The Speech/Language Program at AES

The Speech/Language Intervention program has been working with qualified students since the early years of Alvarado Elementary. Once a child meets specific criteria, it becomes a federally mandated service. The service model and specific goals will vary for each child. The teacher, parent, and school specialists (Resource Specialist, School Psychologist, Speech/Language Specialist) all have a part in developing the Individual Education Plan (IEP) for each student. This IEP is a living document that grows, and is modified and/or enhanced based on the individual child’s needs. All of this is only done with the parents prior written permission.

How does a child qualify for such help? A child is evaluated by a credentialed and certified Speech/Language Specialist, to determine if the child meets the state educational code criteria. The child’s scores need to fall at or below the seventh percentile compared to other children their own age. The areas the Speech/Language Specialist evaluates are: Articulation (how sounds/words are pronounced); Voice (the sound quality of the child’s voice: harsh, breathy), Fluency (the fluidity and smoothness to the speech without stopping and starting: pppplease pppass the sssalt), and Language. Language is complex and covers many areas. It can include: difficulty labeling thing; difficulty understanding what was just heard; processing information; following directions; understanding and using vocabulary correctly; defining, comparing and contrasting ideas; and expressing ones self effectively, these are just a few things that the Speech/Language Specialist addresses. For those students that are not able to communicate orally, the child will be taught sign language, use pictures or low-high tech communication devises. These are designed and implemented by the Speech /Language Specialists.

Once the evaluation is completed, the Speech/Language Specialist, with the input from the team mentioned above, write goals and objectives for the upcoming calendar year on the IEP. The specialist will give progress updates 3 times a year and a review every year. On the 3rd year, the evaluation is redone, to determine if the child still qualifies for services.

The children are seen anywhere from 2 times per month, for a child who is working on carry-over of his skills into the classroom setting, to 3 days a week. Again, this depends on the child’s developmental levels and the team’s decision on how to best to serve the individual child. The therapy sessions are typically a pull-out model within a small group of similarly aged students.

This post was written by Kathy Jones Mabie. Ms. Mabie is a long time and well respected Alvarado Speech and Language Specialist. She is a contributing force in all of the Alvarado school community activities as shown here in one of her Halloween costumes.

Kathy Mabie

Alvarado Conquers Mission Peak

Staff 2010 Summer Fun

Photo Courtesy of Vince Lindain

Click on the photo to enlarge

Congratulations

Cheri Benafield

Congratulations to Cheri Benafield AE's Assistant Principal. Cheri will be the new principal at New Haven Unified's Pioneer Elementary for the year 2010-2011. Cheri has been at AE for about ten years. She came to AE as a Reading Specialist and quickly moved up to Assistant Principal. In 2009 she was awarded administrator of the year for the district. Everyone will miss the warmth and skill Cheri has shown with students, staff, and parents, but all wish her happiness in her new position.

Anita Schumann reading on the lawn to her students for Read Across America.

Congratulations to Anita Schumann Alvarado's 2010 Teacher of the Year. Anita Started as an teacher's aide with Alvarado. She went back to school, received her credential, and began her career as a teacher at Alvarado. She is knowledgeable, skilled, consistent, and a leader of her fellow teachers.

Anita on Halloween

ManYee Desandies: Teacher of the year 2009
Congratulations on your retirement in June, 2010.





Ruth Houseworth: Congratulations on your retirement in June 2010. Thanks for sharing your creativity and skills with AE staff and students.

Joe Sefcheck: Congratulations on your retirement in June 2010. Thanks for all the years of service in New Haven Unified School District.

Death and Life of the Great American School System

The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch is a look at many attempts to make the public school system work for all students. She is a former Assistant Secretary of Education and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. This is a scholarly work with statistics to back up her change of heart from Choice to support for the neighborhood public school. "With so much money and power aligned against the neighborhood school and against education as a profession, public education itself is placed at risk." She makes the point that community schools allow the public to engage in discussions with their neighbors which is the very basis of our democracy. She defines how charter schools, testing, and the business of education has become a cottage industry in the United States. Often it's about making money, not about what is best for children and their schools. The history of Alvarado Elementary, as shown on this blog, clearly shows it is a long standing community school.

