The project goal for the five-year grant period is to increase academic achievement of students at Riverbank High School and, as a result, increase the percentage of graduates who successfully matriculate and persist in postsecondary education at 2-year community colleges and 4-year universities. Supporting this goal are the following five measurable objectives: (1) Increase the percent of students who achieve CSU qualifying scores on their SAT I or ACT tests; (2) Increase the percent of students who complete CSU or UC entry requirements to 33%; (3) Increase the percent of graduates who enroll in a 2-year or 4-year college or university to 75%; (4) Increase the percentages of graduates that matriculate at a CSU and are exempt from ELM, SPT and that pass English and math proficiency exams; and (5) Increase the one year continuation rates for students who matriculate at CSU Stanislaus or MJC.
The project activity plan also includes activity objectives for each of the three years of full project implementation. For year one, September 1999-September 2000, the project had the following activity objectives:
• Adopt the California Academic Content Standards for English and
• Define and adopt student performance standards in English for grades six through nine, and review and select standardized assessment tools to measure student mastery of standards.
• Align the curriculum in English and mathematics with the CAS, the
performance benchmarks and assessment measures in grades six through nine, with attention to seamless curriculum development through grades K-9.
• Ensure the success of academic improvement efforts through the provision of
(1) ongoing opportunities for faculty to train and collaborate on content standards, performance standards, assessment strategies and pedagogy; (2) increased opportunity for students in grades 6-12 to receive tutoring and mentoring; (3) additional academic counseling resources for students in grades 6-12 and (4) expanded outreach to their parents through aptitude assessments, career search activities, career education components, and university and college outreach and campus visits.
• Collect formative data on the project implementation and set up systems to
collect five year summative data on student academic achievement, college enrollment rates, and one-year continuation rates at MJC and CSU Stanislaus.
The theme running through these outcome objectives and activity objectives was summarized by one teacher as a desire to “level the playing field.” “Many of these kids come from low SES families and their parents don’t have high education levels,” she reflected. “We want to bring up the world of college for them, things like SATs and campus visits, and make it familiar. We want to normalize the concept of higher
education. We also want to empower their parents and be a link for them to connect to the school.”
Project Components
The following project components are aligned with the project activity goals described above:
1. Tutoring
The Riverbank High School CAPP project strongly emphasizes tutoring as a means to enhance student learning and to forge relationships among participating project partners. Several types of tutoring were developed over the first year of the project:
• The Pre-collegiate Academic Development (PAD) program is coordinated out
of CSUS. PAD tutors offer services to high school students with a focus on math and reading. PAD tutors are available from 3pm to 6pm four days a
week after school, and serve students who are referred by teachers or who self-refer.
• The Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) program gives high school students the
opportunity to be trained as tutors and work with younger students during the school day. PAL tutors are trained at CSUS and then provide tutoring to middle and elementary school students during school hours.
• The on-line tutoring program involves on-line assistance with essay and
report-writing. CSUS tutors review drafts of high school students’ work sent by email, and respond with written comments and suggestions.
2. Parent education (formerly known as “Saturday University”)
The parent education program is a component of the grant that aims to develop ties between home and school, to educate parents about their children’s study needs and how to help their children excel in school, and to raise their awareness about choices and options facing their children at the end of high school. This six-week course currently serves parents of Latino students and all classes are conducted in Spanish.
3. Departmental articulation
Departmental articulation involves the alignment of English and math instruction to state standards. This articulation includes high school teachers working collaboratively with
feeder school teachers to develop a comprehensive proficiency test for 8th graders that
can be used to place incoming freshmen in the appropriate courses. 4. College/Career information
Through CAPP funding, Riverbank High School is enhancing efforts to equip students and their parents with the necessary information to research post-secondary education opportunities, access financial aid, and successfully apply to 2-year or 4-year colleges. Activities supporting this goal include campus visits, college representatives speaking at the high school, a campus college fair, and meetings with college counselors in small groups. Additionally, CAPP funding allowed these efforts to extend to the middle school
and provide presentations and informational sessions on career planning to 7th and 8th
5. CAPP resource library
The resource library complements the academic literacy goals of the grant. The library includes books and videotapes to be used for SAT training, writing manuals, and vocabulary workbooks.
6. Professional Development
Professional development includes a variety of professional development conferences and seminars held over the course of the year. Intra-district professional development meetings have also been held to support articulation between the high school and feeder schools.
7. Proficiency lab
The proficiency lab is a structured remediation seminar for students that have not successfully completed the high school proficiency exam for reading, writing or math. The lab is available to all students and extra support is also available for students for whom English is not a first language.
