Conference Sessions

Thursday, February 8

Preconference 1:00–4:30 PM

Friday, February 9

Session A 9:30–10:45 AM

Session AB 9:30 AM–12:15 PM

Session B 11:00 AM–12:15 PM

Session C 2:15–3:30 PM

Saturday, February 10

Session D 8:00–9:15 AM

Session DE 8:00–10:45 AM

Session E 9:30–10:45 AM

New Sessions for 2007

A1

Bridge Program
Chris Piercy, FOS Mentor Chair/Teacher; Sharon Schlegel, Principal, Serrano High School, Snowline Joint USD

If enrolling every graduate in a postsecondary program is your goal, this is the program for you. Learn how to collaborate with a local community college to make this goal a reality. This is a complete program that takes the student from lessons and activities to the actual enrollment process with applications, financial aid, and placement testing at the high school site. Participants in this workshop will receive a step-by-step plan for implementation.

Implementation Level 1 & 2
Strands: Collaboration, NEW!

AB2

Building an Advisory Program from the Ground Up
Dennis Clancy, Career Technical Education; Beth Winningham, College Counselor/Adjunct Professor CSU, Northridge Monroe High School, Los Angeles USD

Advisory programs allow students and teachers to develop meaningful relationships that facilitate effective teaching and learning. Participants will discover practical strategies to create an advisory program that offers academic, social, and developmental support for students. Learn how advisory can influence schoolwide literacy initiatives, foster college awareness, raise student achievement, and build a collaborative culture at your school. Presenters will demonstrate model lessons that participants can take back and use as advisory curriculum building blocks.

Implementation Level 1 & 2
Strands: Collaboration, NEW!

AB4

Framework for Instructional Coaching
David Holden, Instructional Coach, Consultant, Co-Founder, Mar Vista HS/American Alliance for Innovative Schools, Sweetwater Union HSD

This session is for teachers and administrators who want either to begin an instructional coaching program or to re-examine their current program. Attendees will learn the practical nuts and bolts regarding an effective instructional coaching program. Some topics to be discussed are:

Attendees will receive handouts and create plans to implement/redesign a coaching program.

Implementation Level 2 & 3
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning, NEW!

A6

SLC Structures and Strategies
Brooke Harms, President, Strategic Technology & Research; Alan Blanchard, President, Blanchard Educational Services & Technologies

Come and understand the differences among the various SLC structures and strategies and what must be integrated in order to create an effective SLC. Learn how to create your school’s structural chart which you can share with colleagues, inviting discussion on the various structures and strategies available to the school. Audience for this session should be those schools that just received the grant and have not yet implemented structural changes, schools that are curious about SLC and what it constitutes, and finally, schools that need a refresher on structures/strategies and how they work.

Implementation Level 1
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning, NEW!

AB8

Redesign for Success!
Sherrie Quach, Catherine “CJ” Foss, Coordinators; Shelley Weston, Assistant Superintendent, Office of School Redesign, Los Angeles USD

Learn how high schools in Los Angeles are making tremendous changes to implement SLCs to better address the needs of high school students. Learn how facilities, instruction, and community partners work together with students, teachers, and administrators to create engaging and motivating learning environments. Hear from students about how these changes are making school relevant and meaningful for them. Learn how the central office can support high schools in becoming places where students are known and successfully engage in their learning and with community partners. Provides insight into the process of how high schools redesign themselves, considering students’ needs and parent input as they design learning communities to meet students’ desires to be better prepared to attend college and work in technically advanced fields.

Implementation Level 1 & 2
Strands: Functional Accountability, NEW!

