National Urban Alliance & Redwood City School District Initiative

“…I find so important that these structures of the NUA program give everybody a framework of a voice. And that everybody’s voice is valid…”
—Jeni Overbey, 3rd Grade Teacher, Clifford School

The Redwood City School District (RCSD) is in its third year of a collaboration with the National Urban Alliance (NUA). Through the pandemic, administrators, teachers, NUA Mentors and students have persevered and worked toward deeper implementation of The Pedagogy of Confidence and the High Operational Practices developed by Dr. Yvette Jackson.

On this post:

• Overview
• Pedagogy of Confidence Guidance Protocol
• The Partnership Model
• What is National Urban Alliance?
• What is the Pedagogy of Confidence?

An example of the commitment toward equity consciousness education for all learners was evident in a recent two-day Professional Learning Cycle in December 2021 with site administrators. On the first day, NUA personnel conducted classroom walkthroughs with site administrators to pilot the newly developed Pedagogy of Confidence Protocol, a tool to measure level of implementation of the 7 High Operational Practices. On day two of the Professional Learning Cycle, RCSD administrators from across the district came together to further develop their understanding of the High Operational Practices by conducting a virtual “district walk through” of RCSD classrooms, again using the Pedagogy of Confidence Protocol.

The video below on the left shares teacher reflections and students in classrooms with The Pedagogy of Confidence High Operational Practices in action (December 2021), and the video on the right is from a recent Leadership Training (January 2022) facilitated by Yvette Jackson, Maria Sudduth and Linda Montes with leaders from all Redwood City Schools. The Leadership Session included use of the observations in action (with the video) while visioning forward using the Pedagogy of Confidence Protocol.

“…in this framework comfortable, confident and has the structure to be able to do so… scaffold in different levels… in the NUA program lays down a sense of confidence everybody’s thought is valued… amazing”
—Jeni Overbey, 3rd Grade Teacher, Clifford School
see the video below, left

Pedagogy of Confidence Protocol
The Pedagogy of Confidence® (PoC®) Protocol provides district and school partners with the tool to monitor progress from the beginning level of PoC implementation (Innovation), to developing PoC practices (Building) toward deeper and sustainable implementation (Sustainability).  The PoC Protocol explicates the 7 High Operational Practices with indicators leading toward sustainable practices. The full document delineates the Essential Criteria and each of the three levels of PoC implementation for each of the 7 High Operational Practices.

See the complete Pedagogy of Confidence Guidance Document (PDF)

• IDENTIFYING AND ACTIVATING STUDENT STRENGTHS. Teaching that encourages students to recognize and apply their strengths releases neurotransmitters of pleasure, motivating students to actively participate and invest in a learning experience, set goals for their learning, and follow through with their learning for meaningful application and deeper development of strengths for personal agency. 
• BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS. Students fare best cognitively, socially and emotionally when they know they are liked, appreciated, valued as part of a vibrant, caring community. Positive relationships stimulate oxytocin, positively impacting both the motivation and the memory capacity critical for learning.
• ELICITING HIGH INTELLECTUAL PERFORMANCE. Students crave challenges. Their intelligence flourishes when they are asked to think at high levels about complex issues, demonstrate what they know in creative ways, and develop useful habits of mind such as reflection, raising substantive questions for deeper understanding and thinking flexibly and innovatively.
• PROVIDING ENRICHMENT. Enrichment taps students’ interests, generates strengths, expands their cognitive capacity, and guides them to apply what they know in novel situations for self-actualization.
• INTEGRATING PREREQUISITES FOR ACADEMIC LEARNING. Foundation schema building activities are critical so that students have the right foundations for learning new information and acquiring new skills. This foundation heightens students’ understanding, competence, confidence, and motivation.
• SITUATING LEARNING IN THE LIVES OF STUDENTS. Students perform most effectively when they can connect new learnings to what is relevant and meaningful to them.  These connections validate their lived experiences activating the focusing of the brain through its Reticular Activating System (RAS). Without such personal connections, the new learnings are not likely to be retained and used effectively.
• AMPLIFYING STUDENT VOICE. Encouraging students to voice their interests, perspectives, reflections, opinions and enabling them to make personal contributions is not only motivating but also builds the confidence, agency, academic language, investment, and skill students need to join wider communities of learners and doers in the world outside of school. Students know their voices are heard as they have influence in their own learning process. 

