San Ysidro School System Partners with EdCaliber to Increase ...
San Ysidro School System Partners with EdCaliber to Increase Teacher Collaboration Within Schools Case Study: 2011‐Present
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San Ysidro School System Partners with EdCaliber to Increase Teacher Collaboration Within Schools | 2
The Background:
San Ysidro School District (SYSD) is a rapidly growing school district that currently serves just over five thousand preschool through eighth grade students, all of whom adhere to a modified 11‐month school schedule. Projected to double its enrollment within this coming decade, SYSD has struggled to help each of its seven schools meet their Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and Annual Performance Index (API) targets, as well as increase and strengthen its infrastructure to prepare for its ever changing and growing student population. With almost two‐thirds of its students classified as English Learners, SYSD has designed and created transitional Bilingual and Dual Language Programs as well as ramped up its technological capabilities, to ensure that all of its graduates will enter high school well prepared for the st rigorous demands of a 21 century curriculum.
2011-12 DISTRICT PROFILE TYPE……………..…ELEMENTARY, CITY ENROLLMENT………….….…….....5,252 LIMITED ENGLISH PROFICIENT..73.0% FREE/REDUCED MEALS………..…71.1%
The Solution: Though SYSD voters passed a $250 million dollar school bond to upgrade existing infrastructure and build new schools, SYSD recognized that technology alone would only get them so far. To truly help their students be st 21 century learners, and to encourage their teachers to become data‐driven differentiators, SYSD would need to adopt and leverage a tool that would be quick to learn, yet still facile enough to foster and encourage greater communication and collaboration amongst its staff. Beginning in the 2011‐12 school year, SYSD partnered with EdCaliber – one school site, as well as district leadership, piloted the EdCaliber tools, so that SYSD would be ready for a district‐wide implementation starting in the 2012‐13 school year. SYSD used EdCaliber to accelerate its efforts in three key areas: 1.
Coordinating Calendars to Streamline Planning and Pacing Guides
2.
Aggregating District‐Wide Resources
3.
Encouraging Teacher Collaboration and Ongoing Professional Development
Figure 1 – Accessing SDCOE Transference Template via EdCaliber
2011-12 DEMOGRAPHICS HISPANIC OR LATINO………….…..89.3% FILIPINO………………..………………..4.7% AFRICAN AMERICAN………….….…2.5% WHITE…...…………………………....…2.1%
Figure 2 ‐ EdCaliber Planning Calendar
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San Ysidro School System Partners with EdCaliber to Increase Teacher Collaboration Within Schools | 3
Coordinating Calendars to Streamline Pacing “It’s a wonder how we got along without EdCaliber, since now it is always our starting point when we team to lesson plan and collaborate. EdCaliber saves us time by having all our resources at our fingertips and enables us to be more efficient educators. EdCaliber is a tool every teacher should have to make his/her teaching experience organized and simple.” - Elva De Baca, 3 Grade Bilingual Teacher, Sunset Elementary School rd
Fine-Tuning Pacing Guides •
Before EdCaliber ‐‐ SYSD had adopted a unified pacing guide, but always distributed it as a hard copy, another handout teachers had to juggle and align; teachers had to manage a series of isolated individual and district resources.
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With EdCaliber – SYSD pacing guides are integrated with site‐based calendars and pacing; because teachers can now access EdCaliber’s more interactive platform, there is far more fine tuning in terms of identifying not just core standards, but also core curriculum in terms of district‐provided downloadable resources (handouts, anthologies, presentations).
Coordinating Calendars
“EdCaliber increases our communication and helps our teachers to collaborate online.” - Cornelio Egasani, Assistant Principal, Ocean View Hills School
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Before EdCaliber – SYSD coordinated between a series of calendars – for power standards, for department or school site curriculum; special ed. calendars were static and housed with case managers.
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With EdCaliber – SYSD has merged calendars, which naturally lends itself to easier scheduling and more collaborative planning.
