Annie

Teachers in CP Academy used these whole-school outcomes to “tune” outcomes for each of our classes. We are using those to set up curriculum this year for our graduation portfolio, in which we would like students to include work that really represents the whole school outcomes.

Annie

Any thoughts on creating teams within the school - similar to the older British system?

“Whole school outcomes and Habits of Mind activities” (pre-portfolio)Thanks.

As the CP Academy representative on the School Governance Council, I wanted to give a brief report on the status of the Advisory. CP Academy has wanted to implement an advisory — it was in our RFA and a specific requirement from the school board when we became a small school. We tried to do it without a school structure and schedule that supported it, and found it an impossible task. We were excited about helping to develop an advisory structure for all of BHS because we know it is a potentially powerful way to improve student achievement.

We have worked with the Shared Governance Council to develop the proposed schedule and with a group of teacher leaders planning and developing advisory curriculum for the large school. People from the small schools (including CP Academy) who have attempted advisory believe we need additional time to plan, train, and do the follow-up that an advisory entails. In the small schools, at least half of the advisees would be students the teachers already works with (at least for most teachers). But the number of lessons as well as the number of students a teacher has to think about will most certainly be increased by the Advisory. In the large school that problem is magnified. The increase in “student load” created by Advisory is a major issue and counter-intuitive for a program that is supposed to increase personalization.

The only options we have come up with to reduce teacher daily contacts (block scheduling) or increase time available to plan and train (longer school day to allow weekly late start days) have not been suported by the majority of teachers in the large school. What the Shared Governance Council has developed is a compromise proposal with many problems embedded in the compromise.

Meantime this is a contract negotiations year. The union and the district need to agree on any changes to teacher responsibilities through the negotiations process. Most BHS teachers do not want to take on more student contacts without any change in working conditions to make room for that additional work. This leads us to wonder whether the union and the district will be able to reach agreement.

The compromise plan (a modified block schedule) gives fewer student contacts on the advisory days, but still increases the overall student load for teachers. How or whether that is to be compensated apparently will not be resolved until negotiations are complete. This leaves many people dissatisfied with the idea of doing advisory and not sure that it will really happen.

Such a climate makes advisory planning difficult.

Annie Johnston
Co-coordinator
Community Partnerships Academy

We had initially planned on implementing the portfolio in the fall, but at this point we think we will continue working on curriculum that produces portfolio-level work. Once advisory is up and running, we will figure out how to incorporate the graduation portfolio.

At our last CPA Leadership Council meeting, I thought it would be a good idea to start soliciting input early on how the Advisories get structured in the new modified block week planned for the next academic school year.

In particular, this blog offers CPA teachers a forum to test out ideas about advisories ahead of time so that both students and parents have ample time to react and respond. Other ‘focus group’ type of events will be included in parent meetings and student lunches being planned for those that want to air their comments off-line.

In the end, many handprints on the final product in May 08 should ensure that we all will support the most productive use of this time in next year’s new schedule.

I think the ball is now in the CPA lead teacher’s court:
What ideas do you have so far for the advisories?