#124 Schutz American School

Transcript

Lori: Hey, Heather. Welcome to the podcast.

Heather: Hi, Lori. Thanks for having me today.

Lori: Well, it’s good to see you, as always. I should tell our listeners that you and I go way back, don’t we?

Heather: We do 20, 30 years almost now, I think. Wow, that’s scary.

Lori: Kind of bananas. So Heather and I met in Saudi Arabia when were both elementary school teachers there. And her, she started her family there, and I started my family there. And we each now have two kids, adult kids.

Heather: We do. And they’re the same ages.

Lori: Yeah. And we have been fast friends for years. So this podcast, will. I wanted to interview Heather, not because we’re friends, but as you know, we spotlight schools. This is our inclusion Spotlight series, we call it. And your school is doing something pretty interesting. So I wanted to share that with. With everyone today. So let’s go ahead and get started. So let’s just start by you explaining what about Schutz. Tell us about Schutz American School, where it’s located, the community it serves, the makeup of your student body. And your staff.

Heather: Okay, thanks, Lori. Yes, we’re Schutz American School and we are located in Alexandria, Egypt. We are the oldest American international school on the continent of Africa. We are currently in our, gosh, 103rd. We’re starting our 103rd year of operation. So we’re very old. We are a State department sponsored school as well. Currently right now we have about just over 200 students that’ll be with us next year. And about 85% of those students are Egyptian. They hold an Egyptian passport, so they’re Egyptians. Many of them have dual passports. So we’ve got a lot of Egyptian Americans, Egyptian Canadians, and then we’ve got about 15% that are true expatriates. The, the student body has changed over the years significantly with a lot more Egyptian students attending our school.

Heather: There was a revolution not that long ago and a lot of companies and NGOs left the region. And so we now have, yeah, just over 200, serving the local population as well as the expats that are in the community.

Lori: Super. Well, I wanted to talk to you today about your personalized learning program that you started, I believe, this year. And I’d love to know what was your inspiration behind doing that program.

Heather: So, you know, I’ve been a fan of differentiation and inclusion and all of that for a number of years. And working at a small school allows you to be a lot more creative. And when were thinking of how can we meet the needs of all of our students, and we thought about this for a long time, what can we do? We decided to go into sort of this personalized learning environment that is similar to, you know, all of our kids, at some point, we’re not there yet, will have personalized learning plans. Very similar to individualized learning plans, but it’s personalized for them. It’s got their strengths, what they’re good at, what they need to work, how we can support them, what their interests are, and assessment data.

Heather: So we have a lot of things that go into this personalized learning plan, and we decided to pilot it last year. Our pilot program began in our second grade classroom, small class. We did not have a lot of students, but it went actually very well and we’re expanding it next year.

Lori: Great. Yeah. And I remember your school came to the summer institute that we put on that SENIA put on with the State Department last year. And I remember you really talking about it then with your team.

Heather: Yes. And we also brought the teacher for that second grade class to that institute. And that really Helped launch the whole program at our school. And so she’s been a pilot, and she has just rocked it. She’s done an amazing job. The kids have grown and thrived. The parents are all on board. So it’s been a really positive initiative for our school, and we will continue to expand it next year.

Lori: Cool. Well, you. You started in grade two, and I’m. Is that because you brought that teacher or what made that the right place to pilot this program for you?

Heather: There were a lot of reasons. Grade two was, you know, a smaller class, so we wanted to make sure we had sort of ideal conditions. It was a new teacher coming in, and were excited about. About that. We knew her background, and she’s done an amazing job with it also, because we are also doing the WISC and the WIAT assessments. We wouldn’t touch that below grade two. So grade two is kind of the area where you can first start to use these assessments. So all of our kids have had the WISC and the WIAT. We have director of Student Support Services, who is the one administering them, as well as we have a consultant. So we have a consultant, an ed psych consultant that comes in once a week.

Heather: So between the two of them, they’re able to do the assessments and then they meet with the teacher, they meet with the parents, they meet with the student, and they put together the plan altogether. But that was a big piece of. It is just what conditions would be ripe to make sure that this was a success. We didn’t want to go into a class that was maybe a larger class where we had other issues that we’re dealing with. This seemed to be the class that was. Was perfect for it.

Lori: Gotcha. That’s great. So you mentioned you do the WISC and the WIAT assessment for each student.

Heather: Yes.

