At the Phoenix Elementary District Office on September 26, 2023, a Governing Board meeting was held to discuss the students’ current academic proficiency and strategies to improve students’ academic performance.
As the 2024 school year approaches, the Governing Board of the Phoenix Elementary School District gathered to discuss the progress of the students’ academics in 2023. One of the main concerns was increasing the pass rate on reading for their eighth-grade students and implementing a number of strategies to meet their goal. They are focusing specifically on ‘exceptional students’ and ‘English learners’ who are in language acquisition programs because they are far below their 2024 academic goal.
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The Superintendent, Dr. Ibi Haghighat, provided the board with a digital graph presenting the percentage of eighth-grade students’ reading scores from 2019 to the percentage goal where they want their students to be by August 2024. By next year, their goal is for 32% of students to score proficient and highly proficient in reading and English.
“We know that our students are capable of reaching these scores and we can do better, as their administrators, to help them accelerate their learning,” said Haghighat.
Among the strategies to improve academic performance, the first strategy presented was sheltered English immersion training for teachers. This entails ‘targeted minutes’ and ‘integrated minutes’. Targeted minutes is where students would be pulled out of their classrooms and given targeted instruction in English language acquisition. Integrated minutes would focus on language development. Chief Academic Officer, Dr. Deborah Gonzalez, explained this as using visual cues and pointing to objects when they are talking about it so they can make sense of the curriculum.
“Regardless if I am a Spanish speaker, native speaker, or I’m an English speaking student who is not familiar with a word, it is now comprehensible to me,” said Gonzalez.
The second strategy proposed to the board was co-teaching. As their ‘exceptional’ students are brought into general ed classrooms, they need to make sure the students are still getting the instruction that is helping them obtain knowledge. General Education teachers and Exceptional Education teachers would both be present in the classroom to plan and teach together. They would make sure the students in this classroom are receiving the right education, targeted to meet their different needs. They are hoping that by having two teachers focused on teaching the curriculum, all the students will be able to accelerate their learning.
This strategy for teachers was specifically picked out because it has been implemented across other districts and has gained positive results from different grades. Dr. Gonzalez explained that last year, a ‘Structured English Immersion’ canvas program was designed online to give teachers a trial experience. In this professional development class, they learned how to design lesson plans and deliver them in an effective way to their students. After expanding this program, they will have two different sessions for teachers to learn ‘Structured English Immersion’ starting this year.
Discussing the strategies given to the board, they are hopeful of receiving positive academic results from the students in the future. One of the governing board members, Erika de La Rosa stated, “I believe that the plan is sufficient to cause growth toward our overall vision.”
