Welcome to our monthly gallery of best practices and tools from your Center for High School Success partner schools in Oregon and Washington. Below, your coaches have collected timely tools and featured practices from across our region to help support you, your team, and your 9th graders! Please reach out to your coach if you have any questions, feedback, on input.
May 2024
As our gardens and students are infused with energy in the coming weeks, we are excited to see so many of you at our CHSS Spring Collaboratives!
We see schools and teams across our network embracing two agreements that accelerate our work. They are:
- We are strengths-based, we leverage and replicate what works.
- We are student-centered, we focus on changing our practices to better support students versus changing students to better “fit in”.
These agreements will serve us well as we strive towards finishing strong and planning for a strong beginning of the 24-25 school year.
“I always appreciate these meetings to hear what other schools are doing and the time for our team to discuss different strategies to better our team. Thank you!” – Educator from Evergreen Public Schools after the collaborative on 4/24/24
More collaborative team pictures! Teams from Evergreen HS, Heritage HS, Legacy HS, Hela HS, Union HS, and Mountain View HS met in person in Vancouver on April 24. Teams from Castle Rock HS, Kelso HS, Port Angeles HS, and Mount Baker HS met virtually on May 7 and 8. It has been a great Spring Collab Season so far, and we have more to come. Thank you to all who have participated and make our network so strong!
CHSS News:
Take a look at this freshly released video from Poudre High School in CO – please feel free to share with your team members, staff, students, and families! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1e8WqncN0c
Washington State OSPI Update:
We have two important reminders from OSPI as we wrap up the current year and prepare to continue our work in 2024-25:
- OSPI is currently discussing the grant structure, timelines, and rollout. Please stay tuned, Henterson Carlisle will email everyone in the coming weeks with important updates.
- PLEASE SPEND your current allocation before June 30. As we’ve shared previously, utilization of current allocations plays a significant role in future allocations to maximize state funding to benefit the most students in WA.
Calendar
Washington Spring Collaboratives: Register here
Whatcom County: Wednesday, May 15, 8:00-2:30pm. Exact Location TBD
Puget Sound: Thursday, May 16, 8:00-2:30pm. Exact Location TBD
Oregon Spring Collaboratives:
Lincoln County: Wednesday, May 22, 8:30 – 3:30pm, Location: Teaching and Learning Center Newport Registration Link
Linn-Benton Lincoln County ESD and Albany School District: April 30th 8:30- 3:30 Linn Benton ESD Registration Link
Planning a course to support 9th Grade Success for the 24-25 school year? Join us for a collaborative work session to think through and share the possible curriculum, scope and sequence, and/or to hear how others are going to implement. May 30, 3:30 – 4:30pm, register here.
Timely Tools
CHSS Roadmap Inventory Tool
As we move towards the end of the year, all of our schools will assess progress on the CHSS Roadmap to prompt reflection and discussion, and inform action planning for 2024-25. This tool is designed to streamline this process, and allows your team and coach to work on it over multiple sessions.
Addressing Work Refusal in the Classroom
Working with 9th graders, we all have experienced students who go through a phase of just…not doing. This Edutopia article, Addressing Work Refusal in the Classroom | Edutopia addresses this challenge and offers a wide variety of helpful tips and strategies. This would be a great article to send out our read as a team.
End of Year Calendar
We love a good calendar! As the end of the school year rapidly approaches, teams are finding success using the End of Year Calendar (Google doc) and (Word doc.) This ensures that teachers, students and families are all planning ahead. For our rising 9th graders, this Incoming 9th Grader Calendar (Google doc) and (Word doc) can ensure we plan thoughtfully. These are force-copy google docs so you can make your own changes.
Featured Practice
Transition takes center stage as we plan a strong finish for our current 9th graders and plan a strong beginning for our rising 9th graders of 24-25.
Finishing Strong: Schools are taking advantage of the final weeks with the 9th graders of the 24-25 school year. They are planning celebrations that inspire and motivate students to finish the year strong. These include: Assemblies, field trips, field days, ice cream sundae bars, lunch celebrations, college visits, and more! Schools are also designing interventions that support students in the final push to complete assignments, projects and assessments. These include: Move Up Assemblies where students bridge to the next grade, Freshman Focus Camp where students meet learning targets with teachers after school. Finally, schools are committing to energetic, persistent and clear communication to students and families. These include emails, texts, phone calls, home visits and more!
Strong Beginnings: Schools are systematizing their proactive competency instruction by adding tier 1 or tier 2 courses to their comprehensive schedules (9th grade seminar, AVID for ALL, High School Success, etc.) High schools in the Bellingham School District, Evergreen Public Schools, and Renton Public Schools are all considering launching courses next year. We know that some schools have experience with courses that focus on competency instruction in the 9th grade. This seems like an opportunity to learn and grow as a network in this area! Join us for a collaborative work session to think through and share the possible curriculum, scope and sequence, or to hear how others are going to implement. May 30, 3:30 – 4:30pm, register here.
Previous SNAPTSHOTS
- Northwest CHSS Student Success SNAPSHOT DECEMBERAs we welcome our incoming 9th graders, we are excited to share some inspiring work from across our region, focusing on creating spaces of belonging for all students. To support your work this year, we have two important resources from OSPI to share:
- Northwest CHSS Student Success SNAPSHOT NovemberAs we welcome our incoming 9th graders, we are excited to share some inspiring work from across our region, focusing on creating spaces of belonging for all students. To support your work this year, we have two important resources from OSPI to share:
- Northwest CHSS Student Success SNAPSHOT OctoberAs we welcome our incoming 9th graders, we are excited to share some inspiring work from across our region, focusing on creating spaces of belonging for all students. To support your work this year, we have two important resources from OSPI to share:
- Northwest CHSS Student Success SNAPSHOT SeptemberAs we welcome our incoming 9th graders, we are excited to share some inspiring work from across our region, focusing on creating spaces of belonging for all students. To support your work this year, we have two important resources from OSPI to share:
- Northwest CHSS Student Success SNAPSHOT AugustAs we welcome our incoming 9th graders, we are excited to share some inspiring work from across our region, focusing on creating spaces of belonging for all students. To support your work this year, we have two important resources from OSPI to share: