2009-2010 Grant Projects: Equity-Centered Professional Learning Communities (ECPLC)
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Aptos Middle School
Aptos Equity Centered Professional Learning Community
At Aptos Middle School, language arts teachers are developing an Equity Centered Professional Learning Community (ECPLC) focused on changing historical academic outcomes for our underserved students. Our work together is based on the idea that if a core group of teacher leaders is trained and supported in effective strategies for developing an ECPLC, they will be able to use these skills to support their colleagues as they develop equity-centered classrooms and this will result in improved outcomes for all students.
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Grattan Elementary School
Grattan Professional Learning Community
Grattan Elementary has a strong commitment to equity. Our teacher leaders spearheaded this ECPLC effort and successfully recruited the entire certificated staff, our technology paraprofessional and our school principal to participate. We have identified a need to put our values into action, focusing core team goals around interrupting the predictive powers of demographics and to empower our grade level teams to effect change in the results our focal population demonstrate. We will address the strategic plan‘s goals of making social justice a reality by effectively changing the way our school functions. This will include de-isolating teachers, empowering the staff to have structured, supported time for reviewing student work, analyzing our own belief systems, reading related research articles and reflecting on our present literacy practices. Our overarching goal is to determine our philosophy of learning, specifically around literacy, then executing a plan to develop a school-wide literacy program.
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Hillcrest Elementary School
Teaching English Language Arts & Writing: Portfolios and Cross-Grade Calibration
Hillcrest Elementary’s ECPLC will use a critical friends group process and engage in collaborative discussions and cross-grade calibration to implement best teaching practices in writing and portfolio development. The goal is to improve instruction so that African American and Latino English Learners will reach proficiency in English language arts. The ECPLC will examine the essential question, “How does participation in the portfolio project serve as an authentic means of providing necessary support for our African-American and Latino students?”
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Leonard R. Flynn Elementary School
Equity in Action: A Focus on African American Student Achievement
Leonard R. Flynn Elementary's ECPLC "Equity in Action, A Focus on African American Student Achievement" has representation from classroom teachers from language programs and from all developmental levels, an administrator, our Instructional Reform Coordinator and teacher librarian. Our inquiry into why we have such a wide gap of achievement for our African American students will lead us into deep discussions and trust building professional development sessions this year.
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Longfellow Elementary School
Biliteracy: ¡Sí se puede!
Longfellow Elementary’s ECPLC, "Si se Puede," is composed of our four Spanish bilingual teachers (K-3) and our Spanish bilingual reading specialist. Latino students are at the bottom of a significant and historical achievement gap at Longfellow, a community school located in a working-class neighborhood. The ECPLC’s specific goal is to teach transferable academic language in both Spanish and English, with a focus in oral language development in both languages.
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Marshall Elementary School
Meeting the Needs of All Students
Marshall Elementary’s ECPLC, “Meeting the Needs of All Students,” is made up of a group of teachers that were selected based upon their instructional leadership positions and they are from across almost all grade levels. The ECPLC is focused on bringing project-based learning to the school, with the goal of providing 21st century learning opportunities for our students.
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Mission High School
Narrowing the Literacy Gap: Integrating Reading and Writing with Science for Struggling Readers
The Mission High School science department has identified literacy as a critical life skill. Specifically, “Narrowing the Literacy Gap: Integrating Reading and Writing with Science for Struggling Readers” is our attempt to improve our own teaching skills around helping students to read expository texts, science news articles, and primary documents, as well as interpreting graphics such as charts and graphs through an ambitious collaboration with our English department. We are also continuing the work we have begun around developing students’ writing skills with respect to lab reports.
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Monroe Elementary School
Equity Based Writing Collaborative
Monroe Elementary’s ECPLC is comprised of our 3rd grade teaching team, as well as support staff. Our focus is to change our writing instruction to reflect a change from a deficit approach to instruction and pedagogy to an asset approach that builds on the unique cultures, backgrounds and interests of children. Additionally, we work to deal with the issues of race as they relate to student achievement and how race plays itself out in the classroom.
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San Francisco Community School
Inquiry Groups to Improve Student Achievement on Performance Assessment
In order to address specific gaps in our students’ learning, particularly our most under-served students, San Francisco Community School will be working collaboratively in content-based, equity-centered inquiry groups. K-8 teachers and support staff will meet weekly within grade-level teams and monthly in cross-grade-level inquiry groups to analyze student work, reflect on practice, delve more deeply into issues of inequity in our teaching practice, and modify instructional methods accordingly. As a result, our students will demonstrate higher achievement on their portfolio performance assessments and improve their mastery of Standard Academic English—thereby diminishing the predictive power of demographics by interrupting achievement patterns and effectively reaching all of our students.
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San Francisco International High School
Developing Equity Centered Learning for All
San Francisco International High School’s commitment to “Developing Equity Centered Learning for All” is a foundational pillar of the work of our 10 person staff in this first year of our school. We aim to use our ECPLC to build a strong teacher community focused on student learning that is predicated upon teacher-led professional development, reflection, and accountability. We will create spaces for teachers to plan and facilitate their own professional development as well as reflective spaces where teachers can be thoughtful about their instructional practices and how it impacts equitable outcomes for each student at the school.
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For more information, contact
Lianna Wright, Teacher Professional Development Grants Associate.