Implementation in Year One
SuccessesSignificant progress was made in 1999-00 with the tutoring/student support opportunities, parent education and feeder school articulation. Specifically, the PAD program (CSUS students tutoring RHS students) met with significant interest and success. “Our tutors felt happy, welcome and utilized,” commented the PAD coordinator. “They were busy every day, they helped kids get through their school work quickly, and got kids who are
considered ‘at-risk’ excited about reading literature.” The PAL program (RHS tutoring middle and elementary school students) also had a successful first year. The tutoring coordinator commented that this component of the grant generated more interest and excitement among students at Riverbank than originally expected. For example, she noted, the original plan was to place only five tutors at elementary and middle schools, but due to high levels of interest they ultimately had 18 active volunteer tutors.
The parent education program also met with high levels of interest and participation increased over the duration of the courses. “At the beginning of my last course I only had three parents,” the teacher recalled, “and at the end I had 25. The interest level was really
high, parents are hungry for information.” The parent education teacher considered that success could be described not only by increased parent awareness about their children’s educational needs and choices, but by parent participation in other events. For example, she recently had a large turnout at “English night,” an event for Spanish-speaking parents that she thinks would not have been nearly as successful if parents were not involved previously in or heard about the parent education courses. She commented that parent involvement in other school activities is increasing too, and this may likely be attributed to parents’ increased understanding of and trust in the school system.
Building on the successes of this year, the parent education program will modify next year’s classes according to feedback from parents and an increased understanding of what activities enhance parents’ understanding of the K-16 educational system. For example, college campus tours for parents, typically held on weekends, will be held during the week so that parents can see a typical day at a university. “We want parents to know how they work, not just what they look like” the teacher explained. Further, parents will receive English language materials including a dictionary, thesaurus, and novels at the end of the class to thank them for their participation as well as supply them with meaningful resources.
Communication and articulation with one of the two feeder schools sending students to Riverbank High School improved over the course of the year, with some tangible results of increased communication. The school with which communication was most regular, and articulation most successful, was Cardozo Junior High School; the high degree of success at Cardozo was, according to the Riverbank principal, most likely
because Cardozo sends most of its graduating 8th graders to Riverbank, while the other
feeder (Waterford) sends only a small portion.
Teachers from Riverbank and Cardozo met several times during the year to discuss grading rubrics and develop a common proficiency/diagnostic assessment. Cardozo language arts teachers indicated a willingness to use Riverbank’s grading rubrics to score their own proficiency tests. Further, the junior high school developed a proficiency test to
be given to 8th graders every spring to assist in placement in high school classes as well
as make decisions about which students need to be retained in the 8th grade to further
develop their math and English skills.
Obstacles
The first year of program implementation also revealed a number of challenges to
education both faced logistical challenges, while the heart of the project, departmental articulation, experienced the more pervasive obstacle of initiating large-scale change.
While two of the three tutoring activities were considered successful by their coordinators and other school staff, the on-line tutoring program was not operational at the end of the first year of project implementation. Several teachers as well as a CSUS staff commented that technological problems had prevented them from fully realizing this component, and they hoped to complete it in the following year.
The two types of challenges faced by the parent education component were centered around awareness and resources. Like other components of the grant, “getting the word out” was considered the chief obstacle to full and successful implementation of the course. “We have to let people know what we’re doing and why we’re doing it,” commented the teacher. “Once they come they always stay.” Additionally, the program was scheduled to receive funding only through the 2000-2001 school year, and the teacher did not know if they would receive funding from other sources to extend it further.
Standards-based curricular reform got off to a start that was described by several interview participants as slow but promising. At the school and departmental level, 1999- 00 was considered a building year and a year for strengthening intra-departmental
communication. To that end, school staff report that communication within departments improved over the year, and plans to begin focusing on alignment of curriculum to standards were developed. “We’ve taken a hard look at what English teachers are doing in order to tighten up the curriculum” explained one teacher. In order to move teachers into the next stage of actively aligning to CA state standards, teachers will attend summer planning institutes.
While planning began, the school did not feel the impact of standards-based reform in a way that directly impacted students. “I don’t expect to see any changes in students until year 3,” said the school principal. “Right now we’re still working at getting staff on board and trained.” This also negatively impacted articulation with the feeder schools. As one teacher commented “we need to clear up our own 9-12 curriculum before we tell junior high what to do.”
The school principal also described a second source of guidelines for high school curriculum alignment – entrance requirements for the University of California and the California State University Systems. This sort of alignment however, is not perceived by CSUS to be taking place. “Alignment isn’t a very clear concept yet in this project,” commented one CSUS staff. “At this point the only real alignment of curriculum is to the state framework, not to CSUS entrance requirements.”
