Leadership magazine Sept/Oct 2015 V45 No 1 | Page 33
Since then, another academic language
tool developed by Kate Kinsella, the Academic Vocabulary Toolkit, has been deployed in all middle schools to help students
meet the rigors of the Common Core State
Standards. Families In Schools is providing family academies for all students at two
middle schools.
As for Fernando? He reclassified in his
first year of the program, and in his year-end
reflection at the end of the second year, he
noted that he would be able to attend a fouryear college of his choice instead of a community college. “If I wasn’t in this program,
I wouldn’t be getting straight A’s right now
– I’d probably be getting B’s because of the
academic words I wasn’t using, ” he said.
Fernando’s family recently moved out of
the district, but he now is truly ready for his
new school and a bright future.
behavior interventions grant, and a STEM
academies grant. n
References
Kinsella, K. (2010). English 3D. New York:
Pearson.
Kinsella, K. (2010). Academic vocabulary
toolkit. Boston: National Geographic
Learning.
Olsen, L. (2010). Reparable harm: Fulfilling
the unkept promise of educational opportunity for California’s long-term English
learners. Long Beach, CA: Californians
Together.
Involving all stakeholders
Sometimes being a site administrator can
be challenging when an ambitious initiative
impacts your school. But as Principal Dudek
said, “I have learned that the likelihood of a
program’s success increases when all stakeholders are involved. [FFC] is a perfect
example of an initiative that was not topdown, but was collaborative, well-informed,
well planned, and data driven. It has served
as a wonderful example to me, as a newer
principal, of how to make successful change
happen.
“My hope for all of the students involved
in the Families for College program is that
they continue to grow academically, that
they continue to involve their family in their
academic pursuits, and that they enroll in
the college of their choice five years from
now. I hope that families will remember our
school as that special place where they were
fully supported and where their dreams to
attend college became a reality.”
The district has also benefited in unexpected ways as a result of the FFC program.
Numerous offers to join additional grantfunded programs as a result of exposure
from this first grant have resulted in the
district receiving services as an LEA partner in three additional “Investing in Innovation” grants (school leadership, social and
emotional learning, and math instructional
strategies), three “GEAR UP” grants, an
English learner/community dialect learner
instructional strategies grant, a positive
Martinrex Kedziora is assistant
superintendent, Educational Services,
Moreno Valley Unified School District.
Kimberly Hendricks is Accountability &
Assessment director for Moreno Valley
USD, where Lilia Villa is director of English
Language Learner Programs. Katie Sandberg
is a grants consultant and CEO of Sandberg
Creative.
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