ENGAGING CLASSROOMS ARE soulful

WE’VE IMPLEMENTED ADDITIONAL COACHING FOR TEACHERS AND LEADERS THAT HELPS THEM FOCUS ON A SMALL NUMBER OF CRITICAL LEVERS — CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES, INDEPENDENT PRACTICE, AND ACADEMIC FEEDBACK — TO RAPIDLY AND SIGNIFICANTLY IMPROVE STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT.

As a school, our most important equity work is providing a high quality and rigorous academic program. This work is more high stakes than ever because of our scholars’ unfinished learning due to the pandemic. That’s why, for the 2022-2023 school year (and beyond), we have been focused on ensuring all scholars are meaningfully engaged in rigorous instruction every day. This means hiring and retaining the best teachers possible. This means investing in leader development so they can effectively coach teachers on excellent instructional practice. This means inspiring scholars to push themselves to accomplish more than they ever have before. Of course, we will continue to support our scholars and families with their other, nonacademic needs; we know that serving the whole child is critical to their success. We also know we are uniquely positioned to give our scholars an excellent education that equips them with the tools they need to change the world.

Our teachers are deeply invested in this work and are already putting this commitment into practice. In 8th grade science, our scholars are learning about climate change and the impact of rising sea levels on present-day communities. In 3rd grade math, scholars are practicing rounding multi-digit numbers. In PE, scholars are learning problem solving strategies to help with productive collaboration. True to the Alma way, we use every single minute we have with our scholars to move their learning forward.

We have piloted a new coaching model with our staff, which involves multiple coaching meetings to dive deep into lesson plans, receive direct coaching on instructional practice, and analyze scholar work. We have always believed that investing in our teachers’ growth is one of the most critical investments we make, and we have now doubled down on that in service of improved academic outcomes for all of our scholars.