Meetings, working lunches, and guest speakers. "What is said here, stays here. What is learned here, leaves here."
A huge concern for our school according to the testing statistics: African-American males.
Suggestions/Interventions: male mentor programs (with effective mentor training), encouragement for extracurricular activities, male-lead organization/ Bulletin 100 class "Reconnecting Youth" requires a minimum GPA (unfortunately), seat these students in the "T-section" of the classroom where teachers tend to focus, male-based assemblies, maintain high expectations (pull them aside and ask them to be leaders), survey these students and gauge their needs, and start a committee to plan these events.
English Language Learners:
CHALLENGES:
curriculum/textbook and the language/vocabulary, reading and writin assignments, getting from lower levels of thinking to the higher-order levels of learning, SES differences.
STRATEGIES:
multiple approaches to cognitive processes:BICS- "above surface" -pronunciation, grammar, vocab. CALPS- "below surface"-semantic and functional meaning. Above all be explicit and systematic. Focus on a few key words, use visual aids, real objects, work in groups (think/pair/share), use english/spanish cognates, word wall, deprocess a few days later, cooperative learning groups, modeling