01.+School+Profiles+and+Current+Situations

= ALICE KEDVES’S SCHOOL PROFILE AND CURRENT PERSONAL SITUATION =

SCHOOL PROFILE
Chemainus Secondary is located on central Vancouver Island,in [|Chemainus, British Columbia]. The school is considered rural, and it is 30+ minutes away from any larger centers. The school not only draws from the town of Chemainus, but also students come from the islands of Thetis and Penelakut, the Regional District of Saltair and the town of Crofton. The majority of the 385 students are bussed to school.

Of the school population 53% are male, 20% have aboriginal ancestry, .3% are E.S.L., 10% have an LD of one kind or another, and 2.4% are gifted. We have a small International Program, which draws between 1-5% of the population depending on the economy and the year.

We have a great group of students at our school. They are friendly and cooperative. The provincial assessments, participation rates, and transition statistics show that our school is above the provincial average. We were ranked #1 high-school in our district, and [|86th in the province]. Amazingly, Chemainus Secondary was also rated one of the [|best schools in the province]for low income children's success. The success of our students is related to the experience and educational level of our 22 teachers. Sixteen have M.Ed.s and most are in the 10-15 years of experience range. Both administrators are responsible for courses, but tend to do the online course offerings or Grad Transition Program.

School literacy goals:

Current reading levels at Chemainus Secondary are well within the norms for the grade levels we serve, and we score in the highest levels in the province, so literacy is not a school wide goal. Our actual goals are to increase student enrollment and to increase grade to grade transitions. ([]).

We have a small number of students who end up with school leaving certificates, but most students take English 12. The at risk students are placed in segregated English classes of less than ten students. I have such a class at the moment, and I must say that I did not agree with this strategy when they were in grade 8 and 9, but now that I have them, I am able to focus on each child and work with them at their skill level. In just the first week, many of them have caught up with their skill level due to the one-on-one teaching that is possible in this setting. I think that as long as teachers do not "dumb-down" the curriculum, then this type of class is fabulous.

I have been the librarian for the past 18 months, and have spent the time organizing the collection, correcting errors in the data base, and rebuilding staff's connection to the collection. The immediate needs and goals of school/library program are to increase use by staff and to reconnect the librarian's role as a source of support for staff, as well as students. The chosen strategies will develop students' reading skills and higher order thinking and analysis skills. As a result of increased understanding they will have greater enjoyment in reading.

CURRENT PERSONAL SITUATION
Alice has a Master's Degree in Reading and Writing Across the Curriculum from the University of Victoria. She is also a SMART learning facilitator for Susan Close's well known literacy project.

Currently Alice is completing her Diploma in School Librarianship, and has been playing with many Web 2.0 tools in her classroom. She approaches literacy development as a sequential set of skills. She likes to identify gaps in learning, and help students to catch up on what they might have missed or not learned in younger grades. She finds it much easier to catch them up on writing skills, and still struggles to help students develop insight into literature.

Alice teaches three blocks of English 10, one block of English 12, and has three blocks dedicated to librarian time.

= AARON FULLER’S SCHOOL PROFILE AND CURRENT PERSONAL SITUATION =

Sentinel Secondary School is a comprehensive high school with around 55 teachers that currently enrolls over 1170 students in Grades 8 through 12. Sentinel also offers a number of special programs including Advanced Placement, French Immersion, Computer Immersion, Super Achievers and the Hockey, Soccer, and Tennis Academies. We draw our students from the local community in West Vancouver--as far north as Lion's Bay and as far out to sea as Bowen Island--as well as neighboring North Vancouver. We also enroll nearly 10% of our students through our International Program.

The School provides students with the opportunity to excel and reach their goals within a school community dedicated towards student achievement. Sentinel prides itself in being a member of the global community. We have students representing approximately forty different countries currently attending the school. The District's International Program also places students at the school. This diversity is, of course, reflected in the languages spoken by students. The top five languages spoken at home by students at our school (with approximate percentages) are: English (61.9%), Korean (6.9%), Persian (6.6%), Mandarin (5.9%), and Chinese (5.5%). Other languages include French, Cantonese, German, Spanish, and Japanese. In our school's population, 7.2% are designated as ESL learners, 4.4% as special needs, and 28% of our students are enrolled in a French immersion program. The Fraser Institute ranks Sentinel as 35th out of 288 secondary schools in British Columbia.

