School Vision
Bushwick Leaders’ High School for Academic Excellence is a small community high school whose vision is to provide our learning community with a rigorous, collaborative, and culturally responsive academic program that encourages students to think critically, generate discussion, and create products to demonstrate their learning.
To learn more about our goals and action plan for implementing our mission in the 2021-22 school year you can review our Comprehensive Education Plan (CEP).
Theory of Action
If we…Focus on implementing our five strategic priorities (see below).
Then…
- All students will graduate from high school prepared for college and careers.
- Possess the tools and resources to practice self-care, mentally and physically.
- Be affirmed in their culture, language and various identities.
- Be able to think critically about the world around them and as such, act as agents for change, especially when interrogating and dismantling systems of oppression.
1. Create a Welcoming and Supportive School Environment
We believe…
- Every student deserves to learn in a school environment that is safe and secure
- Every student is welcomed and embraced as a member of our school community
- Every student is provided with the tools and resources to address their unique social-emotional needs
We will honor this by…
- Incorporating teaching practices into daily instruction that promote social, emotional and academic skills.
- Adopting school wide norms, which include the following:
- Stay Present
- Be Excellent
- Show Grit
- Practice Empathy
- Spread Love
- Utilizing our advisory program to help students build strong positive relationships with adults and peers as well as to develop five core social emotional competencies which include the following:
- Self-Awareness
- Self-Management
- Social Awareness
- Relationship Skills
- Responsible Decision-Making
- Providing students with opportunities and resources to socialize and interact with their peers in health and positive ways.
- Spark joy and cultivate school spirit by celebrating student academic achievement including performance on alternate achievement metrics (e.g. growth, leadership, demonstrating school wide norms, attendance) during regularly scheduled school assemblies.
- Leveraging the resources of our community-based organization, Good Shepherd Services and our Guidance Team to engage in restorative approaches to address student behavior issues.
- Providing professional development to teachers on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) in order to successfully implement a multi-tiered approach to social, emotional and behavior support for students.
2. Provide a Culturally Responsive & Sustaining Education (CR-SE)
We believe…
- Representation matters. Students are most engaged when they see themselves reflected in what they are taught, thus making the curriculum relevant to their lives.
- Students are assets for teaching & learning who come into the classroom with much to contribute to the academic experience of their peers.
- The language, culture and various identities (i.e. race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, disability, religion, citizenship status, socioeconomic background) of our students should be acknowledged, celebrated and sustained.
- Teaching and learning should prepare students to think critically about the world around them, act as agents of change by allowing them to question, and dismantle systems of oppression.
We will honor this by…
- Considering students as co-designers of curriculum who are provided with opportunities to share feedback on curriculum including course offerings and instructional resources used.
- Identify gaps where curriculum does not address multiple perspectives, cultures and backgrounds.
- Introducing new course offerings that celebrate the language, culture and identity of our students including a black history course and a LatinX Studies course (developed in house and in consultation with students).
- Encouraging and supporting student in pursuing a Seal of Biliteracy.
- Celebrating and capitalizing on the bilingualism of our students to strengthen the quality of our Dual Language program.
- Leveraging our adoption of Project Based Learning (PBL) to provide students with voice and choice in how they demonstrate their knowledge and growth over time and that align to the varied learning styles and interests of those in the class community.
- Providing teachers with professional development opportunities to learn more about how they can implement elements of CR-SE in their instructional practices.
- Reflecting on our own implicit bias, how that bias might impact our expectations for student achievement or the decisions we make in the classroom and the steps we can take to address our biases and their impact on students.
3. Know Every Student Well
We believe…
- Knowing students well (racial, cultural, linguistic identities) lends itself to informing practices and instruction that are culturally responsive.
- Knowing and addressing the social-emotional needs of students will help them succeed academically.
- Effective educational practice begins with knowing our students well academically; fundamental to this is accurate and bias-resistant assessment data that gauges student competency on knowledge and skills.
- The data from an assessment system serves two purposes: to inform how we understand the strengths and needs of individual students and to inform the tailoring and design of the instructional core so that it meets the needs of the student population.
We will honor this by…
- Cultivating a data driven culture by putting data at the center of all our school improvement efforts.
- Focusing on teacher assessment practices to ensure that student academic competencies are assessed on a regular basis.
- Using our advisory program and other school resources (e.g. community based organization, school guidance team, culture & climate team) to learn more about each student’s social-emotional needs and finding ways to address those needs in restorative ways.
4. Set High Expectations and Deliver Rigorous Instruction
We believe…
- Students perform best academically when they are in school every day and arrive to class on time, prepared to learn.
- Every student can reach high levels of academic achievement.
- Students learn best in classrooms where they are centered.
We will honor this by…
- Recognizing that every student is an asset to teaching and learning.
- Clearly identifying criteria for students to demonstrate competence on knowledge and skills through Project Based Learning (PBL) experiences.
- Providing students with learning experiences that provide them with opportunities for self-assessment, peer-to-peer feedback, critical thinking and student-led discussion.
- Continuing to use and improve systems that track attendance, assignment completion and grades to order to individualize services and match specific interventions to the needs of different students.
- Developing the social-emotional competencies of students that will help prepare them for collaborative learning experiences.
- Creating a culture of inquiry and continuous improvement in professional learning communities.
5. Prepare Students for College and Careers
We believe…
- Every single student can and will graduate.
- High school should prepare students for post-secondary success.
We will honor this by…
- Ensuring that students understand requirements for graduating high school and are regularly provided guidance on their progress towards graduation.
- Continuing to cultivate a college-going culture at our school through various initiatives and events throughout the year.
- Providing all students with access to Advanced Placement, college level and Career &Technical Education (CTE) course work.
- Elevating the importance of college and career readiness curriculum (i.e. OneGoal).
- Strengthening students’ ability to persevere in academically challenging situations by implementing teaching practices (e.g. Project Based Learning, PBIS), that research has shown supports positive learning environments, develops social-emotional competencies, and promotes a high level of academic learning.
- Building the social-emotional competencies necessary for success in college and careers.
- Ensuring that our students develop high levels of digital fluency that will prepare them for a world that is increasingly technology-dominated.