AB10

Role of Structures in Student Achievement
Mike Neubig, Founder/Co-Founder, Capture Educational Consulting/American Alliance for Innovative Schools

This presentation focuses on creating school day structures that provide flexible blocks of time for personalized programs, while maintaining the positive elements of the existing school structures. The presentation will demonstrate a research-based scheduling system that is proven to enhance the school environment and improve student achievement, specifically at the all-important ninth grade level. We will see the positive effects of using pretests and short-cycle assessments for appropriate placement of students upon entering high school. This schedule provides flexible-extended blocks of time for teams of teachers to instruct heterogeneous, common groups of students, while also offering opportunities for students to transition fluently between courses. Essentially, teams of teachers are responsible for scheduling students within their own time block. Additionally, students have access to academic support throughout the whole day. Most importantly, the schedule allows for complete integration of LEP and Special Education Students into the learning communities. Participants will engage in active discussion about ways to empower teachers to create their own schedules and will be asked to design schedules that they believe may be useful in their own teaching settings.

Implementation Level 1 & 2
Strands: Identity, NEW!

A11

Current Status Inventory: Advisory
Robin Shrode, Owner/Founder/Co-Founder, Impact Educational Consulting/American Alliance for Innovative Schools; Elena Taylor, Counselor, Nimitz High School

This session will discuss the implementation of an advisory program, its successes and failures, as well as a powerful assessment process to ensure continuous improvement. Participants will learn about how one high school implemented an advisory program that is now in its sixth year, and the successes and challenges they experienced. The session will also demonstrate how the program was assessed to ensure student voice through student focus groups and facilitated student and teacher conversations. This process leads to suggestions for program adjustment and improved effectiveness. Protocols will be modeled during the session with attendee participation.

Implementation Level 1 & 2
Strands: Personalization, NEW!

AB13

Creating Great Places to Learn
Clay Roberts, Search Institute Senior Trainer, Search Institute

In this session Clay will continue to focus on how to bring the relationship between staff and students back into schools. With this connection young people develop to their highest levels of academic achievement and performance.

Implementation Level 1, 2 & 3
Strands: Personalization, NEW!

B1

Getting the Best from Your Evaluation for Continuous Improvement: A Participatory Approach for SLC Staff
Rose Owens-West, Project Director; Ralph Baker, Senior Research Associate; Jerry Wolfe, Senior Research Associate, SLC Technical Assistance Center, WestEd

This session is designed to assist SLC staff to engage in the evaluation of their programs for continuous improvement. External evaluators assist SLC program staff with compiling program data for the Annual Performance Report for submission to the U.S. Department of Education. In addition they assist grantees with developing Program Evaluation Reports to measure the effectiveness of implementation of their programs. SLC staff such as project directors, lead teachers, teachers, counselors, and external evaluators are all invited to participate. The session will engage participants in activities to help them work effectively with external evaluators on formative and summative evaluation, data collection, analysis, decision-making, and reporting. Participants will be presented with a PowerPointŪ presentation with a duplicate handout and a self-assessment tool for staff use along with relevant discussion and question-and-answer time.

Implementation Level 1 & 2
Strands: Functional Accountability, NEW!

B3

When Consequences Don’t Work
Rick Smith, Author, Trainer, Education Consultant, Conscious Teaching, LLC

Consequences are often a last resort that don’t resort to much! In this lively, interactive session, learn seven key strategies that teachers often use to succeed with difficult students. In addition to addressing key assumptions that foster teacher success, the focus will be on what to avoid, what to do, and how to do it.

Implementation Level 1 & 2
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning, NEW!

B6

Reaching and Teaching Every Student
Joseph Pauley, Adjunct Professor, Judith Pauley, Lecturer, Cal State San Marcos

Research shows that a teachers’ ability to communicate with and motivate every student may be the determining factor in overall student success. The concepts of Process Communication provide teachers with a tool that enables them to individualize the way they communicate with and motivate every student. Participants in this session will learn how to motivate and communicate with each student in a group setting. The concepts are scientifically based, have held up under more than 35 years of scientific inquiry, and have helped thousands of teachers modify the way they teach.

Implementation Level 1, 2 & 3
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning, NEW!

B11

Formation of a Ninth Grade Community
Pete Oberg, SLC Coordinator, Lakewood High School Center for Advanced Technologies

The presentation outlines the opportunities to foster relationships, increase personalization, maximize student achievement, increase AYP, and decrease discipline referrals and tardies. Instructional strategies employed will be PowerPointŪ, audiovisual, question/answer, topical handouts, and internet links.

