Community School District School and Classroom Family and Student Beliefs

Community-, district-, school-, family- and student-wide approaches provide the foundations of support for a standards-based curriculum, effective instruction, knowledge of students and inclusive environments for the learning of ALL students. Imbedded in this foundation are assurances that are critical to a dynamic community/school environment.

• All children can learn. While each individual's learning may be different, all children are capable of learning new skills and acquiring new information.
• Children should be educated in the least restrictive environment. The neighborhood school is preferable to being educated in a setting away from friends and neighbors.
• Family members are the most valuable resource for information about their children. Family members have the most vested interest in the education of those children. Family-school partnerships strengthen academic learning.
• Children benefit from being educated with children of diverse abilities.
• Teachers know students' needs and are able to meet those needs in the classroom. Teachers know what and how to teach; they want to teach well.
• Community/school/family partnerships are the foundation for life-long learning.

Educators must assume the responsibility for ensuring that all students are receiving effective instruction. Additionally, the learning environment continually needs to be refined as the ever-changing students’ needs become apparent. Therefore, Foundations of Support--a joint effort by the community, school district, school, and classroom, family and individual student--is critical in the implementation of effective instruction for ALL students. Most students' needs are met by implementing effective classroom-wide approaches while recognizing that teachers must also utilize individual student-level strategies.   When classroom-wide and   individual student-level approaches are implemented, a positive creative learning environment exists for ALL students.

Important to the Foundations of Support is for the school district to connect its beliefs and mission to the values and priorities of the community. Effective school districts listen WELL to the community. Effective school leaders provide community members with essential information in successfully to address public expectations. The community desires information about district goals: Why were the goals chosen? When will the goals be reached? What will the school and community experience while working towards those goals? How and when will progress be measured?

Before providing this essential information to the community, effective school leaders must first thoughtfully communicate with the internal school community. Teachers are often viewed as the primary and reliable source of school information to parents. Therefore, school employees should become informed, effective communicators to provide positive information on the goals and direction of the school district with the community.

The community needs to see signs of success in order to become supporters of the school system. Core issues such as clean and safe facilities, availability of materials, cost efficiency and effective administrative support must be addressed prior to requesting community discussion. Support for issues related to restructuring schools, effective instructional practices and higher academic standards are important to the community. When the community shares in the understanding of goals and embraces them, support of the school community and student progress are enhanced.

School systems with effective community partnerships have developed a measurable, strategic communication plan linked to the goal of maximizing student achievement. By providing clear, concise, comprehensive and personalized information, these school systems have communication that is effective and understandable. The community shares in the success of student achievement by celebrating school and community partnerships that recognize successful students and effective teachers.

Active leadership and administrative support are the vehicles for continued growth and change in all schools and classrooms. Building principals and district administrators guide positive change and growth through implementing and maintaining the following types of processes:

• Consistent articulation and documentation of vision and mission of district

• Effective instructional leadership

• System-wide implementation of a standards based curriculum and effective instructional practices

• Documented legally sound procedures of practice

• Supportive community agency and business/school partnerships

• Consistent inter-agency collaboration

• Strong clinical supervision model

• Supportive parent/school partnerships

• Support for ALL students

• Teaming and collaboration

• Research based staff development plan

• Availability of sound resources

• Commitment of the school board to sound system-wide educational practices

CLASS-WIDE STRUCTURES are tools that give teachers flexibility in meeting the needs of all students in the classroom. These approaches are part of larger systems, school-wide and district-wide, and are NOT used in isolation within selected classrooms. Class-wide structures are evaluated, implemented and customized to meet the educational needs of students in ALL classrooms. The following list of approaches, while not intended to be all-inclusive, can expand learning opportunities for ALL students:

• Assessment is based on observation, evaluation and judgment of student-created responses, products and interpretations; it is intended to provide a rich portrait of student learning.
• Classroom management techniques encompass systematic approaches or set strategies that are used to establish and maintain positive student actions, behaviors and/or social skills within the school setting.
• Co-teaching refers to the classroom structure where two adults plan, teach and assess together. Co-teaching includes the following structures: one teaches the class, and one teaches a subgroup of students with a specific purpose; alternative teaching; station teaching; parallel teaching; and team teaching.
• Curricular integration means that various subjects or skills studied at one grade level are delivered in an interdisciplinary approach. This means that skills or topics are studied within the different disciplines. For example, the study of rocks and minerals is incorporated in language arts (reading and writing on topic), math (weight and density), social studies (impact on civilizations) and the arts.
• Developmentally-appropriate practices (DAP) describes an approach to education that understands the child as a developing human being. The child is an active participant who constructs meaning and knowledge through interaction. The teacher is an active participant who strives to support the child in the construction of meaning. DAP has four central characteristics: (1) age-appropriate; (2) individually-appropriate; (3) meaningful learning experiences; and (4) invested, responsible learners. DAP requires that teachers’ decision making in the classroom be a combination of their knowledge of the individual and an understanding of child development to achieve desired and meaningful outcomes.
• Flexible grouping provides opportunities for students to work in a variety of grouping arrangements including similar or mixed readiness levels, learning profiles or interests, as well as independent work.
• Integrated services refers to the provision of support services in the students' learning environment--the classroom--as compared to providing services as an isolated or pull-out approach.
• Learning groups provide structure in which students are grouped together NOT to do something as a team, but to learn something as a team. Students work together toward academic goals through mutual efforts. They retain responsibility for individual accountability while benefiting from team support for learning.
• Looping provides the opportunity for teachers to stay with the same group of students for two years in a row. In this model, teachers know their students’ strengths and weaknesses better at the beginning of the second year. More time is devoted to effective instruction and less time is needed for classroom management concerns.
• Multiple intelligences is an approach that states that each human being is capable of relatively independent forms of information processing, with individuals differing from each other in the specific profile of intelligences that they exhibit. These forms of intelligence are logical-mathematical, linguistic, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal and environmentally in-tune.
• Thematic units is an approach to instruction that supports the research of brain-based learning. This acknowledges the brain's rules for meaningful learning and organizes teaching with those rules in mind. Thematic teaching rests on the fact that various disciplines relate to each other and share common information that the brain can recognize and organize.

An essential component of the Foundations of Support is the belief system of the family and students. Families that actively demonstrate their value of learning raise children who also value learning. Family-valued learning supports a desire and interest in learning, learning from mistakes, recognition of accomplishments, independent and family reading time, quiet study areas, scheduled study times, respect for self and others, self-discipline in studying, and problem-solving and critical thinking activities. Children raised within environments that value learning enter the school community better prepared to participate actively in the curriculum, instruction, assessment and overall school community.

When looking at family-wide beliefs related to educational learning environments, it is essential to acknowledge the strength that develops when teachers inform and involve parents in the educational process. Natural opportunities to meet consistently with parents exist within a school calendar and become the celebrated building blocks for partnerships. Some opportunities to interact with parents are as follows::

• Parent-teacher conferences held within the first several weeks of the school year provide parents with the opportunity to identify what they think is important for their child to learn. Parent-teacher goals can be established to serve as a basis for future communication through routine progress reporting.
• Evening parent visitations provide the opportunity for parents to meet with the school staff outside of the school day. In addition, and as part of the district calendar, scheduled visitations should provide child care support.
• Teacher office hours are designated weekly times that are announced and scheduled for teachers to talk to or meet with parents.
• Parent Leaders provide the opportunities for parents to assume an active role in district, school and classroom events and celebrations. Parent Leaders foster volunteerism and enhance partnerships among the community, school and families.