After retiring from 25 years of teaching, I am well aware there were many programs developed to improve students academic success. Here are some of the programs, often thought of as "silver bullets", designed to lead to superior student success that I have seen, personally used, or participated in developing. Some of these were in other districts and I am sure there are many more programs. Some are a renamed combination of strategies. Some of these address the big picture such as Strategic Planning; some address what happens in the classroom, basic teaching strategies; and some address both, such as No Child Left Behind.

*Split reading
*Phonics only
*Clusters
*Open Court
*Sullivan reading
*Plan, Do, Review
*KWLH charts
*Whole Language
*Sheltered English
*Interactive Writing
*Terry Johnson Strategies
*CELL California Early Literacy Learning
*California Literature Project *S.T.A.R.S.S. Successful Teaching of Academic Reading to Struggling Students*Just in Time Teaching
*Rebecca Sitton Spelling
*ExLL Extended Literacy Learning
*IBM Writing to Read - Technology Based
*Reciprocal Teaching
*Word Wall - Glad, Clad, Cell
*GLAD
*Non Fiction Matters
*Read Naturally
*Grouping, Non Grouping,
*Tracking, Non Tracking
*Differentiated Instruction
*Buddy Systems-student and teacher
*Conflict Resolution
*Best Practices
*Power Standards
*Strategies That Work
*Technology Based (Road Ahead Grant)
*Literacy Coaching
*Scaffolding
*Learning Walks
*Writers Workshop
*Character Education
*Reading Recovery
*Balanced Literacy
*Intervention: Before, After, and During School (pull-out)
*Strategic Planning
*Professional Learning Communities (PLC) Collaboration
*Data Driven Instruction, testing
*No Child Left Behind (NCLB)- testing, testing, testing
*Critical Literacy
*Human System Dynamics
*Targeted Instruction
*Race to the Top (Grant)

Some of these ideas are from for profit companies who have sold a bill of goods to superintendents, and they in turn have sold the bill of goods to their school boards. Many of these ideas are about making money for a company. Some work exceedingly well, but they are often limited by the number of children with access to the program or even the materials. Teachers pay a high price in time spent exploring these options after school, in the evening, or even in the summer. Often in the next few years they are dumped for new strategies. Then teachers are off learning new techniques spending more hours and hours in training or in meetings at the district office. The good part is experienced teachers have an arsenal of strategies to pull out when needed. The bad part is good teachers get frustrated with the system and leave teaching. There is only one thing certain about schools and that is "constant change".

Probably the most useful to teachers and students is intervention, which could be in the classroom or Read Naturally or Reading Recovery, and voluntary PLC's. Required PLC's often do not work unless there is a very cohesive staff in most grade levels. If all these worked all the time on all the students, we wouldn't have to have NCLB. The principal's eye needs to be always on the prize. The prize being all children reading on or above grade level. The best people need to be hand picked to do the best job whether it's classroom teaching or some type of intervention. I have seen very experienced and well trained aides successfully teach intervention outside of the classroom. Those aides were very disciplined, allowed no excuses for work not done or lack of effort expended by the students, and worked well as a team. Since little effort is spent training aides this is rare. Usually it is the classroom teacher who has the skill and the discipline, and that skill is not easily replicated. Districts are always trying to replicate good teaching. Can it be done effectively? Each teacher is so unique. It is only each teacher's skill at that time, in that place, with a particular child that makes a child successful. It's what the teacher knows and how they use it to spin it to each child's best advantage. It's one child and one teacher, one on one.Charter schools, poverty, and disenfranchisement, which includes drug use, are premier issues facing the public school system. Diane Ravitch's book is an attempt to look at what has happened in the past and what should happen in future to save the American public school system. Ravitch does not support President Obama's education agenda for merit pay plans. According to her, "test-based accountability removes all responsibility from students and their families for students academic performance". She is not against private schools or even Charter schools. She is against taking parental support, motivated students, and funding away from public schools. She also examines the success rate of the business or army model used by foundations, such as the Gates foundation, and adapted by some charter schools.

