CLOSING THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP
FOR AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDENTS

An ACSA/TSS Institute

This conference, which focuses on the achievement gap issue for African American students, is the third in our “closing the achievement gap” series for 2011-12. Previous conferences addressed achievement issues for students with disabilities, and Latino students and English learners.
Teachers, principals and district office administrators from elementary, middle and high schools where all students, and African American students specifically, are either meeting the ever increasing AYP targets or making considerable gains toward reaching that goal, present their underlying values and beliefs, and the specific strategies they implemented to accomplish such impressive results. The conference kicks-off with a half-hour keynote, then breaks into three concurrent sessions targeted to specific audiences: elementary, middle school, and high school.
There is no quick-fix, one-size-fits-all solution for every school. However, the educational leaders featured in the conference share these common beliefs: educators have high expectations for all students, and standards-based curriculum, effective instruction, frequent assessment, data analysis, targeted interventions and collaboration are essential. We are all familiar with these ideas and terms, and it is easy to refer to them in a plan. Implementing these approaches on a consistent basis is not easy, especially in districts that serve significant populations of ethnically diverse students from low-income families. The schools featured at the conference have clearly demonstrated, however, that it can be done.
Links to essential student performance data are provided for the schools that have been selected to present. Most educators who review the results will wonder. “How did they do that?” The conference is structured to provide concrete answers to that most critical question.

Presenters

Keynote

Elois Brooks, Senior Advisor for Academic Program Improvement, Total School Solutions, presents an historical perspective of education opportunities for African American students in America beginning in the 19th Century, through the 20th Century and into the present. She chronicles how perceptions of capacity have affected opportunities to learn throughout those years. She identifies challenges facing African American students who are two to three years behind grade level, shares her personal story as student in segregated school in New Orleans, and presents specific, proven solutions that include high expectations, intervention programs with proven track records, fidelity to the core curriculum, trained parent liaisons, effective use of social workers, processes for tracking success, using data, courageous conversations and specialized counseling. Ms. Brooks is the former Chief Academic Officer for the San Francisco and St. Louis school districts and the former Deputy Superintendent for the Washington D.C. school district. She recently concluded a two-year consultation with the Philadelphia school district, where she lead the support network for 12 middle schools that were designated as "persistently low performing" and received funding through the federal School Improvement Grant program. She will address issues pertinent to grades K-12, with an emphasis on strategies that work for all students.

Rich Smith, Senior Advisor, Total School Solutions, highlights the fundamental elements necessary to ensure effective implementation of interventions to address student learning needs from the classroom to the most intensive levels of remediation. Emphasis will be placed on dealing with building a team approach to meeting student learning needs focused on learning data generated from ongoing monitoring and formative assessments. This presentation will focus on pragmatic, realistic recommendations to ensure higher achievement levels of all students, with a specific focus on African American students. Mr. Smith reports on his current work with a large district in Louisiana, which has a majority African American population of students from low-income families. He explains how he is helping district educators “hold a mirror” up to their district to understand much more about how students are performing in the district. He discusses grades, drop out rate, student performance on school, district and state formative and summative tests, opportunity to access rigorous academic content, and educator expectations for students, as indicators of issues that must be acknowledged, and addressed.

Elementary Schools

Kyla Johnson, Administrator on Special Assignment and former Principal at Seqouia Elementary, Oakland Unified School District reports on the trajectory of success over several years for this school where all students, and African American students in particular, meet and exceed AYP targets. She explains the focus on standards-based curriculum, targeted instruction in the classroom, frequent assessments and collaboration among teachers. She chronicles how teachers assumed leadership roles in the school-wide effort to improve year after year She shares the master schedule and explains how time is allocated so students alternate between enrichment activities such as gardening, and targeted intervention programs. Extending the day for students is key, as the SST process is used to articulate assistance for students between regular day and after-school support programs, She discusses how the school endeavors to determine if a child is underperforming solely because of academic concerns, or if social or emotional issues need to be addressed that are affecting the child's performance.

Enroll:348; Soc Dis 47%; African American: 39%
Click here to see the Accountability Progress Report for Sequoia

Kimberly Hendricks, former Principal, Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary School, Val Verde USD and current Principal, Sunnymeadows Elementary School, Moreno Valley USD presents the specific protocols and practices she and her colleagues implemented and the perceptions they addressed to increase the academic performance of African American students. Her school has been one of the state’s highest performing schools in supporting the emotional and academic needs of African American and Latino students. She explains the instructional practices that have resulted in Bethune Elementary being named a California Distinguished School in 2010. She attributes the academic success of all of her students to: culturally conscious teachers, targeted data analysis and actions, culturally conscious lesson planning and lesson design, reflective classroom observations, and implementation of equity professional learning communities.