Implementation Level 1 & 2
Strands: Personalization, NEW!

C2

It’s Three o’Clock—Do You Know Where Your Professional Learning Community Is?
Carolyn Bainer, Consultant, Xemplar Consulting Studio

Have you ever wondered, what is a Professional Learning Community (PLC)? How might we become a PLC? What difference might it make? If these are some of your questions or if you might simply like to engage with like-minded colleagues in a dialogue on this subject related to your work, please join us.

Implementation Level 1 & 2
Strands: Collaboration, NEW!

C4

Ninth Grade Programs and Practices to Promote, Support, and Create Greater Academic Success
Lisa Knuppel, SLC Coordinator; Evonne Conlay, English & Seminar Teacher, Costa Mesa High School, Newport Mesa USD

This session will offer participants a brief overview of research and data supporting a high level of attention and allocation of educational resources to students in the ninth grade, along with a brief history of the successful programs and practices offered in the first- and second-year implementation of SLC funding at Costa Mesa High School dedicated to ninth grade students. Throughout the session, participants will collaboratively create a profile of the ninth grade student, reflect together on the dynamics of the ninth grade school year and the learning experiences it provides at their school sites, and review a variety of ninth grade programs and practices that they might choose to implement to promote, support, and create greater academic success for their freshmen.

Implementation Level 1
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning, NEW!

C5

What Teachers Need More of: ”Time to Teach!”
Donald Hollins, Teacher/Advisor/Department Chair, Sunset High School (alternative public high school)

Time has been called the coin of learning. Yet every teacher knows the frustration of losing valuable instruction time to matters of discipline, just as every student has known the frustration of losing valuable learning time to matters of discipline. For some teachers and for some students, the amount of lost time is very great. Time to Teach is a group of strategies proven to restore that lost time to teachers and students in a way that is simple, fair, and mutually respectful. Raise scores and reduce frustration. Take specific strategies back to your classroom that will work immediately. Drop the multiple warnings and repeated requests and adopt methods that work, because they show you not only care, you care enough to be consistent.

Implementation Level 1, 2 & 3
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning, NEW!

C9

Building Support for Reluctant Adopters of Change
Robin Shrode, Owner/Founder/Co-Founder, Impact Educational Consulting/American Alliance for Innovative Schools

As a former SLC project director in an urban/suburban district in Texas, Robin Shrode will share a systemic framework for supporting the early adopters, wait-and-see adopters, and reluctant adopters through the implementation of new structures and strategies for high school redesign. This session will include those successful strategies used in the initial stages of implementation of SLCs at three large comprehensive high schools as well as strategies used to sustain the momentum once the vast majority of stakeholders were on board. This SLC director created a successful framework for professional development and training based on the following assumptions: (1) the staff lacked accurate information; (2) the staff lacked compelling reasons for change; (3) staff members did not see clearly how it was to affect them personally in their work; (4) they did not understand their role in the change process; (5) they feared they lacked skills needed to make the change; (6) they mistrusted the intent of the redesign of a traditional high school.

Implementation Level 1
Strands: Identity, NEW!

C10

Turning to One Another: A Dialogue on Leading SLC Redesign
Laura Rogers, Ed.D., Pamela Goddard, Coordinators, Orange County Department of Education

This session provides a time and space for conversation on issues related to the challenges of leading the district/county in redesigning schools for SLC. SLC project directors and coordinators in attendance are asked to share expertise and experiences, both successes and challenges, with regard to various topics of implementation. The goal is to listen and to learn from one another in order to elevate the conversation concerning this work and to expand our knowledge. Attendees for this session should be project directors, SLC coordinators, and practitioner leaders.

Implementation Level 1, 2 & 3
Strands: Identity, NEW!

