July 29, 2010
July 29, 2010
This school profile was commissioned by Colorado Succeeds, a non-profit, non-partisan coalition of business leaders committed to improving education for workforce development and economic growth. Colorado Succeeds is working for the improvement and expansion of high-quality Career and Technical Education programs in Colorado, and offers this school profile as a learning tool for Colorado’s educators and policymakers. For more information on our efforts and other resources, visit www.ColoradoSucceeds.org
Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) is among the 10 largest school districts in California, serving approximately 50,000 K-12 students and 20,000 adult education students.
Student Ethnic Composition:
One of the most distinctive features of Sacramento is that all of its high school students participate in a small, theme-based learning environment. SCUSD currently provides 42 high school options for students, including six “small” high schools and 36 theme-based Small Learning Communities (SLCs) located at six “comprehensive” high schools.
The six small high schools enroll no more than 500 students each and are all theme-based, covering such topics as engineering and sciences, technology, and health professions.
Each of the six comprehensive high schools houses several SLCs of no more than 300-500 students each. Students are grouped together for two to four years with the same teachers and as a goal take at least 85% of their coursework within a given community. Within each Smaller Learning Community, a number of career pathways are offered. A sampling of career pathways in the district are: Criminal & Social Justice, Information Technology, Medical & Health Sciences, International & Environmental Studies, Public Services, Construction & Design, and Arts & Communications.
Since 2002, students enrolled in career classes grew from 750 to more than 3,000 students in 2007.
In 1996, the Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) received a call to action from the Sacramento community distressed by two major concerns -- the poor quality of skills possessed by graduates of the city’s high schools, and a rash of serious safety incidents involving both students and teachers.
Administrators credit Dr. Jim Sweeney, former superintendent, for his leadership and vision. Lynn Tafoya, associate director of High School Reform SCUSD, paraphrased Dr. Sweeney's vision as: “Our high schools need to be a welcoming place where students are cared for while getting a world-class education.” The concept was simple: young people need to connect relationally and teaching needs to be relevant and rigorous. One adult caring for a student makes the difference for that student to come back tomorrow.
Working in conjunction with the School Board, Dr. Sweeney formed a “Blue Ribbon” committee of 300 community stakeholders to discuss and plan a major change in the way the district’s high school operated. Through candid, honest dialog the Committee developed a vision for a completely redesigned district. The original concept that was conceived was reorganizing the large, dysfunctional high schools into smaller learning communities, so that students would know and be known, strengthening their relational ties and supporting them in their educational pursuits. Career-themed academies within the SLC’s was not originally an emphasis in the redesign discussions. However, as groups of students were engaged in planning for the redesigned schools, the students expressed interest in gaining more career-relevant learning opportunities. Hence, the career academy focus emerged in concert with the relational focus.
In 1999, SCUSD embarked on a multi-year endeavor to create safe, high-performing and student-centered high schools in Sacramento.
Contributing to the progress in SCUSD has been a larger environment in California, including state leadership from the Superintendent of Education and the Governor that is very supportive of career and technical education. There are two advocacy groups who are visibly promoting CTE from somewhat different perspectives: GetREAL and the Coalition for Multiple Pathways. GetREAL is a coalition of business, labor, agriculture, public safety, health care, child advocates and educators who believe California schools should provide a balanced education that includes challenging academic studies and career technical education for “hands on” learning — so students are prepared for the 21st Century jobs and have the skills to succeed, whether they choose college or not. The Coalition for Multiple Pathways is a statewide alliance of education, industry, and community organizations, supported through funding from the Irvine Foundation and the think-tank ConnectEd, that is dedicated to improving California’s high schools and preparing students for postsecondary education and career options. More than sixty organizations have joined to date. While both organizations support the role of career and technical education, GetReal seems more inclined to CTE as an alternative to college-going, while the Coalition for Multiple Pathways promotes CTE involvement as another means for preparing for college attendance.
Based on interviews with administrators from SCUSD, the district identifies more closely with the Multiple Pathways approach. District leaders acknowledge that this system-wide approach of integrating career-relevance and college preparation is more difficult to implement, and can be uncomfortable for some teachers on both the academic and CTE fronts, however they see the potential payoff – a total fusion of career and technical education and core academics – as worth the effort.
Back to TopDesign Element on Display. See 2.c. “Relevance and Context”
The core of the re-design plan centered on the creation of Small Learning Communities (SLCs). Each SLC was designed around “themed” academies based on career pathways, such as Engineering & Industrial Technology, Health, Business & Information Technology, Health, and Business. ALL of the district’s six large high schools have been redesigned around the SLC model.
