Speaker: Bill Storm, Teacher, Valley Oak Elementary
Topic: Valley Oak Charter School Introduction and Overview
It’s my goal to introduce to you the pillars of the charter, and I will be followed by others who will explore each of them with you from the perspective of their own expertise.
The charter document submitted to you is the product of the labors of many. It’s grounded in a culture of Best Practices developed by Valley Oak over many years, a culture that is inclusive, diverse, and reflective, and passionate about the process of educating all of our students, from every ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic background.
We have been extremely transparent throughout the development of this document, posting supporting documents and research, drafts of the educational program as they became available, and we have sought to meet with district staff and board members along the way to craft a document that best serves not only Valley Oak students, but the district as well. Charter law empowers us to define our school, but we have opened that defining process to the community, district staff, and to members of the board, so the document could emerge from those willing to participate and engage in a discussion not only about what has made Valley Oak the success it has been, but where the greater community is going and how we can best prepare our students to enter a very challenging world.
Even our signature-gathering process was transparent and carefully coordinated with site administration and the community to assure a dependable and representative outcome, not to mention a safe and non-disruptive process. It was very important to the charter organizers that both staff and the Valley Oak community coalesce around the document, so a great deal of time was spent communicating the elements of the charter to all stakeholders with bilingual materials well before signatures were sought. After we obtained the first seven faculty signatures a number of weeks ago, we could have sent you this document, because charter law only requires the signatures of half the projected school’s staff, and we had more than that many writing it. However, we also wanted a measure of the wider community’s commitment to the charter, so we pressed on. After nineteen staff had signed the charter, nearly triple the number necessary to submit the charter outright, we then focused on the Valley Oak community to take the pulse of Valley Oak parent interest. Even though it was unnecessary for meeting the requirements of charter law, our goal of signatures representing 153 potential students was surpassed by an additional forty-eight, with all parent signatures gathered over only seven days. The feedback we received in the course of this effort was very gratifying; we came to understand the signatures as an indication that our parents have felt well-served by Valley Oak, and returned the dedication of those nineteen staff signatories with meaningful interest of their own in what we proposed to be their neighborhood school.
Mission Statement
I’m going to take this opportunity to once again share our mission statement, because in its few words it summarizes what our school will become:
Valley Oak Charter School is a learning community of students, staff, families and the larger community that challenges each member to reach full potential. We draw upon a rich history as a neighborhood school that recognizes the strengths of a diverse population, welcoming all into a culturally-rich environment with high expectations for all students. We believe community-based cooperative governance makes for optimally responsive and innovative education.
A. The program we’ve painstakingly enumerated in the charter is a reflection of the core practices and materials of the Valley Oak Program. Students attending Valley Oak Charter School next year will feel very much at home, because the program they enter will be the one we now teach. They may notice their school is smaller at around 300 students, but they will meet the same dedicated and experienced staff they knew before, and they will participate in the same embracing learning community. Our English learners will find the same effective, nurturing, classroom-integrated program, and fully CLAD credentialed staff.
B. Another difference they may notice could be their parents and teachers expressing more interest in technology and the resources being made available to their families. A core principle of the technology aspect of the charter is to grow technology and communication capability from within the heart of the community, an effort with the express goal being the bridging of the digital gap, something which requires a more holistic approach than simply increasing the number of computers in classrooms. While an increase in the amount of on-site hardware may eventually prove desirable, our focus will be on training and creating opportunity throughout the Valley Oak community… the students, their families, and the staff.
C. Most of the staff will be comprised of current Valley Oak faculty who, according to the document before you, will remain part of the DTA bargaining unit, and who will continue in their current contractual capacity, though serving within the Teacher Cooperative about which you will hear more shortly. The cooperative will have the responsibility of sustaining our current responsiveness to student needs, differentiating instruction to assure all students learn to their ability. The cooperative will work hand-in-hand with our executive board, organized under 501(c)3 who will have oversight of the school operations, and who will work with and guide the cooperative in its efforts to fulfill the obligations enumerated by the charter. On-site, academic decision-making including strategies to respond to assessment data will remain in the hands of the cooperative. The duties of the full-time site director will be more explicitly determined once the founding group and teacher cooperative have been constituted, but will essentially fulfill site administrator duties to enable the teaching staff to get on with the business of teaching the children.
