Leadership Equity Handout

This resource is an excellent starting point when school leaders consider equity in their school design/philosophy. It briefly explains why equity is so important in school design and provides a few simple actionable steps. Leaders should begin the process of examining their own understanding of who they are and what they believe about equity, the children they serve, and the school community they support, as well as how their beliefs and behaviors connect to determine how they show up in their work.

Material Type: Other, Reading

Authors: PAVE, Schools That Can - Milwaukee, WRCCS

Community Focus Groups for Schools (Example Questions)

Focus groups can give an opportunity for stakeholders to share specific information and deep insight specific to the objectives and prompts. Developing the right questions is essential in ensuring you have an effective focus group that meets specified goals and objectives. Eight to ten questions is the maximum number of questions for any one group.

Material Type: Alternate Assessment, Assessment, Reference Material

Community Needs Assessment Questions

Conducting a detailed community needs assessment can help you gain a better understanding of your community, increase community engagement, guide your planning, and help you make a positive impact. This resource is a set of questions that can be posed to a school community to determine the educational needs of a community / town / city.

Material Type: Assessment, Other, Reading

Author: WRCCS

Engaging Community in School Design

An essential component of starting a new charter school is engaging stakeholders in the design of the school. Engaging all stakeholders early on helps facilitate the support needed to drive the mission and vision of the school.

Material Type: Alternate Assessment, Other, Reading

Author: WRCCS

[BLANK TEMPLATE] Design and Improvement Questions - Teachers/Leaders

This set of questions can help you leadership understand the current mission and vision of your school. It can also be used in a continuous improvement model to identify areas of strength and growth within a school. These questions are intended for teachers and leaders.

Material Type: Assessment, Other

Author: WRCCS

[BLANK] School Playbook Outline

A school playbook uses a set of guiding principles to develop strategies, processes, and resources that help align the school, staff, and students to the school's mission and vision. This resource is a blank template to use when defining your core guiding principles and strategies.

Material Type: Other

Author: WRCCS

Practice Profile Overview

Practice Profiles define a design essential (critical practice) in the school. Practice profiles create a shared understanding and commitment to the things in the practitioner’s control. These profiles explain in detail expectations for implementation by providing a description of the necessary design essential or critical practices. The following are benefits of using practice profiles in schools: -Clearly and consistently defining elements of the charter school model -Allowing for deeper knowledge and transparency of the work happening in the charter school -Support co-creation and collaboration between key stakeholders -Create a culture of continuous improvement -Use teachers as the experts -Allowing acknowledgment of areas in the work that need improvement and support -Practice Profiles could help support educator effectiveness practice -Providing a structure to help support school, staff, and program evaluation

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Other

Author: WRCCS

Practice Profile Steps

This resource works collaboratively with the Practice Profile Overview. It is a short step-by-step guide on how to implement a Practice Profile. Practice Profiles define a design essential (critical practice) in the charter school. Practice profiles create a shared understanding and commitment to the things in the practitioner’s control. These profiles explain in detail expectations for implementation by providing a description of the necessary design essential or critical practices. The following are benefits of using practice profiles in charter schools: -Clearly and consistently defining elements of the charter school model -Allowing for deeper knowledge and transparency of the work happening in the charter school -Support co-creation and collaboration between key stakeholders -Create a culture of continuous improvement -Use teachers as the experts -Allowing acknowledgment of areas in the work that need improvement and support -Practice Profiles could help support educator effectiveness practice -Providing a structure to help support school, staff, and program evaluation

Material Type: Other

Author: WRCCS

Displacement in the Face of Climate Change

In this unit, students will analyze how climate change affects migration around the world and the policies that could be effective in addressing the issue. To start, students will investigate what motivates people to move in general. Then students will read “The Great Climate Migration” by Abrahm Lustgarten and Meridith Kohut, where they will be introduced to how climate change may affect migration in the future. Students will then investigate how climate change is impacting migration by reading and presenting about specific scenarios around the globe. Finally, students will begin to research how policy can address climate migration to avoid disastrous outcomes in the future.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Author: April Wallace

UCLA Virtual Tour

This source provides an in depth virtual tour of the UCLA medical center with narration and information about each department. This is a great activity for students who have thoughts about working careers inside medical facilities and this gives them a chance to see a facilities and learn about its many moving parts. The key takeaway from this source is for the students to see a medical facility and start thinking critically about whether or not this is a setting they can see themselves in later on in their professional careers.

Material Type: Interactive

Alphabet with phonics

This video allows the teacher and students to have a visual and auditory of what a letter looks like along with its auditory sound.  This is great for thos students that are having difficulty learning the letters and sound. It can be stopped at anytime as to not overwhelm a child.

Material Type: Alternate Assessment, Formative Assessment, Game

Triangles Everywhere: Sum of Angles in Polygons

Students learn about regular polygons and the common characteristics of regular polygons. They relate their mathematical knowledge of these shapes to the presence of these shapes in the human-made structures around us, especially trusses. Through a guided worksheet and teamwork, students explore the idea of dividing regular polygons into triangles, calculating the sums of angles in polygons using triangles, and identifying angles in shapes using protractors. They derive equations 1) for the sum of interior angles in a regular polygon, and 2) to find the measure of each angle in a regular n-gon. This activity extends students’ knowledge to engineering design and truss construction. This activity is the middle step in a series on polygons and trusses, and prepares students for the Polygon and Popsicle Trusses associated activity.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Authors: Andi Vicksman, CU Teach Engineering (a STEM licensure pathway), Engineering Plus Degree Program, University of Colorado Boulder, Maia Vadeen, Malinda Zarske, Nathan Coyle, Russell Anderson, Ryan Sullivan, Sabina Schill

Animal Classification

This is a resource to classify different animal species.  See pictures and facts about animals around the world.  Search specific landscapes and animal types.

Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Learning Task, Reading, Reference Material

Making Reading Fundamental for Individuals with Dyslexia

This episode of “A World of Difference: Embracing Neurodiversity” explores making reading fundamental for dyslexic students. See how public and private schools in Atlanta and Orlando approach focused remediation. Experts offer tips to support struggling readers at home. And you’ll meet the Winner Twins, a popular sci-fi writing duo, who show learning differences don’t close the book on success.

Material Type: Lesson

Author: PBS Studios

LINCS Vocabulary Strategy

LINCS vocabulary strategy is used to help with students struggling to learn new vocabulary words.  It helps students learn the meaning of new vocabulary words using memory-enhancing techniques.  The strategy steps help students to focus on the critical elements of the concepts: to use visual imagery, associations with prior knowledge, and key-word mnemonic devices to create a study card; and to study the card to enhance comprehension and recall of the concept. The Parts to the LINCS Strategy: The LINCS Strategy stands for: L = List the Parts I = Identify a Reminding Word N = Note a LINCing Story C = Create a LINCing Picture S = Self- Test

Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Learning Task

Virtual District Charter Contract Benchmarks with Section Numbers

The purpose of these benchmarks is to provide a resource for authorizers and charter school governance boards to ensure that charter contracts contain all necessary state and federal provisions and to identify additional provisions to consider during contract development.

Material Type: Homework/Assignment

Authors: Cassandra Benedict, Gabrielle DeShambo, Michael McCabe, Nick Pretasky, Sarah Hackett

Teacher-Powered Autonomy Discussion Matrix

Use the table below to guide a discussion with your team about each of the Teacher-Powered areas of autonomy. As you discuss these areas, decide where your organizational current status is and what would be the optimal desired status. The columns are provided to make notes as to what is currently happening, and what your goals are.

Material Type: Assessment, Other

Authors: Lead the Path, Teacher Powered Schools