Question:

All students at a school recently missed eight days due to snow/ice/extreme cold. Classes typically end around May 20. The school has no provision for snow days and has always added these days on to the anticipated end date. All students in grades 9–11 will make up the days, and the school year for them will extend into June. For seniors, however, graduation is set and venues booked for May 22, so extending time for them has never been arranged and will not be this year.

The principal asks if some schools have written policies on this type of situation — not about whether days are made up or not but rather advice and/or policies for instructional practices, especially in senior classes, to balance the obvious concerns about covering the curriculum with the fewer days available for instruction.

Answer:

Doug Silver, SPN Director of Research:

Our local school district cancelled (eliminated) all midterm exams, but as far as instructional practices, the AP classes will have multiple additional after-school study sessions and a few will attend school on Saturday mornings. These sessions are not paid time for the staff; they are expected by the administration.

From Joyce McLean, Network coach:

Last year, Oregon schools were allowed to document time required to complete take-home work (counted as instructional minutes) equivalent to the time lost.

From Lin Kuzmich, Network coach:

Many colleges and districts are going digital on snow days: “Log onto the teacher's website and get your assignment, watch this video, do this review lesson on HippoCampus.” (See Sherry St. Clair’s answer below.) Text your journal entry to . . . ” You get the idea. It is time to move on beyond the traditional; this is a digital generation.

For those students without a home computer or cell phone, send home "winter emergency" materials at the start the season, just when most teachers have emergency substitute plans ready to go. More and more in this era, school is about learning, not just a place.

From Sherry St. Clair, Network coach:

I see schools using a more digital format for this situation. Check out international examples. Many policies in other countries are more advanced than ours. Also consult HippoCampus at mindshift.kqed.org It is a wonderful free resource for high schools for online content in and out of class that is connected to many publishers. Also consider setting performance-based credits, which can give students credit when they learn material versus seat time in class.

To share your own response and see additional member questions, visit the Groups section of the SPN website and click on Member Questions forum. You may post your own questions, reply to peers, or start a group around a specific topic.

Feature of the Month

Seeing in 3D . . . and Living the 3Rs

By Darrel Galera

Nicole Hochholzer

At Moanalua High School, when we say “3D,” we mean it. The story of Moanalua High School in Honolulu, Hawaii, can be seen through the lens of the Rigor/Relevance Framework^® (see www.successfulpractices.org). This framework guides and supports high-performing teachers, students, schools, and even our K–12 school complexes. Through this lens, we can focus on seeing things in 3D: Quadrant D teaching, Quadrant D learning, and Quadrant D leadership. By seeing in 3D and leading our lives by the 3Rs (Rigor, Relevance, and Relationships), we prepare students for their future and not our past.

Since 2003, the Honolulu Magazine has rated Moanalua High as Hawaii’s top public high school based on academic achievement, student satisfaction, and parent satisfaction criteria. Our success is attributed to Hawaii’s most recognized high school professional development program, an exemplary career and academic program called the Personal/Transition Plan (PTP), and our school’s advanced and extensive commitment to standards-based grading for high school students.

Our school has also embraced and implemented the best practices and next practices learned from the Successful Practices Network, International Center for Leadership in Education, and other model schools: co-teaching, restacking and regrouping, a new science curriculum, data teams, and a focus on relationships (all administrators are certified “Tribes Trainers” prepared to promote positive classroom and school relationships). Our recent work includes:

training student leaders to nominate teachers for Quadrant D teaching
developing a new rubric for special education co-teaching based on the Learning Criteria to Support 21st Century Learners™ (see http://www.successfulpractices.org) and the Rigor/Relevance Framework®
collecting classroom walk-through data using the lens of rigor and relevance
analyzing classroom assessments to determine the degree to which they provide higher levels of thinking and unpredictable real-world application
identifying data indicators based on the Learning Criteria for our K–12 complex schools

Although we have much work to do, we are inspired and energized when we see and hear from our outstanding students, such as Tyler Yafuso, class of 2010, who presented at the 2010 Moanalua High School Professional Development Conference, "Conversations for Learning — Now in 3D," and commented, "[The conference] was the best example of Quadrant D learning for me. . . . It was truly a culmination of all that I learned in the past four years here at Moanalua High School."

At Moanalua High School, we remain strong in our belief that our vision of becoming a high-performing school of excellence will become a reality by living the 3Rs and seeing in 3D.

Darrel Galera, principal of Moanalua High School, Honolulu, Hawaii, was the 2010 MetLife/NASSP Hawaii High School Principal of the Year.