2 EDCAL March 4, 2019
Social media: Meet them where they are
The following article was written by
Katherine Goyette, Educational Technology
& Integrated Studies Consultant with Tulare
COE
Parents and students in our communi-
ties use social media on a nearly constant
basis to connect with peers, access resourc-
es, seek recommendations, and reflect upon
their lives.
Media is about being connected. I often
hear teachers and administrators complain
that students are glued to their mobile
phones, causing distraction and an inability
to focus in the classroom. While there may
be some truth to this, imagine the reaction
you would get if you ask educators to go
without their smartphones for an entire
AWARDS
Continued from page 1
• Downtown Business High School,
Los Angeles USD
Downtown Business High, an urban
school in downtown Los Angeles, serves
about 1,000 students, with 80 percent of
those living at or below the poverty line. Yet
the school maintains some of the highest
test scores in the district: 69-80 percent
proficiency in mathematics and 85-98
percent English Language Arts proficiency
rates over the last four years. It practices
an “Opportunity for All” program to target
absenteeism and close the achievement gap,
especially for black and Latino students.
The school implements a “Building
Blocks” program, a system of monitor-
ing starting in the ninth grade, to create
supports and benchmarks to assist strug-
gling students. For students struggling with
attendance, the school reviews attendance
data and provides a system of positive
supports through counselor, coordinator,
teacher and parent involvement. In 2018,
100 percent of Black and African Ameri-
can 11th graders achieved a “nearly met,”
“standard met” or “standard exceeded” score
for both math and English on the Califor-
nia Assessment of Student Performance
and Progress assessment. Students with Ds
and Fs shrunk from 500 to 424 this year,
a decrease of approximately 16 percent.
Schoolwide attendance rates have grown
1-2 percent annually for the last two years,
and more than 90 percent of parents indi-
cate they feel the school is emotionally and
physically safe for their children, according
to the School Accountability Report Card.
• Union Middle School, Union ESD
school day. It is all a matter of perspective.
We can debate appropriate screen
time use until we are blue in the face, but
the reality is, the world we live in makes
social media literacy a necessity for leaders
looking to connect with the families and
students in their community.
A few years ago, I started a school Twit-
ter account and began posting images and
shout-outs regarding the great learning oc-
curring inside and outside classrooms at our
site. I noticed an increase in students’ pride
in their work and greater commitment to
learning. I asked one of our teachers about
a particular student, who kept coming in
during recess and after school to practice
reciting a sentence she was to say in front
of the class a week later. The student had said, “Ms. Goyette comes in everyday, and
she takes pictures and sometimes even vid-
eo. I could end up on Twitter!” Social media
allows us to provide our students with an
authentic audience. This validates the learn-
ing experience as we set the stage for our
students to shine for a global audience.
While the school Twitter account
motivated these students, I quickly learned
that the parents in our community were
not on Twitter. Via conversations with
parents before and after school, I learned
that Facebook would better allow me to
reach this stakeholder group. I began using
automated technology to post celebrations
of learning on both Twitter and Facebook
simultaneously.
A short time after this integration, our school was featured on the local news for a
prestigious state level award. I shared this
great news on our social media accounts
and began to hear parents speaking with
one another about the award. They had
learned about the story via the Facebook
post – not via the news network broadcast.
While it had been a great feeling to witness
students’ increased pride when I began
using social media, it was even more fulfill-
ing to see this pride extend to the parents
surrounding our school, with the potential
to spread throughout the community.
As educational leaders, it is vital that
we showcase the amazing learning occur-
ring in our schools. We must not allow
negative press from outside sources to rule
Located in San Jose, Union Middle
School adopted a collaborative model of in-
struction in 2006 to help close the achieve-
ment gap for its special education students.
Students are placed in services, courses
and interventions based on the results of
common pre-assessments that indicate
when and where additional support is
necessary. Every effort is made to guarantee
that schedules and services remain flex-
ible enough to change as students’ needs
change.
Over the past 14 years, a number of
students with disabilities are now enrolled
in collaborative classrooms – classes with
standards-based curriculum taught by a
highly qualified teacher that result in their
higher achievement, often paired with the
support of an instructional aide or special
education teacher. Within the first five
years of the collaborative model, the school
saw an increasing number of students
prepared to mainstream into grade-level
instruction. to recognize, understand, label, express and
regulate emotions – with the goal of gain-
ing confidence that will cross over to their
academics, which will then result in overall
student improvement. The results for
Grossmont High over the past three years
from the California Healthy Kids Survey –
School Climate Report Card show that the
efforts are making a difference on campus.
The school climate index has increased over
the past three years with a score of 343 in
2017, 332 in 2018, and 356 in 2019. Scores
on this survey also showed a lowering of
violence, substance abuse, harassment and
bullying. Intervention referrals received
by staff and counselors have also increased
over time, as well as those connected to
therapeutic services and participation in
support groups. points, which is 7 points above standard. In
mathematics results, the school increased
overall by 16.4 points but is still 16.1 points
below standard. According to the Califor-
nia School Dashboard, the school is still
steadily closing the achievement gap and
raising performance levels for all students.
• Grossmont High School, Grossmont
Union HSD
Located in El Cajon, a suburban area in
San Diego, Grossmont High implemented
a social and emotional learning program
to support the needs of students through
leadership, celebrations, rituals, traditions
and emotional learning. To better support
social and emotional learning, the school
established behavioral interventions such
as a time-out reflection room that provides
an immediate consequence combined with
a reflection on problem behaviors. As an
alternative intervention to detention or a
referral, students can be sent to this room
by a teacher to reflect on their behavior.
Twice a week, the school also teaches
emotional intelligence, dealing with how
• Mammoth Middle School, Mammoth
USD
Located in the rural Eastern Sier-
ra Nevada mountain range, Mammoth
Middle School serves just 306 students, 58
percent of whom are classified as socioeco-
nomically disadvantaged, with 12 percent
also classified as English Learners. Using a
Focused Schools program that began three
years ago, the school studied CAASPP and
district benchmark data to identify the gaps
and had staff create an instructional focus
statement.
One main goal in the first year was for
students to show growth in their ability to
read actively and think critically. Students
created their kid-friendly version of the fo-
cus, which was called “Read Actively, Think
Critically, and Strive to Grow.” The school
had poster contests, and student winners
had their displays in all the classrooms and
in the main office. In a later year, the school
focused on parent and community en-
gagement. Last year in CAASPP, English
Language Arts results increased by 25.1
See SOCIAL, page 6
• Los Molinos High School, Los Mo-
linos HSD
Located in rural Tehama County,
Los Molinos High is serving 60 percent
socioeconomically disadvantaged students,
and about half of the students are Hispanic
or Latino. It meets the educational needs
of students by promoting technology,
academic excellence, and career technical
education.
The high school has implemented a
Google Chromebook program to facilitate
the use of Google Classroom and daily
use of technology by every student. This
streamlined and easy-to-use tool makes
giving out assignments, editing, writing,
giving feedback and general communica-
tion with students easy. Students may take
advantage of dual enrollment with Shasta
College, taking online courses or partic-
ipating in site-facilitated college courses.
Parents have access to their student’s at-
tendance, as well as grade books. They also
have access to curriculum through their
student’s Google Classrooms and teacher
webpages. Math and English CAASSP
scores increased by 10 percentage points
each in 2017-18. In addition, the math
teachers held a math camp for students
whose data analysis showed a specific need
in segments of the curriculum.
For the full list of schools, please visit
the California Distinguished Schools
Program on the California Department of
Education’s website at www.cde.ca.gov/ta/
sr/cs/.
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