Lori: What else? What does this personalized learning mean? You know, it can mean different things in so many different schools. So what does it look like for a grade two student at Schutz during an ordinary day?

Heather: Yeah, so the kids are really focused on, you know, what. What they’re excited about. So there are small group. Small group offerings happening in the classroom. Never do you go into the classroom, you see everybody doing the exact same thing. And I think that’s what we’re used to. That’s what I did when I was in the classroom. You know, everybody is doing the same thing. And because of the way that she structures her class, there are multiple activities happening at multiple times. And there are times where some students. We’ve got one student that is off the charts. One of the highest flyers that I’ve seen in my career.

Heather: And he is, he’s actually, we’ve actually moved him into fourth grade math because he’s just, you know, why are we keeping kids at second grade math when they can be doing something at fourth grade? So we’ve got the kids doing activities and curricular work that is at their level. We have a learning assistance in every grade. So the learning assistant is in there running a group. So often you’ll see maybe three groups happening at the exact same time. And one will be with the teacher, and the teacher will be working with them, another will be with the assistant, and then another group is working self directed and they’re, they’re doing what is necessary for them to be able to meet the curricular standards.

Heather: And if we have to move the curricular standards a little bit lower because a child is struggling with, we do that. If we have to excel somebody, we do that. We do all of that to make sure that they’re meeting the needs. So the classroom is not your traditional class where they sit down and they’re all doing the same work. We do have morning meetings and we do have closing circles. So that’s when everybody is together and they’re talking about, you know, that’s where we do our social, emotional curriculum, all of that. So everybody is on the same page. But as far as the academics, it’s all over the place and the teacher just keeps track of where they’re at.

Heather: Now the one thing that we did recently as a senior leadership team is we did sort of put together what does personalized meaning, personalized learning mean for us at Schutz? And what’s that definition? And this is the definition that we came with. I’ll read it to you. It says, I will take ownership of my learning and embrace productive struggle so that I will know what to do when I don’t know what to do. So we want the kids to have that productive struggle. There’s nothing worse than being in, you know, frustration level or just, you know, I’m just doing it just to go through the motions. But we want the kids to be understanding how they learn and how they can move forward as learners.

Heather: And so I really like that they, you know, they’re taking that ownership of their learning and then this will be phased into other grades next year.

Lori: Yeah. Great. Well, tell me more about that. I think that you mentioned that it. You’re moving on to grades three, six and seven.

Heather: Yes.

Lori: Why did you choose those grades?

Heather: so it’ll be grades. So total it’ll be 2, 3, 6 and 7. So second grade will continue to do this with the new cohort of first graders coming into second grade, third graders, obviously, because they’ve already had it. So the next year they’ll be going into that. The teacher’s already in place, the teacher’s already been briefed, she’s ready to roll. So we’re excited about that. So second and third grades, pretty easy. What we did at the end of last year is our current state 6th grade class. We had a little bit time in the schedule because to do the WISC and the WIAT, it’s time consuming. It’s on average about 5 hours per student just to get the assessments done.

Heather: And so we had some time towards the end of the school year. So we decided let’s kick things off and let’s get at least the assessments done. So they’re ready to roll come seventh grade. Now we’ve also partnered recently with Global Online Academy. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with them. And we’ll be offering GOA classes. They’re, they’ online classes that you can do for high school students. So we’ll be doing that and some of our high school kids will be taking online classes which again, as we move into the high school, it’s allowing for that personalization classes that we just can’t offer in a small environment. So they’ll be monitored. It’s going to have synchronous and asynchronous parts and they’ll be monitored by a teacher at our school.

Heather: So we’re making sure that they’re meeting the standards and the assignments as necessary. But one of the great things with GOA is that they have this course catalog. So I had a meeting with them the other day and there is a class on student agency. And that’s exactly what we’re talking about here. You know, we want that voice and choice for our kids. And so we’re going to start in the fall, in September. We have as many schools do, we’ve got a Tuesday afternoon where we do our professional learning together as a, as a school.

Heather: And we’re going to be doing these student agency classes and then Global Online Academy is going to partner with us to see how far we got on their classes and what they can do to support us as we move further into personalized learning in the middle and high school. So finding the partners out there has been really important, especially as we get into Older grades and yeah, I’m excited to see what that looks like. And then sixth grade next year will be our fifth graders coming into sixth grade. That’ll be all brand new and we’ll see how we do with that. So we’ll have to start with the assessments. And it will, it’ll take, we’ll be lucky if we get the assessments done by Christmas.