Despite a lack of visible change in curriculum toward alignment to standards, all school staff spoke confidently of the increased receptivity to change based on the work completed in 1999-00. In addition to bringing the district curriculum director on board to assist with alignment of curriculum, school staff focused their energies on increasing teacher buy-in to standards-based reform and found most teachers willing and receptive to change. “Given a rationale and a choice, (our teachers) are usually open to trying,” explained the principal. “Now we’re speeding up the process a bit, teachers are being encouraged to change or encouraged to apply elsewhere.” Another school staff explained that while the school had a tumultuous year given recent district unification and school staff turnover, the atmosphere at school was positive and optimistic, and the goals of the CAPP grant were in line with their needs as a newly merged district.
Unanticipated outcomes
An unexpected outcome of the grant grew out of the success of the PAL tutoring program. Responding to the increased interest of participating students who decided to pursue a career in teaching, the school developed a special interest group for future teachers called “Club Ed. ” These students, most of whom are PAL tutors, learned more about the teaching profession and the choices and options they have during and after they complete school. For example, Club Ed members received help in locating college scholarship funds that take into consideration service time spent tutoring younger students.
Role of partners
Like other components of this grant, the working relationships with the collaborative partners were considered works in progress, with several strong and others facing challenges in their first year of implementation.
The strongest and most regular partnership was with Cardozo Junior High School, the primary feeder school for Riverbank High. Teachers described a relationship that grew over the year, and involved many face-to-face meetings and positive working relationships. Collaborative work included the development of proficiency tests for
graduating 8th graders that were aligned to the high school curricula to facilitate the
placement of students in the appropriate class level. Riverbank teachers described Cardozo teachers as “open and flexible” to working collaboratively to streamline students’ transition from middle to high school.
A less substantive relationship developed with Waterford Junior High School, described as “receptive but removed” by one Riverbank staff. Perhaps contributing to this less well-established relationship was the fact that Waterford has less invested in
Riverbank, as they send only a small proportion of their graduating 8th graders to the
school.
Riverbank staff described the partnership with CSUS as strong, noting that CSUS staff were “receptive and accessible,” and the two institutions were in regular contact by email and correspondence. Indeed, one Riverbank staff person noted that the majority of the communication with agencies outside the school was with CSUS about coordination of tutoring programs, both PAD and training for PAL.
CSUS staff, however, expressed some disappointment in their relationship with Riverbank High School and made the observation that the partnership was not as strong as it could be, due largely to the logistics and communication needs of effective
partnerships. CSUS staff described the primary challenge facing the partnership to be a lack of clear communication around responsibilities for maintaining communication and assuring inclusiveness. “It’s not clear whose job it is to push the collaborative work,” commented one CSUS staff. “It’s not really our job to push for collaboration, but I don’t know if they realize that they should maintain the connection, (and) I’m not sure if we’re supposed to initiate communication.” Another staff explained that the high school was working more independently in 1999-00 than during the first planning year, and did not make an effort to involve CSUS in their activities. “Riverbank hasn’t been as assertive about involving us as we’d like,” reflected this staff person, “they’ve been organizing things but not including us.” Despite this perception of the partnership, CSUS indicated a willingness to continue providing services at the same level, and a hope that 2000-2001 would be a year to strengthen the relationship between the two institutions.
While Riverbank staff described the partnership with CSUS as strong, the partnership with Modesto Junior College was described by one school staff as “pretty non-existent.” Another staff commented that MJC checked in periodically during the year but expressed little interest in the day to day work of the grant. “I’m not very happy with their role,” commented the principal, “they haven’t been very involved at all.”
Structural elements
As described in the introduction, the first year of project implementation was affected substantially by local context. The school experienced high levels of turn-over in the last two years, and many of the members of the original steering committee who drafted the
grant were no longer involved in the daily work of its implementation. While this is a common predicament in grant-driven work, it creates an added level of complexity for program implementation. New staff were asked to realize the original vision of the grantwriters, resulting in confusion about goals and an incomplete sense of ownership among those who assume responsibility for the work.
Although not all interview participants perceived the school district to have
significant involvement in the project, several teachers commented that Susan Taylor, the curriculum specialist at the district office, was a critical link in increasing the likelihood that articulation with the junior high school would take place in a productive manner. As one teacher explained, “we first articulate our own stuff and then take it to Susan who is the link with the middle school.”
Teacher perspectives
Teacher survey data confirm that the base of support for standards-based instruction is growing but incomplete, and that half of the teachers perceive some challenges to the full realization of the project’s goals. Of 54 teachers surveyed, almost 40% of whom
represent the math and English departments, at least 80% reported that support for