NYKids Partners with CASDA and Capital Region BOCES to Offer Workshop for Educators
Dr. Michael Piccirillo, Executive Director of CASDA (far right), Dr. Kristen Wilcox, Director of Research and Development for NYKids, Susan Tangorre, Faculty at CASDA, Dr. Francesa Durand, Co-Investigator for NYKids, and Dr. Kathryn Schiller, Co-Investigator for NYKids (far left) welcome workshop attendees.
by Catherine Kramer, Research Assistant (Edited by Kristen C. Wilcox, Director NYKids)
NYKids partnered with the Capital Area School Development Association (CASDA) and Capital Region BOCES to offer a workshop focused on the findings from the latest study, College and Career Readiness: Promising Practices from Odds-Beating Secondary Schools.
NYKids Director Kristen C. Wilcox along with co-investigators Hal Lawson, Kathryn Schiller, Francesca Durand, Graduate Assistant Catherine Kramer and Post-doctoral Fellow Aaron Leo all contributed to the workshop. They shared the four themes that emerged from the study with specific case study examples of these themes manifested in odds-beating secondary schools.
The themes included:
- Co-Constructing a Humanizing School Community
- Collaborating to Define and Achieve Success
- Cultivating Culturally Responsive, Inclusive and Facilitative Leadership
- Customizing Innovative Polices, Programs and Practices
School leaders and educators from around the Capital Region and beyond worked in groups to study the themes and consider how these practices could inform improvement work in their own schools and districts.
Educators identified many areas improvement including:
- Integrating restorative practices in place of traditional approaches to discipline;
- Engaging young people in planning their own learning pathways;
- Involving parents and young people in shared decision making for the school;
- Modeling inclusive and cooperative behaviors for students; and
- Shifting from a graduation focus to an occupation focus (i.e. what a student will do with what he or she learns upon graduating).
NYKids, CASDA and the Capital Region BOCES are teaming up again to offer a two-day Intensive Improvement Planning Institutes for elementary and secondary school teams this summer. See:
Learning from Odds-Beating Schools: A Continuous Improvement Innovation for College and Career Readiness
Date: July 17th and July 18th
Location: Capital Region BOCES
For more information, please contact Nancy Andress (nandress@casdany.org).
Want to hear more from NYKids more often? Subscribe to our newsletter.