Her last chapter is titled, "Lessons Learned" where she explores options for public schools. This chapter relates how generations of immigrants have adjusted to the American way of life through participation in the free public school system. Teachers and staff have seen this on a daily basis at Alvarado. She believes we should establish a general national curriculum which includes the liberal arts, sciences, physical education, and the social behaviors and skills that make learning possible. When schools are in trouble, then whatever needs to be done to correct the problem needs to be done and it might be different from school to school from community to community.

The author's challenges parents, teachers, and students to go to their law makers. On National Public Radio she recommended these groups go to their congressmen, even naming George Miller, a powerful voice on the education committee from Contra Costa County, as one who knows little about what really goes on in public schools. Her final conclusion is that it's all about good teachers and good principals. Teachers and principals with experience, knowledge, and empathy. That's the magic.

District Librarian's Photo 1990 to 2011

New Haven Unified School District's Proud Librarians

Click on the photo to enlarge
Composite of District Librarians 1990 to 2011

Missing
Carla Colburn, James Logan High School
Martha Utley, Conley Carrabello
Jan Dietrich

The Conflict Resolution program was started to teach students how to resolve their conflicts in a peaceful way without having to go to a adult to settle the problem. Students learned leadership skills and had extensive training after school to develop their skills. Students learned to listen and develop empathy for others. Conflict Managers had to give up some of their play time either at recess or at lunch to do their job. In the photo to the left Bernadette Muhlestein supervises conflict manager training.

All the students in every class were taught to give an "I message" to students when they had a problem on the playground or in the classroom. When the program was in fully utilized, there were about 70 conflict managers.

Bernadette Muhlestein and Joan Logue started Conflict Resolution together. According to Joan, "We took a class and had inservice in the process. We had a guidebook for the exact process students were required to follow. As I remember, the Conlict Manager would see a problem, ask them to step into the circle and then say, "What happened" to each of them, one at a time. Then after listening, they would say, "How did that make you feel?" After their answer, the Conflict Manager would ask, "What will make it better now?". If they answer "Don't do that again" or something then the Conflict Manager asks the other if that's OK. If it isn't then they can go to the office to solve it. But if they want it over fast, then they all agree, shake hands and go on their way. And it worked!!!! The Conflict Manager kids were chosen from the higher grades and trained continually. We did a lot of role playing in the class which was always after school. It was a great program!!"

Role playing

The above photo shows Greg Snelling training his Conflict Managers. After Joan retired, Greg and Bernadette did the program. As of 2010 Greg Snelling and Paul Hornbook are the Conflict Resolution teachers. At the end of the the school year all the conflict managers with their conflict teachers went on a special field trip as a reward for all their hard work.

Conflict Managers at Work

Joan and Greg at the Conflict Manager Pizza Party

Staff Photos 2009-2010 or Memories

Tracie Noriega, Principal
Cheri Benefield, Assistant Principal
2009-2010
Click on the photo to enlarge

Jeff Pickering on end of the year on Facebook: year-end assessments, report cards, Ocean Night, pink and blues, cum's, DRAs for far and below basic, NWEA, enter Data Director, finish up Writers Workshop, year-end picnic, field day, "Oceans" field trip, clean out room and walls. I'm forgetting something... Other than that, the rest of the year is pretty kick-back.

Happy Retirement ManYee
Click on the photo to enlarge

CA Budget Crisis Eliminates Class Size Reduction

Teachers will be giving more than ever next year. According to Rick LaPlant, New Haven Unified School District's Public Information Officer, the school board was forced because of the ongoing state financial crisis to make another round of drastic budget cuts.

The Board approved staff recommendations totaling $3.6 million in new reductions for 2010-11, on top of $1.6 million in reductions previously approved for next year. As a result, class sizes will be larger in kindergarten through third grade in 2010-11, and the District no longer will offer transportation for elementary and middle school students.

