Dear CNMT Community,

This past week I had an opportunity to attend the Coalition for Community Schools National Forum in San Francisco. The California Endowment has made a 10-year investment in 14 communities across the state, including Boyle Heights, sponsoring a number of people to attend this conference.

Although I only went for two days because I didn’t want to miss too many days of school, I was able to attend four very informative workshops and see a few inspiring speakers as well.

I was especially impressed by the panelists from Oakland and San Francisco who talked about what they’re doing at their schools to support their students in these times of dwindling budgets.

One workshop I attended featured three schools in San Francisco that have adopted the community schools model. The concept is not new, but there has recently grown a real movement to connect schools with their surrounding communities. For example, Mission High School, which has been an underperforming school for years, has created partnerships with about 50 community-based organizations that provide all kinds of services to students, including tutoring, healthcare, mentoring, language classes, family therapy, drug counseling and more. They have seen results.

Although it seems that all the focus right now is on test scores, we have to think about our students as whole people and address all their need. We know that if they have unmet social or emotional needs, they will not be able to learn as well. If you are familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs you understand what I’m talking about.

In Oakland, the district has partnered with an organization called Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth. For a long time, Oakland, like the rest of California, has disproportionately suspended and expelled students of color, especially African-American students.

They came to realize that suspensions were not effective ways to address behavioral problems. They found that by removing the student from school for a day or two, if anything the student’s behavior got worse rather than better. They also saw a real connection between suspension and later involvement in the criminal justice system.

This workshop was especially exciting to me because I have been leading the Schoolwide Positive Behavior Support (SWPBS) Team, and we recently got an invitation to attend a workshop being sponsored by the Youth Justice Coalition and facilitated by the Loyola Law School Center for Conflict Resolution. There’s a chance that this Center will be working with Roosevelt next year to help us implement something similar, where students who break rules or hurt others are held accountable for their actions, but in a different way.

Rather than just being kept our of school, which for some is more of a reward than a punishment, the student offender is asked to confront what they’ve done and to repair the situation by somehow making up for the harm they caused. In schools that have implemented restorative justice practices such as Cole Middle School in Oakland and Castlemont High School, suspension rates have plummeted as academic achievement has improved.

We have great students at Roosevelt, and and they’re generally respectful, but we all know that we have our problems, and with our Dean position being cut, we need to find proactive ways to address student behavior. I’m really excited about this model because I do think that it can really help build a more positive future. The next three weeks I will be attending the workshop with a team of teachers, parents, students and others to learn about restorative justice and will update on developments in the coming weeks.

In other news, this Tuesday we will be doing the English Language Arts CST. I’m very happy that our CAHSEE passing rate went up by 10%, but I understand that overall Roosevelt went down by 2%. It’s important to understand that the CST do count, because or QEIA funding is dependent on Roosevelt overall improving our API this year. All RHS small schools combined must exceed our growth target. As the teachers learned a couple of weeks ago, the API growth target is 5% of the difference between your current API and 800. In the case of CNMT, this is 14 points. For Roosevelt overall, this is 10 points.

Teachers, I encourage you to talk your students and help them understand how important this test is. Students, you showed improvement on the CAHSEE, and I know you can do the same on the CST!

Educator of the week:

I have always thought of Mr. Chavez as someone who is quite equanimous. Moreover, his classroom management skills are without parallel. I have seen his class go from 6o to 0 and back to 60 at the snap of a finger. He teaches all levels of Spanish from beginner non-native to AP, and I would say it’s a great endorsement when more than half of his second-year native Spanish students have opted to continue on with AP Spanish with Mr. Chavez.

Outside of the classroom, Mr. Chavez has been a school leader for a long time. UTLA Chair, School Site Council Chair, grade-level lead teacher. Mr. Chavez is the kind of UTLA chair that principals would want to work with, not because he doesn’t represent teachers. Quite the contrary, he is a strong advocate for teachers, but he is also a thoughtful advocate for students, and works cooperatively to make sure decisions have them in mind  primarily.

This past weekend, Mr. Chavez went with our Community Rep, Nelson, a groups of CNMT parents and their kids to the Léa-LA Spanish-language book fair at the Convention Center.  Two participants, Paula Nolasco and her husband, won the raffle for two tickets to the Tigres del Norte concert last night. Congratulations to them and thank you to Mr. Chavez for your continued dedication to CNMT and to Roosevelt.

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