Lori: Sure. Yeah. Well, yeah, at five hours per student.

Heather: And it’s a very large class, it’s about 18 kids.

Lori: So once the, you know, I guess the good news is once you’ve done a class, the second grade class where it’s, you know, you don’t have to do that again for several years, right?

Heather: Three years.

Lori: Yeah, three years.

Heather: And that’s why we’re staggering it as well. So we want to stagger it and then the following year we’ll get the last few classes and then it’ll just naturally migrate into our high school.

Lori: So you’ve, you mentioned that you’ve seen really good positive growth, student growth and engagement. What evidence are you using to evaluate your pilot?

Heather: So we’ve, we’re very focused on data. We’re very data driven school. And one of the areas that our parents are very focused on is map data. I have spent the last two years really getting the community to understand that it’s not about the percentile and it’s not about where they fall with the percentile, but it’s about the growth. And with MAP you can, at the beginning of the year when they first take their fall map test, it gives a predicted growth for that child. Most schools you’re going to be looking at getting about 50% of kids in each class will reach that growth target. So if they say they’re going to grow 10 RIT points, 50% of them will grow where they’re supposed to be and the other 50% won’t quite meet it.

Heather: Some will grow nine RIT points. And every kid is different. Some maybe 10, some might be nine, some might be 13, whatever. With this particular class for both reading and math, they all grew 100% their math growth projections. So they met those math growth projections as a class, which I’ve never seen that in my entire career. So that went over really well. The parents, of course, are thrilled. I don’t like to focus one data point. I’m all about triangulating the data. However, my school is very focused on data and one data point. So I am trying and we look at the, you know, they all grew multiple levels, multiple Grades with our FNP data. So when we do our reading or fmp, they grew significantly. They grew a lot.

Heather: We just did brand new reading, the JAM reading assessments, and they grew quite significantly with that as well. So after looking at the data, it was really clear that, okay, whatever we’re doing now, it’s working. And that’s what parents want to see. They want to see that growth in their ch. In their children.

Lori: Great. Well, you also mentioned that you had a fabulous teacher.

Heather: Yes.

Lori: In grade two. And I’m curious. Well, one, how did you get your teacher? Her. Is that the pronoun? How did you get her on board? Or did you need to. And how did you get the rest of the school on board with what you’re attempting here at Schutz?

Heather: So I think to start, this is twofold. So I think when we hired this grade two teacher, you know, we made it very clear where were headed. She was excited about it. So I think before she even signed the contract, this was something that, you know, this is where we’re headed. You know, is this something that you would be interested in? You’ve got a small class. Are you interested in this? And then. So she was kind of along from the start and then came to the institute last summer. And so then we kicked it off in the. In the fall. As far as getting everybody else on board, we did have two consultants that came in May because now we’re bringing it to a bigger part of the school.

Heather: And the only comments I’m getting now, especially from staff, parents, I guess, is that, why can’t we do this right now for everybody? So the consultants came in and we talked about how important it is for us to make sure we’re meeting the needs of every child. And that is, you know, and we did some amazing workshops. We did a half day. They were in classrooms. And it was. It was great to see and that the teachers and our assistants, the whole staff were there. Loved it. We also did a think tank with parents and parents. Loved it. We had students involved as well. People really thought, okay, this is a really positive way to be moving the school forward.

Heather: So we’re going to pick up from that momentum that was in May and push that forward for, you know, again, we can only do so many grades at a time. But I think.

Lori: Well, imagine. I imagine it helps to have the pilot. So you are seeing the success. Because if you were to try to attempt this whole school wide, I imagine that the staff. You’d have a mutiny on your hands.

Heather: Exactly. Because they’ve seen the success. Right, right. And one thing that I think there’s a misunderstanding when we talk about personalized learning. And I had this conversation with somebody here this summertime, a teacher in Canada, and they go, well, that means you’re teaching to each individual child like they each have their own lesson plan. And I’m like, no, that’s not what we’re talking about. So personalized learning is not your. Each child gets their own lesson. It’s understanding how they learn and it’s understanding where they need to go and setting those goals. And we spend a lot of time setting goals with kids. We do student led conferences from the fall all the way to the spring. We, we have two student led conference times.