The Board approved a recommendation to eliminate four assistant principal positions at the elementary schools, a reduction previously forecast for 2011-12. Starting in 2010-11, there no longer will be assistant principals at Alvarado, Eastin, Emanuele, and Pioneer elementary schools.

This will be a hardship for teachers and students. Many young dedicated creative teachers will lose their positions at a time with jobs are increasingly difficult to obtain. Students in grades K-3 will now have 25 students in their class instead of 20. Those students with home and learning problems will find it more difficult to get the personalized attention they need to be academically successful. Many lower grade teachers who came in with the triads in 1995 for the beginning of class size reduction have never had 25 students at one time. This number of students changes the entire atmosphere of the classroom. Teachers will learn new ways to get the most out of their academic time with students. Teachers in these large schools, as much as 850 children, will have to handle many more disciplinary problems.

One huge role of the assistant principals has been problem solving student's major behavior and lifestyle issues. Assistant principals also keep track of truant students and those who are habitually late for school. They supervise CELDT which is the California English Language Development Test. CELDT testing is required in the state of California. The test is given to students who's home language is not English.

So everyone will be giving more. How much more can teachers and principals can give? Everyone was already giving their all. Are teachers and principals going the way of the tree in The Giving Tree, as a stump, with nothing more to give?

Preps

In New Haven for the last 20 years teachers and students had a daily prep. Prep is Library/Media, Music, Physical Education, and Science. Due to the requirements of the law, Physical Education was twice a week. The rest of the preps were once a week. Students would go to prep with their class. Classroom teachers would use this time to prepare for the day; meet with teachers, administrators, or parents; or gather materials. The prep teachers also had one period a day when they did not have a class. See also, library, music, physical education, science.

The AE Garden

Tammy "Where is our garden?"

Tammy and Bernadette

Margo

Cheryl


Around 1995 the garden was started by 3rd grade teacher Tammy Kafin Taylor. The district donated the land behind the 5th grade classrooms. Tammy obtained parents and volunteers from Americorp to build the raised beds. The ground was rototilled by Diandre Desandies. The first crop was fava beans and there were many many beans. The teachers were asked to adopt a bed for their classroom. The students weed, plant, water, and harvest the crops. Soon many of the 2nd and 3rd grade teachers, ie, Paul Brewer, Paul Hornbrook, Cheryl Konno Speakman, Margo Zanzinger, and Manyee Desandies were all very active in developing the first garden at Alvarado.

As an extension of the garden project, Alvarado received a grant to build the shed as part of the recycling program in the county. The tools, seeds, and wagons were stored in the shed. In an effort to make students and teachers more aware of our impact on the environment, the staff worked on a project to recycle, reduce and reuse paper at AE. Margo Zanzinger made a worm box and used some of the paper to show students how nature can nurture. At first this box was in her room, later it was moved to the garden.

Penny Johnson

As of this date, 2010, third grade teacher Penny Johnson is in charge of the garden. Students are still growing a variety of crops.

The box on the bottom is Margo Zanzinger's worm box used to help students understand the recycle process. The worms found a good home in the garden.

2009-2010

The first staff meeting was kicked off with Tracie Noriega and Cheri Benafield discussing the use of the Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz as a means of developing a good working relationship between all staff members. The Four Agreements are:

Don't Take Anything Personally
Don't Make Assumptions

Always Do Your Best

Be Impeccable With Your Word

The Ball Foundation has adopted New Haven Unified School District as a partner to support the development of high-performing schools. The Alvarado Instructional Leadership Team (ILT), formerly Instructional Support Team, met with the Ball/Targeted Leadership on a day long workshop. Those leaders returned to Alvarado to provide coaching for the teachers on collaboration and the use of data to target specific goals for student learning. There will be continued trainings throughout the year.

On Sept. 15, 2009 the Academic Performance Index (API) for the California Standardized Test were release by the Department of Education. Alvarado was again in the "800 Club" with a score of 826. This was a 12 point gain from the previous year. Schools must be in the 800 digits to avoid being a state "program improvement" site. The federal Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) report was release also with Alvarado meeting the goals for English & Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics. The Socioeconimically Disadvantage group is the only group that did not meet the goal in ELA. The AYP is tied into federal funding since Alvarado is a full Title I school.