The reinvention of SCUSD high schools were based on seven essential elements:
The district received over $12 million in external funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that was administered through an “intermediary” organization, Linking Education and Economic Development (LEED). LEED was formed in 1992 as a coalition of regional business, education, community and government leaders.
In February 2007, LEED shifted its focus to address national, state and regional educational and workforce development objectives. As a result, LEED’s revised scope of work includes three specific segments: Workforce Development, Educational Development and Student Development.
LEED continues to be a strong supporter of CTE in the Sacramento region through its work:
Design Element on Display. Success Factor 2.e. “Range of Work-based Learning Opportunities”
According to the e21 report, business and community partnerships have more than doubled in recent years, increasing from 175 in 2003-04 to more than 400 in 2006-07. Additionally, internship opportunities have increased from 592 in 2003-04 to 1,745 in 2006-07.
Mike Brunelle, CTE Director, stated that maintaining strong relationships with the local business community is a key factor in SCUSD's success. As such, he employs a team of “Career Pathway Entrepreneurs” that each have responsibility for building relationships with businesses in designated sectors of the economy. The Entrepreneurs provide students, teachers, and schools with information about career fields, connections to industry resources, technical assistance to teachers of CTE classes, and assistance with grant development to support school-based programs.
Brunelle intentionally hires individuals with a private business background for these positions, rather than career educators, because the private sector experience builds stronger credibility with the business partners. This Career Pathway Entrepreneur role is housed as a district-level service so there can be more efficient coordination between businesses and similar career academies that operate at different schools. This district-centered approach avoids duplication of outreach and coordination among the career academies.
Ultimately, the Career Pathway Entrepreneurs create an environment where partnerships are created and businesses want to be actively involved. This means identifying the resources that businesses need and providing value to them through internships and instructional opportunities.
Brunelle cited several examples of strong partnerships, including the Health Professions School where they have worked with the local medical community and hospitals to build a “pipeline of success” for local community.
Design Element on Display. See Success Factor 1.B. “Personalization Strategies”
As summarized above, former superintendent Dr. Jim Sweeney's vision for reform was that: the district's high schools are welcoming and students are cared for while getting a world-class education. He believed that students need to connect and that teaching needs to be relevant and rigorous.
In a student survey conducted by LEED to measure the impact of the redesign effort (the e21 report), 91 percent of students agreed that at least one adult in the SLC knew their first name and 85 percent of students agreed that they have access to a counselor on campus and a good relationship with one or more teachers.
To strengthen the student voice, students also have the opportunity to participate in district-wide decision making through the Youth Congress and the Student Advisory Council (SAC). Additionally, a student-elected representative of the SAC sits on the Board of Education.
Design Element on Display. Success Factor 3.a. “District Approach to Themed-Options”
The most daring decision of the School Board and district leadership was to go “wall-to-wall” in all of the district’s high schools, rather than making such an approach optional or “pilot testing” the approach in one or two schools, before involving the other schools. The initial planning began in 2000 and was implemented at the beginning of the 2002-03 school year. All of the district's high schools were transitioned at the same time.
School leaders were emphatic that the relational aspects of SLC’s and the relevance aspect of career-themed academies were essential for all students to participate in as quickly as possible. They also believed it would be highly inequitable to offer these opportunities to only a limited number of students in the district, while other students would be relegated to dysfunctional schools.
The district offers completely open enrollment for its high schools. Students are automatically eligible to attend their “home” school (the school located geographically closest to their home), but may also participate in the open enrollment process to select a different school. This process, which can be completed on-line or in person, takes place in the month of February. If a particular school is fully enrolled, a computer generated lottery system is used to determine placement. Programs that qualify for funding through the California Partnership Academies require an additional admission application, but admission to the standard SLC's is automatic.
All public school students use the regional transit system via buses and light rail is inexpensive and widely available. All the large high schools are accessible by the regional transit system, so transportation for the open enrollment system is not a significant barrier for student participation.
The majority of students attending the SCUSD high schools are enrolled directly into the SLC's at the 9th grade level, where they are oriented to the high school environment by classroom teachers. One high school has a Freshman Academy, which does not have a specific career them, then students enter career academies at the 10th grade.