Download the complete Pedagogy of Confidence Guidance Document (PDF)

The Partnership Model
National Urban Alliance (NUA) and Redwood City School District collaboration is now in it’s third year. The Professional Learning Cycles with NUA has included multiple elementary and middle schools, district coaches, leadership trainings, school board trainings, facilitating the Equity Committee with community participation that has evolved into equity policy and amplifying student voice.

What is National Urban Alliance?
www.nuatc.org
National Urban Alliance, NUA, was founded in 1989 at Columbia University focusing on equity consciousness through professional development of whole schools and whole districts. NUA’s hands on approach of the Pedagogy of Confidence framework by Yvette Jackson with High Operational Practices models its’ commitment to equity consciousness through pedagogy that amplifies student voice for self direction and self actualization. In Redwood City the collaboration has included NUA Scholars modeling lessons with students in classrooms (in-person and virtual), district trainings of educators, on-site support of educators, leaders trainings, school board trainings, amplifying student voice and more.

What is The Pedagogy of Confidence?
www.pedagogyofconfidence.net
The Pedagogy of Confidence is an approach to learning and teaching that is based on the fearless expectation that all students are capable of high intellectual performances when provided High Operational Practices™ that motivate self-directed learning and self-actualization.

These seven High Operational Practices are the fulcrum around which the “gifted” education of the Pedagogy of Confidence revolves, gearing the objectives for each practice to facilitate students exploring and acting on their potential to produce the high intellectual performances that can motivate self-directed learning, self-actualization, and self-transcendence.   The inherent strategies and actions used to identify and build on strengths, provide enrichment and create schema that connects to a student’s cultural frame of reference inherent in “gifted education” serve to enhance comprehension that results in strengthened competence, confidence, resilience and high intellectual performances (Jackson, 2017).

Students from different schools share their thinking on what is Amplifying Student Voice and how it connects with the RCSD mission of leadership, voice and bravery with students.

Grade 4 and 5 teachers at Clifford Elementary School are interviewed by the district coach in the video interview below. Their reflective conversation provides insight to the professionalism of the team, the excitement of being collaborative and creative colleagues, and the gifts they bring to each other and importantly the students.

I learned so much from my teammates.

…providing different methods for students to show their learning…

…we see this great opportunity to dig deeper….

…the level of student engagement… for distance learning and when we move back into the traditional classroom settings…

using the Pedagogical Flow Map with priming and processing… take it up a notch…

…the district has done an amazing job…

Clifford Elementary School

• Shannon Cody – Grade 4
• Stefanie Eaton – Grade 4
• Christianne Kapelle Curtis – Grade 5
• Katrina Zak – Grade 5
• Katelin McClure – Coach and Interviewer

The third session with The RCSD Equity Committee included a presentation by California
State Board of Education President Dr. Linda Darling Hammond. Dr. Darling-Hammond provided an overview of the Districts Advancing Racial Equity (DARE) Tool as part of The Equity Committee process. Linda Darling-Hammond is President and CEO of the Learning Policy Institute and the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education Emeritus at Stanford University. She is author or editor of a number of award-winning books and more than 500 publications on education policy and practice. Her work focuses on achieving equitable and empowering education for all children through a focus on meaningful learning, educator quality, and adequate resources.

In this post below:

• Linda Darling-Hammond Video from Session Three
• Dare Tool Visual
• Session Three the Whole Session

Linda Darling-Hammond Presents the Districts Advancing Racial Equity (DARE) Tool

Districts Advancing Racial Equity (DARE) Tool Visual

The RCSD Equity Committee Session Three Video (Complete Session)

“I thought today was marvelous — energetic, loving, profound, inspiring. Your quotes are still “running around my brain,” and I cannot thank you enough for your willingness to be here with us today.   hope you’re still glowing from last week’s event… truly a highlight of this year’s program!”            
Charlene Margot

Eric Cooper, president and founder of the NUA; regional director Maria Sudduth, senior scholar Robert Price, and regional director and senior scholar, Stephanie Rome, joined Linda Montes, Assistant Superintendent for Equity, Redwood City for a Parent Venture on-line meeting of 88 parents.  Parent Venture’s Co-founder and CEO, Charlotte Margot, who moderated the session was joined by Bev Hartman, of Parent Ventura.