Enroll:724; Soc Dis 86%; English Learners 38%; Hispanic: 63% 
African American: 20%
Click here to see the Accountability Progress Report for Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary School

Middle Schools

Dr. Lucinda Taylor, Principal and Cloe Escudero, Elev8 Coordinator of Student Services from Madison Middle School, Oakland USD present the core, fundamental campus norms that educators at this east Oakland school established and embraced to enable it to far outperform schools serving similar populations. They explain the importance of posting learning targets, standards-based objectives written in student-friendly language, then following up daily with exit tickets which call for students to write specifically what they have learned during each instructional day. They share the agreed- upon elements of effective instruction which include direct presentation and multiple cooperative learning strategies, techniques to immediately check for student understanding, and frequent assessment. White boards are provided in every classroom and used effectively by all teachers. This full service school provides three meals daily, and access to a Registered Nurse, dental services, counselors and therapists. The extended day schedule provides opportunities for children to be in a safe place for learning, enrichment and recreation from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Enrollment: 274; Soc Dis: 81%; African American: 27%; Hispanic: 65%.
Click here to access the Accountability Progress Report for Madison Middle School

Russom Mesfun, Principal, Montera Middle School, Oakland USD presents the steps teachers, administrators and classified employees took to turnaround this school over the past four years.  He shares how they established a school culture where every child feels safe, valued, listened to, and most importantly, it is fashionable to be smart. He explains the effort they put into knowing as much as possible about each child, engaging students in conversation, and finding multiple opportunities to celebrate appropriate behavior. During the first year, it was important to “declare peace” with the students in order to create a climate where learning could take place. He explains the importance of taking the time to agree on a common vision for the school that was real and truly inspiring. They explain the focus in the classroom on effective instruction, rigorous, standards-based curriculum, and frequent assessment.

Enrollment  880; Soc Dis 35%; African American: 40%; Hispanic: 14%
Click here to see the Accountability Progress Report for Montera Middle School

High Schools

Dylan Farris, Principal; Dr. Carlos Valverde, Activities Director; and
Lisa Cooper, Assistant Principal, Culver City High School, Culver City
USD present how changes to their master schedule allow for collaboration
time among the teachers and resulted in deeper changes throughout the
school, such as discussing student performance data and adjusting
instruction to target student needs. They explain how they committed to
create a college and career ready school where most, but not all, of
their classes meet University of California A to G requirements. They
monitor African American, Latino, English learner and students with
disabilities participation in rigorous courses and provide additional
support systems for students, such as Read 180 and AVID. They emphasize
the importance of adult interaction with individual students and create
opportunities for counselors and other adults to establish relationships
and provide the extra support. They make a concerted effort to learn
about and address the hidden biases that educators harbor about students
from diverse ethnic backgrounds. While difficult, they have initiated a
series of courageous conversations about race among educators and
including students that have led to shared insights and a positive and
affirming school culture.

Enroll: 2,308; Soc Dis 31%; African American:25%; Latino: 40%
Click here to see the Accountability Progress Report for Culver City High School

Dr. Fal Asrani, Assistant Superintendent for Education Services Campbell UHSD and Jason Murphy, Assistant Principal, Antioch USD present this work-in-progress report on how the district “turnaround leader” and school leaders worked in collaboration to implement major reforms in a Year Three PI school. They describe the courageous conversations that established the basis for their relationship, and allowed for a thorough and shared examination of many aspects of the school. They describe the data they analyzed, and the important changes they made in assistant principal and counselor roles and responsibilities as a result of the data analysis. They share how they informed teachers, students and parents about the urgent need to change. They present how the distributed leadership model encouraged teachers to initiate and sustain key improvements in grading, instruction, data analysis and collaboration. They describe how they changed the bell schedule to improve instruction and added more rigorous courses with increased African American and Latino student enrollment. They also discuss the work of key education writers and reformers who provided direction for the reforms.

Date, Time and Location

Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Registration: 8:00 a.m.
Institute Time: 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Ontario Hilton
700 North Haven Avenue
Ontario, CA 91764
1 (909) 980-0400

To access the online registration form, please click here.

To access the registration form in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format, please click here.

Fees and Cancellation

Cost: $325 until March 9, 2012, $395 on or after March 10, 2012 (subject to space availability)

Purchase orders, credit card authorization forms or checks must be received by March 15, 2012.

Cancellations received by March 9, 2012 will be subject to a $50 fee.
Cancellations received on or after March 10, 2012 and “No Shows” will be subject to the full registration fee.

All materials included.
Breakfast and lunch included.