Design Element on Display. Success Factor 3.b. “Rigorous Academic Preparation”
Students who are not meeting the academic standards for their courses are offered the opportunity to take additional classes during “zero period” or “seventh period.” There are also opportunities to take classes on topics such as study skills during the school day.
Design Element on Display. Success Factor 5.b. “Collaborative, Mission-Focused Leadership”
District leaders stress the importance of open communication between administrators, teachers, students, and families, and strong connections between the schools and district leadership. This communication can be both formal and informal, including site visits to schools, soliciting feedback, and academic conferencing with groups of teachers. When asked about the importance of public input, Lynn Tafoya re-emphasized that the district's reinvention efforts were largely based upon public opinion that high school students were unsafe and disconnected.
The district continually solicits input from students. Students are offered opportunities to provide feedback through the Youth Congress. Students were also involved in the initial planning. According to Lynn Tafoya, a recent student survey showed that most students enjoy the small learning communities but that they want more rigor in their core courses. As a result, the district applied for and received a grant to strengthen the content knowledge of core academic teachers.
Back to TopIn its implementation study, LEED cites the following as lessons learned through the redesign process:
Another lesson that has emerged as the original round of foundation funding comes to a close is the urgent need for a sustainability plan for protecting redesign funding. CTE Administrator Mike Brunelle explained that for the smaller learning community concept to function ideally, more staff members are needed to retain the “purity of scheduling” within the small learning community. Purity of Scheduling is the concept that the relational aspect of the SLC can only be realized if students are actually enrolled in the same classes for at least half of their classes, and ideally even more. Ongoing funds are also needed to maintain enough central office staff to provide a high level of service to the school personnel and community partners and to provide ongoing professional development.
CTE Director Brunelle indicated that, through the SLC/Career-themed Academy Initiative, the district’s graduation rate has risen significant and the dropout rate has fallen, which significantly increases the number of students enrolled and has boosted state payments for average daily attendance. Brunelle also cited the enrollment of more than 700 high school students from outside the district (compared to only 10 out-of-district students at the elementary level) as an additional indicator of the success of the SLC/Career-themed Academy Initiative.
Back to TopDesign Element on Display. Success Factor 5.a. “Robust Accountability Measures”
The school district’s emphasis on personalization, career relevance and home-school connections is paying off in terms of graduation and drop-out trends that have moved strongly in positive directions.
More work lies ahead for improving academic achievement. We saw little evidence of curricular integration among academic and CTE content integration, and little evidence of project-based learning.
Five years after the redesign implementation began, LEED released a report demonstrating encouraging signs of success, including:
The SCUSD reform incorporates the concept of Scheduling Purity, whereby students remain with a certain cohort of classmates for as many of their courses as possible. This is particularly emphasized in the 9th and 10th grades. However, as noted by SCUSD administrators, scheduling purity is complex since certain courses are by their nature specialized (for example, band performance, and Advanced Placement courses) and require additional teachers.
Within the SCUSD, two schools in particular stand out for their accomplishments: Luther Burbank High School and the Arthur A. Benjamin Health Professions High School (HPHS).
Luther Burbank High School is one of the only schools in the nation that has emerged from a highly-at-risk for restructuring under the No Child Left Behind Act. This means that student performance at Burbank was so dismal that for four years the school was on the verge of being closed down or completely restructured. Through an aggressive pursuit of the smaller learning community and career-themed strategies, Burbank has dramatically improved student performance at all levels and has emerged from the emergency status, and now is considered in good standing.
The Health Professions High School, which opened in fall 2005, has received national recognition for tightly integrating a health care curriculum into the core curriculum. The administration of HPHS has built strong partnerships with ConnectEd, which helped in craft the Health Sciences Pathway, as part of its multiple pathways initiative. HPHS also has developed strong relationships with local health care institutions, so that health care professional regularly provide guest lecturers to students, and provide student internship opportunities, as well as local universities.
Design Element on Display. Success Factor 3.c. “Early opportunity for postsecondary study”
All of the SCUSD high schools have established partnerships with city colleges and the district is also pursuing agreements with community colleges for CTE courses articulation. According to Mike Brunelle, there are currently three formalized agreements with community colleges, and an additional six in process.
According to the e21 report published in 2008, the number of Advanced Placement (AP) classes increased from 1,637 in 2002-03 to 2,133 in 2005-06, including an increased number of under-represented student groups taking AP classes. The total number of students enrolled these AP courses has increased from 209 during the 2002-03 school year to 609 during the 2005-06 school year.