C11

Swing of the Pendulum—Building Longevity in Your SLC; Not Just Another Fad
Corine Sayler, Assistant Principal, Davis High School, Davis School District

This presentation addresses the age-old concern in education of reinventing the wheel for programs done years ago and recycled as the newest trend. A PowerPointŪ presentation with activities covers current research on the benefits of SLCs, PLCs to build collaboration, and the structures needed within school leadership to help schools move from previous models of reform to institutionalized programs to benefit student learning and growth. Activities include some hands-on teamwork in activity groups and a view-observe-critique session. This session is best suited to teachers, counselors, and administrators who are interested in real-life experiences that can help them avoid the pitfalls of some implementation models.

Implementation Level 1, 2 & 3
Strands: Functional Accountability, NEW!

C12

Developing Young Leaders: Peer Mentoring/Advisory
Pete Oberg, SLC Coordinator, Center for Advanced Technologies, Lakewood High School

This presentation outlines the opportunities to foster relationships with the school community and to develop interpersonal skills to enhance success in a global society. Issues to be addressed are the development, implementation, and suggested curriculum of the advisory period. The presentation will include PowerPointŪ, video, handouts, and question/answer time.

Implementation Level 1 & 2
Strands: Personalization, NEW!

C13

Personalization Advisories: What, When, How
Bob Daniel, Principal, and Team from Tascosa High School, Amarillo ISD

Going from zero to twenty-three hundred in seventy-five minutes is a challenge, but our team will share triumphs and tribulations in implementing a schoolwide advisory. We will use PowerPointŪ, music, photographs, and anecdotes to give participants a roadmap of our journey. We have a separate focus for each of our four-day-per-week program. Monday: advising, study skills, college preparation, job interviewing skills, general life skills, and emphasis on the advisory teacher as the student’s personal advocate at school. Tuesday: reading day—articles of high interest appropriate for each grade level will be read. A prompt and discussion questions will be provided. Wednesday: activity day—fun personality inventories, school spirit contests, and our favorite academic activity, Rebel Olympics, are featured on this day. Friday: video announcements and teacher activity choice. All activities and articles are provided for teachers.

Implementation Level 1
Strands: Personalization, NEW!

DE1

Building SLCs at the Middle School through Vertical Teams
Charlene Hirotsu, Principal; Mark Jolley, Assistant Principal, T. S. King Middle School, Local District 4, LAUSD

Participants will learn how to build SLCs at the middle school level through vertical teams using seven characteristics of a SLC over four days of professional development. Procedures, templates, and protocols will be shared with and experienced by workshop participants. Throughout this Day 1 experience, participants will also build working agendas for Professional Development Days 2, 3, and 4.

Implementation Level Middle School
Strands: Collaboration, NEW!

D3

Building Student Strengths: Leveraging Cultural Literacy to Increase Academic Performance
Lucinda Kramer, Ph. D., Assistant Professor, National University

All students possess the knowledge and skills to participate competently in their specific cultural context. Often cultural literacy is addressed in education only in relation to how it might impede a student’s academic progress. The “other side” of cultural literacy is how it can be leveraged to increase a student’s ability to acquire new learning and participate more competently in the classroom. Specific instructional strategies for identifying and leveraging a student’s cultural literacy will be shared.

Implementation Level 2 & 3
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning, NEW!

DE6

Successful Practices of Professional Learning Teams and Small Learning Communities
Erin McGary-Hamilton, Program Advisor, Recreating Secondary Schools, Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory; Lee Mongrue, Staff Developer/Teacher, Hoover High/City Heights Ed. Collaborative, San Diego USD/CSU San Diego

Is your SLC or school implementing Professional Learning Teams (PLTs) and in need of effective tools to help staff learn together? Come hear concrete examples from a school practitioner on how their PLTs are supporting professional development & SLC transformation. In this session participants will:

  1. Utilize effective tools for PLTs
  2. Learn from and interact with a PD Coordinator who assists staff to improve instructional practices
  3. Learn about how to promote & sustain teams and develop leadership capacity

Implementation Level 1, 2 & 3
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning, NEW!