Heather: And it’s making sure that the kids understand where they’re at. And that’s what I, that’s where I love it the most, is that kids really feel empowered because they understand how they learn and they know where they need to go. So they understand where do I need to go, what do I need to do, and how am I going to get there.

Lori: You mentioned the math. Let’s go back to your daily schedule. And you mentioned math, and all the students are doing something different. So you have your student doing grade four math. And I am curious, what would that look like from a teacher’s point of view? What would your teacher be doing in this situation?

Heather: So the teacher would be planning for different activities based on the needs of the child. So that’s not, you know, one lesson for every single child. But she’ll find, okay, maybe there’s four kids that are working, that are at the same area and working on the same concept. She’ll group them together, give them the activities, teach them, come back to them, leave them a little bit, come back to them. The assistant might be involved in that. For the one that’s doing fourth grade math, we actually moved him at certain times into fourth grade. Right. So we, you know, we really decided like, hey, let’s just really look at this. And, and you know who was very helpful with that was Anita Churchville.

Lori: Yes, Anita Churchville. Yeah.

Heather: Anita Churchville was great. So she’s really helped us at the beginning because we knew this child was off the charts. And she was very helpful in getting us to understand that this is okay. And you know, it was, you know, he struggles sometimes because he is off the charts. He struggles sometimes with his peer relationships. And she said, he’s still gonna struggle whether he’s in fourth grade. Or he’s in second grade, you’re still gonna have that struggle. And so that was a real aha moment for us. So we’d like to get to a point where we can move kids and it’s not a taboo to say, okay, well, you need a little bit more help. We’re gonna move you here. We’re gonna, you know, put these kids together and move kids here.

Heather: So it’s. We’re not there yet, but that’s something that we’re considering. One of the new initiatives we have next year with our, we have an incoming new elementary principal is we’re instituting win time. So, you know, getting the kids to really be involved in what I need, what do I need to make this successful? What do I need to be able to move forward? So got it. Yeah, that’s.

Lori: So the kids are. The kids are. If for the most part, let’s say they’re in grade two, they’re doing grade two curriculum.

Heather: Yes.

Lori: But the teacher is ensuring that each student is getting what they need in within the confines of that curriculum. Unless they need curriculum that expands their learning or interventions or whatever they need.

Heather: Exactly. Yep.

Lori: Super. That’s great. I’m curious how students are getting involved in identifying their own strengths and needs, that kind of student voice and ownership or agency over their own learning.

Heather: So as you as it’s a younger grade two, there’s been a lot of coaching around that with the kids because they’re not used to that. They’re not used to sitting down. Now we do, from pre K, we do have the kids, when they come into the student led conferences, set their goals. So they’re already starting to think about it. But when they get into this personalized learning plan, it’s a little bit more than just basic goals. So how do we continue to monitor that, make sure that we’re meeting their needs? And let’s say they meet a goal, we have to then think of what’s the next goal, what’s the next step in that? So a lot of coaching with the teacher. So she did an excellent job in sitting down with them, talking to them.

Heather: So a lot of those one one conferences with each child and I think that’s been tremendously successful.

Lori: So let’s talk about sustainable scaling of this with your expansion to the various grades. As you expand, what parts of the grade 2 model do you think must remain consistent? And what do you think will need to be adapted so the work remains manageable and meaningful.

Heather: Great question. I think the one part that we’ve realized that we need to have for all of the kids is the data. So having those assessments, the WISC and the WIAT, plus all the other assessments that we do in house, and we’re adding a few more assessments next year, just so we have a. A wide breadth of assessments so that we know exactly what we need to be doing to work with each kid so that they are successful. So it’s basically meeting the kids where they need to. To. To be and to. Pushing them to make sure that they have that productive struggle so that they’re moving forward. So. So that’s something that we’re not going to change.

Heather: I think the one thing that we’re not aware of yet and we’re going to be playing with it a little bit this year. What is this going to look like for a middle school kid versus an elementary student? So I think there’s going to be some differences there. Do I know what those are yet? I don’t, but that’s where we’ll be able to play with it. This is still, you know, something that I’ve. I’ve went to many schools and I haven’t found anybody that’s doing the exact same model that we are. So I don’t. There’s nobody to. To look towards.

Lori: Sure.