Staff photos or memories 2008-2009

Tracie Noriega Principal
Cheri Benafield Assistant Principal
2008-2009
Click on the photo to enlarge.

2005-2009 Digitalized Data

By 1991 the district had installed a computerized library system and the office staff and principals had computers. Teachers did not have computers. There were a few Apple IIgs computers in the library and the staff room. The Commodore Pets were removed in 1990. A couple of years later the district installed a Macintosh lab, Macs in the media center, and computers in the classroom. In 2006 the Superintendent, Dr. Jaurequi's, goal was to expand from the instructional mode using technology to the data driven informational mode. In April of 2006 Chris Hobbs joined New Haven as the Executive Director of Technology replacing Rick Soper. With NCLB in place the district needed a method of tracking test scores. Hopefully this would help teachers consistently move test scores up. Thus began a series (3) of yearly student tests called NWEA.

Northwest Evaluation Assessment (NWEA) is a computerized assessment developed by a non-profit company to help teachers determine what content standards students have mastered, what ones they have partially mastered, and those that need to be retaught. The questions correlate to the CST, California Standardized Tests. This testing is done in all the computer labs three times a year.

Alvarado was fortunate to have technicians Tony Hampton at the district office, Dennis Arafiles on the network, and Max Lomax at Alvarado. Max covered more than one school. New Haven was lucky to have such great technicians. Max was always willing to do whatever he had to do to make everything work. Technology is a great tool, but districts need very efficient and competent technicians to make sure it works all the time, everytime. In a time of budget deficits it is always tempting to cut technicians. NO! NO! NO!

To interpret testing information DataDirector was acquired. This program helps make sense of a huge range of data to provide longitudinal tracking and reporting of student assessment data, student demographic data, and program/event attendance, as well as professional development activities, paraprofessional activities, student grades and teacher data.

Zangle is a student information system. This system can be customized to fit district needs. As of this year New Haven does not have a totally computerized grading system, but with Zangle this will be coming soon. It's possible teachers could even post their grades from home on the web.

1991-2010 Ethnic and Cultural Diversity

This logo reflects the diversity of the New Haven Unified School District. The California School Boards Association in a search for New Haven's new superintendent wrote this in September of 2008. "Diversity is reflected in the district’s ethnic breakdown: approximately 30 percent Hispanic, 25 percent Asian, 18 percent Filipino, 15 percent Caucasian and 12 percent African American." Alvarado fits only partially into that mold.

When the first settlers founded Union City there were Caucasian, Chinese, Japanese, those of Spanish and Mexican descent, and Filipinos. Before World War II Alvarado and Decoto only had a population of 2000 each. After World War II more Filipinos, some who had been relocated in Guam, took the opportunity to come to America. The population boomed. However, in the last 20 years there has not been an ethnic majority population at Alvarado. However, the richness of our population is not truly explained in statistics.

Alvarado has been fortunate to have students from India, Pakistan, Cambodia, Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Mexico, Philippines, Brazil, China, Japan, Sweden, Russia, France, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Nigeria, and many more. Alvarado has students with many different religious backgrounds and cultures. Some students are recent immigrants and some are second generation Americans. Some speak no English when they come. No matter what the background of the student, the goal is always to close the achievement gap and to help each student to become academically successful.

With this in mind Alvarado has always welcomed teachers who's background reflects the student cultures. Alvarado has Filipino, East Indian, Mexican, Afghan, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, African American, Korean, Italian, and Caucasian teachers. Alvarado also tries to provide translators for parents in as many languages as possible.