The district has been ranked as a Leadership Level district by the Ford Partnership for Advanced Studies (Ford PAS) and continues its involvement with the network of communities recognized by the Ford Motor Company Fund (the philanthropic arm of the Ford Motor Company.) District staff regularly participate in conferences and meetings sponsored by Ford PAS.
Back to TopFunding for CTE programs is a concern for administrators, particularly as foundation grants expire. As noted by administrators, running small learning communities is more expensive than a typical high school due to the need for additional teachers.
California, as a state, has been in a fiscal crisis for almost two years, and what was once an avalanche of new funding for CTE initiatives is drying up rapidly. According to Mike Brunelle, Regional Occupational Centers and Programs (ROCP) were made a “tier 3” budget priority, which means that they received a 15 percent reduction in state funding. The SCUSD, which has control over the funding stream, has agreed to keep funding in place for these programs, however in some smaller districts, the ROCP program funding has been eliminated.
The SCUSD was one of only 10 California high schools to be awarded a planning grant by ConnectEd: The California Center for College and Career. This $125,000 grant is part of the District Initiative for Expanding Pathways and is for use to develop master plans for expanding multiple pathways in their high schools. The district's plan includes building on the personalization aspect of its programs and expanding on teacher training and professional development. The district is planning to apply for additional implementation funds.
While district leaders are in agreement with the general consensus that is emerging among state educational leaders that CTE and college preparation is not an either/or proposition, there is still a misperception among some administrators, teachers, parents, and students that CTE is substandard education and that every student needs to earn a bachelor’s degree in college to ensure career success. To battle this perception, administrators are actively developing new articulation agreements with community colleges and four-year colleges to ensure that students enrolled in career pathways are participating in the core academic courses they will need (the A-G course) to meet college-level entrance requirements. Al of the district’s career pathways are structured so that the A-G courses are the presumed standard and core courses, with the exception of AP courses, have students at all ability levels. Students needing additional instruction have the opportunity to take extra support classes.
The district is also beginning to align its career awareness and exploration activities into the elementary and middle schools. SCUSD has launched pilot programs to help middle school students develop a stronger awareness of their personal interests and aptitudes and know that the career academies are an option which they might choose at the high school level.
Not surprisingly, the effectiveness and levels of integration between CTE and academic programming within SCUSD schools varies in part due to the buy-in of the individual school administrators. This is an expected downside of full district implementation of the SLC concept – not every school leader is fully vested in the concept. It stands to reason, that is a school leader is not fully vested in the SLC and career academy concepts, implementation by teachers will also be somewhat irregular.
In the 2008 site visit, we did not observe the use of a district-wide evaluation tool that measured quality of implementation of SLCs and career academies.
The statistics on improved graduation rates and lower dropout rates seem to support the notion that students at SCUSD feel cared for and connected with their teachers. However, there is less evidence of academic gains and curriculum integration.
The school district’s data indicates a dramatic improvement in graduation rates and reduction in dropping out, but less impressive gains in student academic achievement scores.
In our brief visits and meetings with teachers, we noted a strong emphasis on improving the relational aspect of the school environment, particularly of teachers knowing and attending to the needs of students. We did not observe, however, a well-developed emphasis on the structured and intentional integration of academic content into the CTE environment, or of significant cross-curricular coordination and collaboration among teachers. If in fact, these elements of the career academy model are less well developed than the relational aspects, this fact might account for less impressive gains in student academic achievement.
As the district and its teachers begin to place more emphasis on curriculum redesign and coordination, and use of problem-based instructional strategies, stronger academic gains will likely follow.
As much as any school district in the nation, Sacramento City Unified City School District, has embarked upon a far-ranging and comprehensive redesign of the high school experience for its students, aligned with the mission of engaging students, and keeping them in school so they can graduate with strong prospects for further education and gainful employment. Progress toward these goals has already been significant. As the district navigates through the state’s financial crisis and works to strengthen the implementation of SLC’s, previous gains can be consolidated, and student success can be raised to even higher levels.
Mike Brunelle
Director, Career and Technical Preparation Department
Sacramento City Unified School District
5735 47th Avenue
Sacramento, CA 95824
916-643-9202
Email
Last Updated, June 2009
This case study was prepared by the Meeder Consulting Group, LLC, a firm providing research, analysis and strategic advisement on promising education practices. Hans Meeder, President of the firm, was formerly Deputy Assistant Secretary in the U.S. Department of Education. For more information, visit the website: www.meederconsulting.com.
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