculty members were learning how to become a professional learning community, they were also learning how to execute the backward planning design process created by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. This organizational model starts with the desired results, goals, or standards that the students need to learn, then develops the method by which students will demonstrate that they have achieved those goals or standards. A way of determining how much the students know going into the learning comes next. Finally, the curriculum and instruction are then developed. The first step in using the template was to develop a California standards calendar. Each grade-level/content-area collaborative planning group began their work by looking at the standards and deciding which were pivotal, considered the “Power Standards.” The choices were influenced by the key standards from the coming year’s California Standards Test and by the questions asked on the California High School Exit Exam. Choices were also influenced by the standards and skill levels to be taught in the coming grades. Finally, the choice of standards was also dictated by student strengths and deficits as revealed by previous standardized tests, district and school tests, as well as individual student grades. Once the “Power Standards” were chosen, the weighting of all the standards for the grade-level content-area were arranged and time for studying them was allocated accordingly. The resulting standards calendar was unique to each planning team. It was tailor-made to fit the particular teaching situation of the grade and school. The planning groups then began to layout units and groups of lessons that followed the calendar. To do this, they used the LACOE backward planning matrix. The next step of backward planning required the group to establish steps ensuring that all students could and would meet standards. They had to consider many questions. How to determine which students would need additional support to master the assessment? What kind of additional support must be provided prior to starting the lesson? What skills would these identified students need in order to master the assessment? The planning group realized they needed to implement differentiated instruction. At Torch this meant that different teaching strategies had to be emphasized with differing student populations. English Learners were to receive instruction in Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English (SDAIE). Special education students were to receive instruction that was adapted and modified according to their individual education plans. Gifted (GATE) students were to be given tasks that involved the use of higher-level thinking. Through the use of cooperative groups, these different learner needs could be addressed simultaneously. At other times special classes were arranged. For example, Torch established an Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program, which prepares students in the academic middle for four-year college eligibility. AVID pulls these students out of unchallenging courses and puts them on the college track: acceleration instead of remediation. In addition, English Learners with very low skills in English were placed in a three period intensive English Language Development program. While initiating these changes, Torch’s administration, in consultation with the leadership team, also called for a reconfiguring of the school’s classroom scheduling. Taking Center Stage recommends block scheduling and after studying about it and analyzing Torch’s situation, Medina decided to implement block scheduling and interdisciplinary team teaching at Torch. Teachers of core academic subjects are now paired, one pair teaching English/Social Studies and the other Math/Science, sharing a cohort of approximately sixty students from the same grade level. The students go to each classroom as a traveling group for instruction in two-hour blocks with each teacher, taking up four of the six periods of each school day. A fifth period is allocated to physical education. The final period is used in a variety of ways. Students meeting standards can choose an elective for this period. For students not meeting standards in math, English Language Arts, or English Language Development, the period is dedicated to extra support provided by the regular classroom teachers. Leadership & Management With the school reconfiguration, Medina also enriched the staff by adding a number of specialists—an additional counselor, an English Language Development resource teacher, a language assessment specialist, and a parenting instructor. The resource teacher was engaged to provide guidance in compliance issues for ELD generally, to help teachers provide more effective instruction for English Language Learners and to encourage parents to participate in school decision making through membership on two committees: the English Language Advisory Committee and the School Site Council. The community liaison was charged with improving family participation in their children’s learning. The parenting instructor, a Certified Marriage and Family Counselor, was engaged to teach parenting classes in Spanish. School Culture At one of the first staff meetings held after Medina became principal it became clear that the staff wanted to make creating a safe, secure learning environment the top priority. Discipline at Torch historically had been poor. Tardiness and class disruptions were habitual, absenteeism and truancy were serious problems. The counselors and the assistant principal were so busy handling behavior problems they could not perform more critical job functions. Neither teachers nor students felt safe and secure. Learning and teaching were compromised. To ameliorate these problems a program of holding students accountable for the mechanics of school participation was begun. With the new focus on discipline, for the first time students were required to be prompt for school and class. The new principal stood in front of the school on a daily basis exhorting students and their parents to arrive before the first bell. A sign was posted near the entrance gate asking parents to help their students avoid tardiness. Students late for school were subject to after school detention. Teachers, administrators and counselors monitored student movement between classes. Late students were sent back to their previous teacher for a hall pass. Students were required to do their assigned homework and if negligent were sent to lunch detention. If students continued to miss completing homework assignments they were assigned after school detention or even Saturday school. Careful records were kept so that a progressive discipline program could be used. The addition of a counselor also helped address these issues. Because of these changes discipline problems and homework non-compliance were significantly reduced. In 2001 Torch gained one of its most important community partners, the Los Angeles County Department of Probations. Since that time, a fulltime Deputy Probations Officer has been assigned residence at Torch, providing supervision for the general student population and special support for at-risk youth. The officer assigned to Torch, Frank Juarez, has a gift for the work. Since he came the gang or crew presence has vanished. There is almost no fighting on campus. Due to his frequent patrols in the neighborhood, fighting in the surrounding community is also less frequent. On campus drug use and graffiti have both been much reduced. While the Torch grounds were more orderly and the surrounding community much quieter, the problem of disruption in the classroom still continued. The counselors and the assistant principal were still spending most of their time resolving student referrals. A school-wide discipline program and classroom management system was needed. At the first Teacher Institute in August 2003, the positive discipline and instruction system developed by psychologist Dr. Fred Jones was introduced to the teaching staff. A twelve- week training program was conducted using videotapes and a study guide. The staff embraced the system and in most classrooms disruption diminished or disappeared altogether. Students received responsibility training with an incentive program. Difficult students were given special incentive programs to help them omit undesirable behavior. Teachers reduced the opportunity for off-task behavior by arranging seating to maximize teacher access and by continually walking around the room while teaching. It is clear that the changes implemented at Torch are making a difference. In 2002-2003 five hundred and ninety-six suspension days were assigned. The following year that number dropped to three hundred and seventy-six. The 219-day drop indicates that the frequency of significant behavior problems has been much reduced. At-risk youth is a generic label used to identify pupils who have very poor grades, and/or attendance problems, and/or significant behavior problems, and/or home life challenges. The high school requests a list of names of potential at-risk students in the 8th grade from Torch each year. In 2001 Torch sent a list of 135 names to the high school. The following year, Torch’s list contained 30 names. Finally in 2003 the list Torch sent to the high school contained only 14 names. This is a 90% drop in three years. This school profile was created in 2005. Achievement and demographic data through 2004 are included. Permission to Use Resources SchoolsMovingUp, a WestEd initiative, invites you to use our resources in your work. For uses that involve reproduction of more than one copy of the resource, please submit the online permission request form. We will reply immediately once we know your intended reproduction needs. All reproductions of the resource must include a full citation of the WestEd copyright. |
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