2007-2009 Introduction to Autism

In September of 2007 Alvarado began the first of the autistic classes. We had two full time autistic teachers, Mani Allen and Danielle Cruz. These were fully trained special education teachers. We also began getting students who were at the higher end of the autistic spectrum. Those students were called inclusion students because they were mainstreamed or included into regular classes. Some of these had already been mainstreamed previously at other schools and fit well into the regular classes. The inclusion students had a variety of learning styles much the same as the rest of the students. Most of the time they did not need an aide. Usually if there were more than one inclusion student in a class then an aide was assigned to the class.

The Alvarado prep teachers, music, PE, media/library, and science had for the first time autistic students from Ms. Allen's and Mrs. Cruz's classes. Students came with about 1 aide for every 2 students and were integrated into one standard class. All these students were 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders. The prep teachers knew they needed some autism training. However, when school started there was no autism training for the staff and little training throughout the school year. We had a series of three different inclusion specialists assigned to monitor these students, but due to all the changes it was often difficult for them to find the time to meet with teachers.

In the past those students at the lower end of the autistic spectrum were sent to non-public school placement for which the district payed the cost. In a February 9th, 2008 Board of Education meeting, the Director of Special Education, Carol Rohde, identified $200,000 of savings by not having students in non-public school placements. By adding a behaviorist and an occupational therapist the district would improve in-house placements for these students. Chief Business Officer, Carol Gregorich, reported that by 2008-2009 such changes would make a $1.5 million reduction in costs to the district and improvement in services to these students. However, at this board meeting there was no mention of exactly how in-house classes improved services to these students.

Staff photos or memories

Tracie Noriega Principal
Cheri Benafield Assistant Principal
2007-2008
Click on photo to enlarge.

Alvarado: 2007-2009 New Leadership & A New President

With some incoming students and staff from the Cabello closure, we now were a school of approximately 950 students. The former principal of Cabello, Tracie Noriega was our principal and Cheri Benafield was back as assistant principal for 2007-2008 and 2008-2009. Mrs. Noriega brought with her a group of supportive parents who started the Parent Teacher Club at Alvarado. We had not had a parent club for 18 years.

The kindergarten teachers and students now had all day kindergarten. Kindergarten students had previously been half day. This program was hugely successful with parents and was continued the following years.

Traci brought five teachers from Cabello to Alvarado. Two of those teachers Kimberly Pratt and Alisha Valine were connected to a NOAA science grant. Ms. Pratt wrote a B-WET grant "Bringing Science to Life for Students, Teachers and the Community" to provide watershed experiences for students, staff development for teachers and community awareness of our local neighborhood. In addition to classroom instruction on pollution awareness, tide pool organisms, research reporting, and marine mammals, whale-watching cruises were added as part of the curriculum. Science scores have gone up for students working with this grant. (Whale Watching with 5th Graders. Tri-City Voice. March 27, 2007)

Although our Superintendent, Dr. Jaurequi signed an extended contract until 2012, in the summer of 2008 she announced she was leaving New Haven. August 31, 2008 was her last day and Dave Pava, a long time New Haven principal, was Interim Superintendent.

Kari McVeigh

On December 1, 2008 Kari McVeigh came aboard as Superintendent of New Haven Unified School District. She also inherited a declining budget. In the summer of 2009 the California State Legislature made drastic cuts to the education budget. According to the TCV, McVeigh said the strategic plan, no matter how well crafted, is subject to change, but she would leave it in place with few changes. (Dynamism comes to New Haven. Tri-City Voice. Feb. 11, 2009) Since New Haven has great cultural and ethnic diversity, academic equity is an issue Ms. McVeigh plans to address. Not long after Kari McVeigh joined New Haven, Glynn Thompson, Chief Academic Officer, left the district. In June Wendy Gudalewicz was appointed by the Board of Education to serve as Chief Academic Officer of the New Haven Unified School District.

Wendy Gudalewicz

I cannot say anything about new leadership without mentioning our new President of the United States, Barack Obama. This election greatly affected the students. All students did not agree but all had an opinion. In my 17 years at this school, this was the first time the students became fully engaged in extensive conversations about elections and democracy because they were genuinely interested. "Just in Time Learning" took place for many students. Many but not all of our students were extremely excited about a person of color being inaugurated in 2009. It instilled in students the belief that all things really are possible in America.