About this Event

• The National Urban Alliance for Effective Education (NUA) believes that all public school children can achieve the high academic performance demanded by our ever-changing global community.
• Parents, educators, clinicians, and community members welcome! Free admission. Simultaneous Spanish interpretation will be available.
• This RCSD Parent Education Series presentation is sponsored by Redwood City School District, Sequoia Healthcare District, and The Parent Venture.
• Questions? Contact Charlene Margot, MA, Co-Founder and CEO, The Parent Venture (The Parent Education Series), at cmargot@parentventure.org

NUA has an irrefutable belief that all children are capable of succeeding at the highest levels.  NUA presenters spoke about the innate gifts and talents each child has. The organization works to accelerate learning for all schoolchildren and youth.  Strategies were described.  Student generated critical thinking and problem-solving were captured on videos of Redwood City students.  Presenters modeled how with RCSD educators, students are embraced by love, support and empathy; helping them the students to see themselves and the cultural strengths of their families in the lessons we develop with RCSD teachers and principals.

Although issues of equity have been conversations in RCSD in recent years, opportunities to reimagine education in RCSD through an equity consciousness lens took on more urgency as the Covid Pandemic highlighted inequities across the district. The RCSD Leadership adopted an Equity Policy and committed to work with the larger Redwood City community to develop Administrative Regulations for specific actions toward more equitable practices. The Committee includes District Leadership, teachers, staff, parents, and community partners.

The first of three Equity Committee sessions was held on January 22, 2021. The next two concurrent sessions will be held on the following two weeks. The sessions included over sixty participants in the sessions facilitated by Yvette Jackson, whose Pedagogy of Confidence research and book are the focus of the equity consciousness focus. The first sessions are available to view in four videos on The Equity Committee webpage. The first of four videos is below.

The Hub

This RCSD website is created by the coaches for all teachers in the district with planning for equity consciousness. This web site is designed to support NUA participating teachers easily access resources such as articles, lesson plans, unit plans, videos of teachers implementing NUA strategies, and recorded Professional Learning opportunities. The Hub can be accessed by clicking on the image or click here to visit The Hub.

The Amplifying Student Voice goes virtual with students facilitated in multiple sessions with their voices on equity, virtual learning and the quality of their education a focus. Their learning and questions have included survey with their voices that is being implemented in December 2020 and January 2021. The video below provides a view of the sessions of with the students. Download the accompanying PowerPoint used with the students.

Video Credits:  Thank You Students Grades 4-8 from Schools: Adelante Selby, Clifford, Garfield, Kennedy, Orion, Roosevelt
Facilitator and film editor: Robert Seth Price, NUA Senior Scholar; Linda Montes – RCSD Assistant Superintendent; Maria Sudduth – NUA Project Director: Whitney Eakin, Niffa Zuno – RCSD Coaches: Jesse Silverman, Art Educator; Stefanie Rome – NUA Senior Scholar.

The Student Developed Survey Date from 400 Students

The data from the student voice surveys is with quantified data, categorized when appropriate. Also included are quotes and exact words (in a Wordle) while being mindful of anonymity.

There were three responses to the question “8. Why do you think this? (a response to the previous question, “How do you feel people treat you at school?”) that could be a powerful direction to take the students in our next student voice group.

The students were overall positive and supportive in sentiments for their teachers who are trying their best and the empathy for fellow classmates. We participate in supporting the RCSD district with amplifying student voices for the hope that we can use their voices as our guiding compass for action.

The Online Survey

Download the complete survey as a PDF file.

See the survey online.

The Survey Results 

The following video clip is a compilation of the National Urban Alliance (NUA)  and Redwood City School District (RCSD) collaboration that includes Amplifying Student Voice and educator interviews. Roosevelt Elementary, Garfield Community School and Hoover Community School were part of the initial collaboration. This summer there were multiple trainings for the schools listed above (Cohort 1) and schools now joining the collaboration as Cohort 2:

• Adelante Selby Spanish Immersion School
• Kennedy Middle School
• Clifford School
• McKinley Institute of Technology
• Orion School

In June 2020 at the school board meeting NUA along with Assistant Superintendent Linda Montes presented an overview of the collaboration. The video below is an excerpt from the board meeting with all board members sharing positive observations and questions.