OSP Connected
January, 2018-Office for School Performance-Volume 15
Message from Dayle
My daughter is in the Dual Language Program and as a freshman at Hilhi is becoming quite fluent in Spanish. She informed me earlier this fall that the odds are quite good that she will someday live in another country for a least a few years or attend college somewhere outside the states. And, as she put it, “If you want to be able to talk to people who mean a lot to me- you better learn Spanish!” Well, I love my daughter and I want to be able to connect with those she loves so I accepted the challenge and started studying. She has been a great help; she makes flashcards and checks my work. She encourages me and holds me accountable for studying. It should be going great- but it’s just going. Why?
Learning a language is hard. There are a lot of words to learn. I’m getting down quite a few nouns but stringing them together to make meaning is almost impossible at this point. I jumble up my verbs and the tenses are always wrong. It can be frustrating and even though I know I am capable, it makes me feel unintelligent when I can’t think of how to say what I am thinking.
This experience these last few months have made me think of our emerging bilinguals even more than normal. Wow- our kids are amazing! It takes a lot of confidence and courage and resilience to sit in an environment where the language is unknown and you are constantly learning. The new words are never ending and the nuances of words continues to be hazy on a daily basis. As a young learner I can imagine it may be frustrating to be negotiating the content language on top of working to understand academic content. Despite these things they are resilient and keep trying in school.
As I try to negotiate a new language there are things I am hoping happen. I hope people assume I am intelligent even though I can’t always share my thoughts. I hope they don’t give up on me. And, I hope they continue to invest in my learning and keep teaching me! Let’s do this for our kids too.
HSD Focus 2017-2018
INSTRUCTION: Building Language of Advocacy
While asking for help or advocating for themselves can be easy for some of our students, many lack the language or confidence to effectively communicate their needs with their teachers. As educators, we want all of our students to ask for support when they need it, but too often we find out about students’ academic struggles after it’s too late and the due date is long past. The conversation might go something like this:
Teacher: “Why haven’t you turned in your assignment yet?”
Student: “I don’t know how to do it.”
Teacher: “Why didn’t you ask for help?”
Student: “I don’t know.”
Teacher: “You know, I’m always available to answer questions if you need help.”
Student: “Yeah, but I couldn’t explain what I needed help with...I couldn’t figure it out.”
Help students by building their language of self-advocacy. Part of building academic language in the classroom is not only supporting content specific language, but language to effectively communicate with peers and adults both inside and outside of the classroom. Provide language frames of self-advocacy and practice using them with students.
The English Learner Specialist and Evergreen Middle School, Cailin Bull, created a flip book for her students with conversation starters all around self-advocacy. Her students keep these glued to the inside of their planner to they are readily available when they need to speak with teachers. Try it out with your students - a great resource for planners or Interactive Notebooks!
BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS: Student Feedback
We are nearing that halfway point of the school year - a great time to hear from your students about what is working and what is not working about their learning environment. If structured in a way to gather constructive feedback, this feedback opportunity empowers our students to provide input about their learning environment which leads to ownership and pride. Students will notice that their teacher(s) listened, building that reciprocal learning relationship between students and teachers. This supports a sense of community in the classroom.
Try out some of these questions when gathering feedback from your students. When reviewing the responses, don’t get caught up in the details. Instead, look for overall themes in the feedback. If you choose to do an anonymous survey, don’t let one or two negative responses get you down. Again, look for themes to make adjustments in the second half of the year. Point out these adjustments to your students and explain that it was based on their feedback.
CAREER & COLLEGE READY: Expansion and Development of Career and College Pathways in HSD
In December, seven high school teachers presented 16 new course proposals to our school board. They are expected to be approved in the January school board meeting. If approved, these courses would create or expand seven career and college pathways in our four comprehensive high schools:
Bioscience Technology
Veterinary Science
Sustainable Agriculture
Sustainable Design
Construction
Computer Game Design
Computer Science
All of these pathways connect to high wage and high demand careers that are growing in and around our community. Additionally, many of these courses will have dual credit opportunities for our enrolled students. Take a look at the 2018-2019 high school course catalog, coming out at the end of February, for more details on these new courses and pathways.
Classified Instructional Summit
For the third year in a row, Hillsboro School District will be offering the Classified Instructional Summit, a professional development opportunity available to all district classified staff. We are holding a K-12 Classified Summit on February 1st from 7:45-3:00 pm. The sessions will focus on topics like supporting students in small groups, language, math, reading, behavior, supervision and looking at data to support instruction. Classified employees will be paid extended contract for each session they attend and lunch will be provided. The Classified Summit Brochure will be sent out to all classified staff by mid-January. If you’d like to attend, please sign-up on Serebra!