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Roosevelt High School
Yonkers, NY
School Type: Public
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School Setting: Urban
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Level: High
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School Design: Magnet
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Content Presented By:
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The Education Alliance at Brown University
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Design and Implementation
Based on the needs identified at Roosevelt High School in Yonkers, New York, the school's Design Committee determined that teaming might help. This model, through which students are assigned to small learning communities and share teachers in common, was implemented in the fall of 2001. The school also placed parent and community involvement at the top of their agenda and made technology a central focus for improvement. The staff understood that professional development would need to be ongoing and responsive to what they were learning about student needs.
Specifically, the goals of the small learning community program were to increase parent involvement, community involvement, professional development for staff, and the use of technology. Principal Bill Moore regularly sent 45 teachers out to observe programs at other schools that were socio-economically similar. As a result, staff members were able to bring back best practices that they believed in. (Those visits were funded through the Smaller Learning Communities grant provided by the federal government.)
While the school has the curriculum of a high school, it also boasts the social supports of an elementary school. Teachers and administrators have put in place outreach programs that have significantly increased parental involvement. They have also helped the school adapt to a multilingual population and the community's transportation challenges.
- Students are grouped into teams that help break down anonymity at this large, urban school. Team teachers share students in common and are better able to make sense of student behavior and performance and to respond to changes in those areas. In the ninth grade, there is a separate program for students repeating that grade.
- Administrators know that students are drawn to the school because of the magnet component. They use this as leverage, keeping students out of the magnet programs for their first year if they are not within two years of grade level. In this way, they spend at least one year getting extra help in math and reading.
- On the walls of the school are welcome signs in multiple languages. Stationed throughout the school are guides who wear buttons that indicate their native languages.
- Teachers make it a point to keep each other and parents apprised of student progress. They contact parents when a student is doing well, not just when things are going poorly. Weekly progress meetings are held among teachers to make good and critical comments about the development of students. The principal personally schedules all of his appointments with parents.
- Parent-teacher meetings are designed to be welcoming and conveniently located. Although the school is located on the east side of Yonkers, off-site meetings are held at an elementary school on the west side of the city, home to a large portion of the student population. Parental guides act as cultural liaisons between the school and community.
- The teachers and administrators make it a point to not only get parents involved, but to train them. Adult Education Classes for parents are held on Saturday mornings. In these classes, students are paid to teach parents English as a Second Language and computer skills.
- Another program that has attracted more parental involvement has been the "Monthly Hot Topics" program, a discussion of an important issue about which parents need to be informed. These discussions are scheduled three times a month at different hours of the day: 8 a.m., noon, and 8 p.m. The discussions have addressed such things as report cards and graduation requirements. Two dozen parents have attended these discussions, and the PTA has begun to draw parents from these monthly sessions.
- Teachers and administrators have also increased the number of mailings they send to parents, including the school newspaper and newsletters. These mailings are often published in multiple languages.
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