2005-2008 Two Schools Close

Carmen Jorgenson continued as principal when Alvarado jumped into the "800 Club" in 2005-06, when the school had a 42-point gain from the previous year. (Rick La Plant. Elementary schools retain membership in '800 club. Tri-City Voice. Sept. 11, 2007.) This was a year of massive stress for the staff as it was well known that due to budget problems one elementary school in our area was going to be closed. We did not want it to be Alvarado. Carmen told us that she thought test scores might be a factor in the decision as to which school was closed. Therefore it was up to us to get the scores up. The scores for Alvarado went up and we were saved. Keep in mind that for many years Carmen had been a reading specialist, so teachers received any help they needed.

On September 19, 2006 the school board voted to close Cabello and Barnard White Middle School at the end of the school year. In 2006 - 2007 Carmen Jorgenson was still principle at AE. Now Wei Stevens was assistant principle. Mrs. Stevens was dedicated, supportive, and great with discipline. She and Carmen made a good consistent team. Using many different forems, Cabello parents and staff were made to understand that the district could not afford to keep that school open. However, it never really closed. It reopened as the Cabello Student Services Center which included a parent and a special education center as one of several programs at the "new" school. Not surprisingly, this caused some disgruntled feelings among some of the former staff and parents. At the end of 2007, Carmen retired as principal. The staff was sad to see her go but they understood the toll of being a principal.

Alvarado Now

Keith Guernsey Demos Document Camera

August 2008

2006-2010 New Literacy: Writers Workshop

All schools in New Haven have had various literacy programs aimed at increasing student success in reading and writing. We had Terry Johnson Strategies, California Literature Project, Rebecca Sitton Spelling, and McCracken Spelling Through Phonics. There have probably been others I am unable to recall. Most recently we had CELL and ExCeLL with two literacy coaches. While performing duties as literacy coaches, the teachers were also full time classroom teachers. According to the action plan of the Strategic Plan (1.11) New Haven was to develop a model for literacy instruction. The new literacy model adapted was Writers Workshop. However, according to Sally Kaneko this was not new for New Haven. It was used in the 1980s by teachers working on Developmentally Appropriate Practices (DAP). It was also research based but came out of the University of California.

In 2006 Cheri Benafield was named Literacy Specialist for the district. Glynn Thompson and Benafield's main thrust was to help the district reach a goal that 85 percent of all students will be proficient on state assessments by 2010. At that time the current achievement level was about 50 percent. (Rick La Plant. Promotions and changes in New Haven Unified. Tri-City Voice. Aug. 8. 2006)

The District began piloting Writing Workshop in some classrooms midway through the 2006-07 school year. According to Glynn Thompson, at that time, Chief Academic Officer of New Haven School District, "Writing is the highest and most rigorous competency in literacy". Writing Workshop is the foundational piece to the district's literacy plan. (Rick La Plant. New Haven Community Forum summary. Tri-City Voice. Oct 24, 2007.)

In Writing Workshop, a research-based approach from Columbia University, the teaching of writing happens daily and the focus is on authentic writing. The writing process is emphasized, published pieces are celebrated, and rubrics are used to promote consistency across grade levels, within each school and throughout the District.

Implemented in New Haven kindergarten, first- and second-grade classrooms in 2007-08, Writing Workshop was expanded to grades 3-5 in 2008-09. Alvarado became a full Title I school in 2007-2008. Due to the funding of being a full Title I school, Alvarado has been fortunate to have two full time Writing Workshop literacy coaches, Rachel Saucedo, and Colleen Paltrineri. Ms. Saucedo was a former classroom and ESL teacher and Mrs. Paltrineri was a former classroom teacher. They received extensive training within the district and at the Columbia University training center.

Staff meetings were now only twice a month and there were no more Wednesday mornings for trainings. Two full time literacy coaches who could go into the classrooms on a daily basis to teach Writers Workshop lessons to students was the most practical method for obtaining training for teachers. Teachers watch, learn, and then try the techniques on their own.