Speaker: Steve Kelleher, Teacher, Valley Oak Elementary
Topic: Academic Program
Introduction
The fundamental learning environment at Valley Oak Charter School will be a site-based, self-contained classroom, taught by an appropriately credentialed DJUSD teacher. The student/teacher ratio at the primary level will be 20/1 and at the intermediate level 29/1 maintaining class-size reduction goals reflected in the district.
All VO Charter students will learn through individual, group, class and cross grade programs in Reading/Language Arts & Mathematics Strands. All programs are to be aligned with California and DJUSD adopted content standards. Valley Oak Charter School will use a team teaching approach to fully utilize individual teacher expertise, both heterogeneous and homogeneous grouping will be used as appropriate.
All students, regardless of gender or ethnicity, will have equal access to the core curriculum and steps will be taken to assure equity of that access for each student. Each student is to be provided with his or her own textbook and/or subject core materials for use in class and for homework.
The Valley Oak Charter School will provide Standards based instruction in all core academic areas. At present, textbooks and other curriculum are identical to the Davis adoptions. Academic decisions will be data driven, standards based and focused on the needs of the student and the classroom. STAR test data, classroom assessments and other measures of achievement such as the DJUSD assessment cards will be analyzed to guide the teachers to better serve the students in their classrooms.
Standardized test scores will be analyzed at the beginning of each school year to identify trends and the academic needs of our population. Students struggling to achieve proficiency will be identified. Round Table meetings will be used at least once a year to provide a forum for classroom teachers to share the needs of their students and discuss approaches to meeting those needs. Healthy Kids meetings will be used as needed to target support for select students who require additional assistance.
The Valley Oak Charter School program is centered on student need and is structured into the Language /English Language Development groups that are school wide. All of the grade levels
do this language arts activity during the same period to provide explicit small group instruction at individual students' levels. This provides a framework for the differentiation of services to all student including GATE, Resource, Title 1, EL and other student with special needs. This schedule allows all students to receive appropriate instruction and curriculum as per the RTI (response to intervention) model. These skill based groups have years of history here at VO, the students and teachers are very adept at the transitions and changes required to make it work. It usually entails small group work with flexible ability level groupings and includes independent as well as teacher/paraeducator led activities. The special instruction is provided by both the classroom teachers and the EL, RSP and reading staff. There is also some small group work in the EL, Resource or reading room itself based upon student's needs; this is the small 'pull out' part of the program. These small group lessons are targeted towards reading level, or in the case of EL students, CELDT level. One of the strengths of this approach is that the students do not lose academic standards-based lessons.
A similar approach will be used to address the needs of our student in mathematics. This allows us to address the individual math needs of students, both high and low.
Valley Oak Science serves all 4th through 6th graders in two classrooms dedicated to science instruction. Appropriately credentialed science specialists will design instruction around observable phenomena, utilizing models-based reasoning and other collaborative knowledge-building activities. Using digital technology and other tools of science, authentic science experiences will be provided whenever possible so that students are collecting and manipulating authentic science data in order to construct meaning relative to their own experience and prior knowledge.
Social Studies
Physical Education
Campus Connection
Children who are safe, happy, and connected to adults and their classmates are children who can learn. The following programs will continue to promote these characteristics at Valley Oak Charter:
Teaching Staff
18 of the 19 of the teacher signatories are presently teaching or have recently taught at VO. The teachers involved in implementing this program bring an impressive array of expertise and training to the school.
This part of the presentation is meant to give a general overview of the academic program proposed by the Charter school. It is modeled after the highly successful program already in place at Valley Oak. A program with decades of successful experience serving the needs of our neighborhood children. Full details of specific curriculum and materials, teaching methodologies and assessment can be found in the charter itself.
Speaker: Mike Egan, California Teachers’ Association
Topic: Financial Considerations
