Description of School

Spring Woods Senior High School is a large urban high school in Houston, Texas. In the past few years, the student population has greatly diversified and changed the instructional and professional development needs of the school.

Student Demographics

Background and Goals

Spring Woods staff reviewed campus data and surveyed students and parents to determine how to meet the unique instructional and motivational needs of their culturally diverse student population. They established a "schoolwide leadership cadre" comprised of parents, administrators, and teachers from all disciplines and grade levels to study whole school change. The cadre spent a year working with an external consultant to build their capacity to lead ongoing comprehensive reform that would support culturally responsive teaching. The resulting professional development plan established these three goals: 1) more inclusive, relevant, and challenging approach to instructional practices; 2) collaborative, job-embedded learning and enhanced communication among adults; and, 3) parent involvement that encourages diverse representation and participation in meaningful decisions and activities.

Professional Development Design and Implementation

Schoolwide Leadership Cadre: The goal of the schoolwide leadership cadre was to create an alternative to dependence on external "experts" for planning and implementing reform- and to make sure that the program became a well-integrated part of school life. The schoolwide cadre served (and continues to serve) as teacher-leaders who are site-based developers, mentors of instructional improvement, and advocates of continuous meaningful school improvement. Throughout the initial year of learning about whole school change, the cadre regularly shared ideas with their departmental teams and, in addition, co-facilitated three schoolwide institutes on the topics of culturally responsive teaching, supporting the intrinsic motivation of all students, finding and using time for collegial learning and planning, and the complexity of ambitious school change/reform processes. The second year, the cadre doubled in size to include two representatives from each department. This has fostered dialogue across subject areas and has avoided marginalizing any individual or department.

Diversity and Motivation: Culturally Responsive Teaching: The schoolwide leadership cadre has helped to create a professional development initiative based on a motivational framework for culturally responsive teaching and learning. The framework provides a template for highly motivating instructional practices across cultures and disciplines. While the framework includes new teaching strategies for each condition, it also serves as a template for recognizing existing strengths in an educator?s instructional practice and providing clues for developing those strengths. With the understanding that motivation is inseparable from culture, the framework provides four basic conditions that, when consistently present in learning, elicit the motivation of all adults and students. The four conditions include: 1) establishing inclusion; 2) developing a positive attitude; 3) enhancing meaning by offering challenging and engaging learning; and, 4) engendering competence.

The Process of the Professional Development Design: Initially, the process included: an institute where the cadre examined the framework; an opportunity for the cadre to develop collaborative inquiry projects; and, school-based institutes for faculty and staff to engage in using the framework. The professional development plan continues to use classroom observations and dialogue between the cadre and faculty; work sessions for the cadre to share experiences and deepen leadership skills; and, collaborative professional learning communities that meet regularly to investigate research, plan collaborative lessons, examine student work, and document key learning. In addition, school administrators meet regularly to strengthen their own understanding of culturally responsive teaching.

Objective Evidence of Success

Descriptive data from classroom observations, professional development plans, sample lesson plans, interviews, feedback from institutes, and a shared instructional vocabulary indicate that there is increased knowledge about culturally responsive teaching practices and use of culturally responsive instructional strategies, skills, and behaviors in classrooms. Climate surveys, increased student attendance, and decreased dropout rates and discipline referral data show improved student behavior and attitudes.

Test data that is disaggregated by gender, ethnicity, and grade level helped the faculty at Spring Woods High School identify math as a particular area for improvement. As a result of numerous faculty efforts, math scores increased from 22.2% to a proficiency level of 77.3%. In addition, instructional improvements in English and social studies contributed to an increase in reading scores of 23.1% with 86% of students achieving passing scores. Writing scores have also improved 10.9% to reach 85.2% passing. Climate surveys, increased student attendance, and decreased dropout rates and discipline referral data also show improved student behavior and attitudes.

Contact Information

Eloise Hambright-Brown, Ed.D.
Director, Accelerated and Compensatory Education
Spring Woods Senior High School
9000 Westview, Room S104
Houston, TX 77055
(713) 365-5585
(713) 365-5597 (fax)
hambrige@spring-branch.isd.tenet.edu

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