We feel that our positive school culture and diverse student population contributes greatly to the educational experience offered to our students. Sentinel enriches student life through its co-curricular activities. Athletics, clubs, and the performing arts allow every student to become involved in the school after class is over. We believe that student involvement in activities "outside the classroom" is an important and valuable part of the educational experience.

While reading levels at Sentinel are within the norm for the grades we serve, a constant area of focus in both the library and in classrooms is serving our rather high population of ESL students. For a number of reasons, ESL students tend to comprise one of the biggest user groups in the library--this fact is reassuring by suggesting that the materials and resources available are pertinent, helpful, and being used. The ESL population's presence places a more constant focus--across grade levels and departments--on language acquisition. As such, we work hard to have a system of effective supports in place for second language learners as soon as they enter our school in grade 8, and a logical sequence of courses laid out for them with the ultimate goal of getting all ESL students into "regular" English classes at "grade level" by the time they graduate. We are mostly successful in this endeavor, but are //always// modifying and improving our approach based on feedback and data. In addition to the constant task of meeting the language and literacy needs of ESL students, Sentinel also this year has a special emphasis on achieving two specific goals. The school's [|Action Plan for Learning] outlines these two goals: The school identifies both of these goals as essential to continuing its current levels of success. Meeting both of the above goals requires a healthy dose of student engagement and scaffolded, guided support along the way.
 * #1: To further improve Grade 10 students' preparation for the increased academic demands of Grade 10 and beyond.
 * #2: To increase the number of boys achieving honour roll status in Grades 8-12 and increase the number of boys earning Grade 12 scholarships.

Sentinel does identify students at risk regarding literacy achievement. This is done primarily through direct teacher diagnosis and further intervention by Learning Assistance teachers and aides. Skill-specific assessments are administered district-wide at grade 8 and 9 levels; the data produced from these assessments is mostly used to reflect on education needs and focus the teaching of specific skills for the students in grades 8 and 9 as a whole--these are not necessarily individual student-specific assessments.

CURRENT PERSONAL SITUATION
Aaron has a Master's Degree in Secondary English Education from Seattle University. He is currently quite interested in all things related to assessment, particularly formative assessment, student-involved assessment, and metacognitive thinking; he is also interested in finding effective ways to help students produce quality original compositions—particularly narrative essays and original poetry.

Aaron is currently completing the Diploma in Teacher Librarianship, and likes the perspective that having "one foot in the TL world" gives him in his English classroom. The most important element of literacy development is //engagement//—both student- and teacher-engagement. He approaches literacy development as the natural end result that occurs when immersed in an environment that celebrates and enjoys the wonders and nuance of language—and this process most commonly and effectively occurs when both teacher and students are engaged with the material and ideas at hand. He approaches the development of both reading and writing skills primarily through connecting up parts to the whole and understanding the relationship between the two: specific textual details to general big ideas, elements of style to the overall effectiveness of a piece of writing, and even the use of specific punctuation marks on the polish and persuasiveness of an essay.

Aaron teaches two blocks of AP Literature and Composition, two blocks of English 12, one block of Pre-AP English 10, and one block of English 10.

ORGANIZATION OF STRATEGIES
Aaron and Alice both work at schools where general reading comprehension is not an issue (as shown by our exam scores), yet we still struggle to entice our students to enjoy reading. Through our research, we concluded that focusing on inference and analysis has been shown to increase students' enjoyment of reading, so our strategies are all in this area. Some of the strategies are for use during reading, and others are for after reading. Most will eventually be integrated into the skill base of the students, and will become automatic with practice. Our target group is students in grades 8-12, but many of the strategies are applicable to younger and older students.

Sources: [|West Vancouver School District], [|School District #79], [|BC Ministry of Education], and the [|Fraser Institute Report].