DE7

Support for Teaching and Learning: Creating a Critical Friends Group
Sean Delgado, Teacher, Chino High School, Chino Valley USD; Cuahutemoc Arroyo, Categorical Program Coordinator, LAUSD Categorical Programs, Los Angeles USD

One essential component in the success of an SLC is the ability of a team of educators to collaborate and plan for learning and instruction. In this session, participants will learn how to use protocols to look at student work as a way of improving instruction and developing collegiality. After learning of the purpose and protocols within Critical Friends Groups, participants will engage in a mock protocol to look at authentic student work. Participants will then debrief about the process and leave with a variety of different protocols to use for Critical Friends Groups at their own site.

Implementation Level 1
Strands: Support for Teaching and Learning, NEW!

DE8

Practical Guide to SLC Implementation and Sustainability
Mary Holden, Resource Teacher; David Holden, Instructional Coach, Consultants & Co-Founders, Mar Vista HS/American Alliance for Innovative Schools; team from American Alliance for Innovative Schools, Sweetwater Union HSD

This session will provide attendees with practical guidance for effective SLC implementation and maintenance. Some of the topics to be addressed are:

This session is not a prescription for SLC implementation; rather, attendees will receive practical information, tools, and insight that will facilitate SLC implementation and sustainability.

Implementation Level 1 & 2
Strands: Functional Accountability, NEW!

D9

Small Learning Communities
Cathy Armstrong, SLC Advisor; Albert Castillo, Director, Secondary School Services; Pat Moretta, Jesus Angulo, Principals, Southgate High School, LAUSD Local District 6, LAUSD

“You can’t motivate someone you don’t know . . . the heart of schooling is the relationship between the teacher, student and ideas. ” Ted Sizer

This session will explore SLCs and how they benefit our students, teachers, and communities in Local District 6 high schools of the Los Angeles USD. Participants will explore research on SLCs, examine how Local District 6 has transformed its large, comprehensive high schools into small, heterogeneous communities of learning built on high-quality curriculum and instruction, and discuss with a panel of principals how to manage some of the predicaments that arise from redesigning schools into SLCs as policies, programs, initiatives, and people work together.

Implementation Level 1, 2 & 3
Strands: Identity, NEW!

DE11

Framework for Understanding Poverty
Kathy Estes, Coordinator, Health, San Bernardino Co. Superintendent of Schools

This workshop is based on the research done by Dr. Ruby Payne, a noted educator from Houston, Texas. The premise of the presentation is to identify how children of poverty learn differently from those who come from the middle class or wealth. The learning style is different, not necessarily inferior. This is a highly interactive workshop allowing participants to analyze their own orientation and practice new strategies in engaging students of poverty. We will cover the twelve key points of Dr. Payne’s research and behavioral and learning strategies that are effective in engaging students and their families in the academic process.

Implementation Level 1, 2 & 3
Strands: Personalization, NEW!

E9

Freshman SLC Academies at Buena Park High School
Michael Reule, SLC Coordinator/Teacher; Judy Fancher, Vice Principal; Emma Thompson, Freshman Academy Lead Teacher, Buena Park High School, Fullerton Joint Union HSD

Want to know what it is really like to bring SLC to your school? Come hear about the successes and challenges of SLC reform from an SLC coordinator, vice principal, and Freshman Academy lead teacher from Buena Park High School in North Orange County. Mini-breakout sessions will follow an introductory PowerPointŪ presentation. You will have an opportunity to have your questions answered and to network with others.

Implementation Level 1
Strands: Identity, NEW!

E12

What Students Say About SLCs
Michael Butler, Vice President; Vivian Hsu, Project Associate, Public Works, Inc.

This presentation will showcase key findings from surveys of 10th and 12th grade students at 12 high schools in LAUSD. Participants will learn what students said about personalization, teacher expectations/rigor, postsecondary preparation, etc. Participants in this session will have an opportunity to examine student survey data themselves and draw their own conclusions about the value of student voice for SLC implementation.

Implementation Level 1 & 2
Strands: Personalization, NEW!

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