Heather: That’s a hard one. Yeah. So we’ll see. We’ll see how we, you know, and because we’re so small, it’s. It’s like we’re a small ship. We can pivot really easily, and that’s the way, you know, so if something doesn’t work, we’re fine with saying, okay, yep, that didn’t work. Let’s try something else. And that’s kind of where we’re at. We’ve got a couple of new teachers coming in next year in the middle school, and I think they’re very excited about where this is headed, and that’s going to give us a lot of leverage as well. So everybody knows this is where we’re headed. This is not like it’s. It’s, you know, hey, welcome. No, everybody knows, you know, if you sign on to work with us, you know where we’re headed.

Lori: Yeah. And using your ship metaphor, if they’re not on board, they can jump right off.

Heather: Exactly, exactly. Exactly.

Lori: I’m curious how you connect this personalized learning plan program that you have with UDL and MTSS.

Heather: Yeah, so that’s, you know, and I was working on our action plan today. And there’s a whole section in there with the MTSS and, you know, UDL piece that is. Is really important. And I think that we’re kind of integrating the MTSS model into our personalized learning model. So we’re kind of viewing it that it’s not something that happens outside the classroom, that this is all happening as part of each child’s learning journey. So through all of the learning plans, those personalized learning plans, through our digital portfolios, and we’re moving platforms to make it a lot more streamlined. So we’re going with Toddle this year, making sure we’ve got that. That goal setting, that the coaching that happens with each teacher and each child.

Heather: Looking at all of the data that we have, we want to make sure that we’re incre. Ownership of the learning for each child so that the kids are either challenged or supported as they need. And we talk about MTSS a lot at our school, making sure that, you know, tier one interventions are for everybody. But now we’re kind of saying, well, maybe a lot of our kids need tier two interventions as well. So we want to make sure that each kid is thriving through their own personal pathway so that they are challenged, supported, empowered to perform, pursue all of those skills that we want at our school at the end of the day.

Lori: Great. One thing we hadn’t mentioned is how do you support students who might need speech pathology or speech therapy or occupational therapy?

Heather: Yes. So we have on site. So we have some local providers and as of this coming years, we’ve partnered with a local provider in Alexandria. And as of this coming year, they’re actually going to have their own space. So they kind of were bumped around last year. But we’ve got speech and language therapists that come to school twice a week and we’ve got occupational therapists that come as well. Then we’ve got an educational psychologist that comes once a week. She’s actually paid by the school. So the outside support is the parents pay for it. And what we’re trying to do is bundle it so it kind of goes into their tuition. So it just seamlessly is.

Heather: Is taken care of and the parents don’t have to worry about it after that because this year we kind of. They had to pay the. The company and it became a little bit difficult. And so we’re trying to. To make it a little bit more seamless.

Lori: Great. Well, I asked this question to every school that we interview. I’m curious, how does being part of SENIA help a Small international school such as yours build capacity or access expertise that might not otherwise be available.

Heather: Tremendous. And I, and I think, you know, going back to, you know, we’ve been, I’ve been partners in. This is my third school, I think, with. As a partner with SENIA, but I, I go back to what I talked about with Global Online Academy and partnering with them to do some of that training for, you know, the teachers. We’re not the big school where we can bring in consultants all the time. We do have a consultant coming in. We have April Remfrey coming in this coming year. She’s going to be working on more MTSS strategies with our teachers. But partnering. We’ve been able to do the SENIA online classes. So we have the SENIA Level 1. We have a number of our teachers that have done the SENIA Level 1 classes.

Heather: We have our director of Student Support Services doing the SENIA Level 2 classes. Right now we are looking at ways that we can get the teacher assistants or the. What we call learning assistants to have that training, whereas that would be very difficult if we did not have SENIA in our lives. And I think the classes have been instrumental in helping move us forward with the terminology, the knowledge, because I know our Director of Student Support services could not do all of this just herself with the amount of work that she has as well. So SENIA has been instrumental for all of us at the school.

Lori: Well, I’m always happy to hear that. That’s great. So you’ve mentioned a ton of resources today, Heather, including Global Online Academy, the WISC, the WIAT, the gems I believe you mentioned, and Anita Churchville. I want our listeners to know that I will ensure that I link all of these resources to the homepage or the podcast page, so be sure to check those out. Heather, I think we’re out of time for today, but thanks so much for sharing about your school’s exciting journey on to personalized learning. It’s really good stuff.

Heather: Thanks, Lori, for having me today. It’s always great talking about where we’re headed and what the next steps are. It is a work in progress, so we’ll see what next year brings us.