Aggregating District-Wide Resources Simplifying, to Give Teachers a One-Stop Shop Before EdCaliber – SYSD has always focused on encouraging their teachers to access a variety of online and multimedia tools, from Pearson’s SuccessMaker™ to SMART Board™ tools, SYSD teachers had access to a variety of different education technology providers and solutions. However, each tool required a different login and set of guidelines/permissions. Ultimately, some teachers suffered from technology fatigue, trying to remember how different platforms worked, as well as deciding which resource to use when.
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San Ysidro School System Partners with EdCaliber to Increase Teacher Collaboration Within Schools | 4
With EdCaliber – With the more unified, merged pacing guides, many resources are now organized according to the standards, making it easier for teachers to plan their lessons. Further, SYSD is collaborating with EdCaliber to ensure that all outside vendor‐provided resources will eventually be available through the EdCaliber dashboard – meaning that teachers can have all of their resources stored in one place, and also begin sharing lessons they may have created, using technology such as SMART Notebook™.
Expanding SYSD’s Technology Toolkit Before EdCaliber – despite the number of technological tools SYSD had already purchased, there were still some that were left out. For example, SYSD blocked YouTube completely, as it was often something teachers had to expend too much energy and time monitoring. With EdCaliber – as a tool aimed at unifying available technological resources, EdCaliber already encouraged access to resources such as Khan Academy videos, meaning that for the first time, SYSD teachers also have access to these videos and resources, traditionally only available via YouTube.
Encouraging Collaboration and Ongoing PD: As SYSD prepares to serve a rapidly expanding student population, there is an ever‐increasing need for both the district and its teachers to create resources, collaborate within and across school sites, and participate in ongoing, focused PD. To this end, SYSD has used the EdCaliber platform to accelerate and unify its efforts:
Encouraging Collaboration Within and Across School Sites As teachers become increasingly comfortable with EdCaliber, they have used the EdCaliber platform to download and share worksheets, assessments and lesson plans. Teachers continue to have autonomy in selecting how much, and with whom, they share; thus EdCaliber has gradually become a mobile filing cabinet. © 2012 EdCaliber Incorporated. All rights reserved. Unauthorized copying prohibited. www.EdCaliber.com
San Ysidro School System Partners with EdCaliber to Increase Teacher Collaboration Within Schools | 5
Creating a Library of Lesson Plans for Bilingual and Dual-Language Programs SYSD has bilingual programs aimed at helping its Spanish‐ speaking students transition to English‐only classrooms, as well as an expanding Dual‐Language programs, where graduates will be fluent in both English and Spanish. SYSD has led summer workshops geared towards creating tailored and translated lesson plans. A collaborative effort amongst selected SYSD teachers and leadership, these lessons plans work in conjunction with an EdCaliber template created expressly for this purpose, and are now easily accessible to all SYSD staff, new and returning. They further serve as a platform upon which county‐level staff are able to deliver and moderate ongoing professional development.
Expanding Response to Intervention (RtI) Resources and Efforts
“EdCaliber transformed how San Ysidro School District designed its lessons. It ushered a new model of lesson planning into the district, which helped teachers access professional content and resources to create invidual and collaborative lessons. SYSD had set rigorous goals; EdCaliber helped SYSD maintain high interest in their goals, and the process of improving both instructional delivery and student achievement.”
As SYSD has transitioned from a student study team process to a RtI model, its Special Education department has used the EdCaliber platform to upload a variety of resources – RtI forms and samples, informational documents about behavior modification tools, and a variety of pamphlets.
- Gloria Madera, Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services
Easing the Transition to Common Core State Standards As SYSD begins planning how to best implement Common Core State Standards, EdCaliber’s aggregated resources serve as a useful platform in terms of calendaring, as well as presenting a clear picture of how resources can be organized, helping district leaders plan content‐specific resources in terms of existing core standards, upcoming Common Core standards, as well as applicable student skills.
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