Test scores are soaring at Horizon Community Middle School in both Math and Language Arts. For the first time in ten years, Horizon Community received the highest possible academic rating by the Colorado Department of Education. The dedication of the staff, transformative restorative practices, new math curriculum, an emphasis on writing, and focused academic support have all played an important role in the outstanding rise in test scores at Horizon Community.
“At Horizon Community, we believe in our students, we give them a platform, and they achieve because they know they can,” said principal Dr. Brad Weinhold.
Over the past few years, the administration and staff at Horizon Community have collectively gone above and beyond to support students academically and emotionally by centering student voice.
“It starts with a common belief in all kids and the value that we put on student voice. We all believe that, and we seek it out,” Dr. Weinhold said.
The staff at Horizon Community Middle School live up to their name by prioritizing community building. While many schools across the country saw a decrease in standardized test participation, Horizon Community saw a 15% increase in participation—speaking to the strength of their community.
Dr. Weinhold added, “This has to truly be a community of learners, adults, and students together. Because we believe in that as a school, it makes it so much easier for that mindset to influence everything we do. Being true to our mission, vision, and values is critical.”
From implementing a new math curriculum to incorporating additional social-emotional tools, every department across the school is working diligently to help their students grow.
At the beginning of the school year, each student and teacher sign a social contract in every one of their classes. These contracts ask the questions, ‘How do you want to be treated by me, the teacher? How do you think I want to be treated by you, the student? How do you want to treat each other, as peers?’ These social contracts immediately ask students to outline what they would like their school culture and classroom environment to look like, while building a relationship of trust and mutual respect between students and teachers.
“Relationships are huge at Horizon. It's one of our biggest priorities with students, and they see that and they reciprocate it,” said English Language Arts teacher and Coordinator, Erica Killham. “It's kind of amazing when you give students these opportunities to rise to the occasion.”
“We say, ‘I'm not going to let up on you because I care so much about you and your learning.’ And most students said, ‘I get it because I trust you and I respect you. And so, I'm going to work on the thing that you're telling me is important because I trust what you have to say,’” said Killham.
Proactively building relationships is the bulk of the work that’s necessary in restorative practices, which has been critical to developing the strongest possible learning environment.
Teachers facilitating the co-creation of social contracts with their students in every classroom is one proactive approach to building relationships implemented by Elise Patterson, the Restorative Practices Coordinator at Horizon Community.
In addition to the social contracts, Patterson and the restorative team have streamlined the use of “Affective Statements” (otherwise known as “I Statements”) and
“connection circles” as two additional methods of proactive relationship building.
Every Friday, the entire school is expected to participate in “circles” during their advisory period. During this time, students are given the opportunity to connect with one another while sitting in a circle face-to-face.
During their Advisory period, students and teachers were also provided with a lesson on “Affective Statements” tool to develop stronger communication. “Affective Statements” follows the structure: “I feel [insert emotion] when [insert issue], and I need [insert constructive action].
“They're used to help students when they're feeling upset, but they're also to help teachers communicate with students the impact that the student's behavior is having on the teacher and class community,” said Patterson. “They’re also used to reinforce behavior. For example, ‘I feel happy when you work for the entire class period, thank you.’”
Each of these proactive practices have been implemented by Patterson and the restorative practices team, made up of three additional coaches across the school—one per grade level—Hailey Wilkinson (6th grade), Jazmin Hooks (7th grade), and Jenna Morse (8th grade).
Proactive relationship building is key to restorative practices, leading issues to arise with far less frequency. However, when an issue is presented, one of the coaches will facilitate a conversation between the two individuals asking, ‘from your perspective, what happened?’, ‘how can we take ownership of our actions?’ and ‘how can we move forward in a positive way?’
The restorative practices team is also currently developing an alternative option to suspension that provides students with an opportunity to reflect on their life goals and how they want to impact their community, and then produce a community project.
The relationships that students are building with their teachers and peers through restorative practices has fostered a more positive learning environment. This is particularly important in math class where the new curriculum allows students to develop a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts by working through math with peers.
The new math curriculum, Open Up Resources (OUR), centers student voice by re-structuring lesson plans. First, students work on their own to develop initial thoughts using their prior knowledge to think through a mathematical problem. Then, they work with a partner to share their thinking. Lastly, the teacher facilitates a classroom discussion where the students are invited to share their reasoning with their classmates. This structure ensures that students are developing critical thinking skills, mathematical discourse and reasoning on their own, rather than memorizing a mathematical trick to solving the problem.
“Historically, teachers do a lot of explaining, but this curriculum balances it out by giving the students a voice to share their knowledge because our students come to us with various strategies, and this gives them identity and power in the classroom,” said Math Co-Coordinator and teacher Ines Barcenas. “We also learn a lot from students too, because there's strategies that we've never seen before.”
The new curriculum also requires students to explain their solution to each problem and provide evidence. This both deepens the students’ understanding of the concept and allows teachers to better understand where students need extra support.
“Students have to provide the “why and how,” explaining how the strategy worked to support their answer along with the evidence,” said Barcenas. “And it's not always about the right answer. Maybe you had a misconstruction in this concept, but then, how do I help you get to where you need to be? We celebrate the mistakes because there are opportunities for growth and success in mistakes. Our teachers have done a wonderful job implementing O.U.R. They have worked collaboratively to enrich their practice and provide high quality and meaningful instruction and experiences for our students.”
Math is not the only subject that now requires writing. In conjunction with the English Language Arts Department, every class now uses the same format for informative writing.
After analyzing CMAS data two years ago, the Language Arts Department noticed that students needed more support in writing across every grade level and focus area.
“Everything became a lot more writing focused, and that was school-wide. Literacy is a goal in every class,” said English Language Arts teacher and Coordinator Erica Killham. “Our goal is really making sure that they're feeling a lot of confidence and stamina in their writing.”
To streamline writing structure, every department uses the format ‘Claim, Evidence, Reasoning’ (CER).
“We put ourselves in the student’s perspective, and are they going into social studies and writing one way, and then going into science and writing another way, and then coming into language arts and writing a third way? And how confusing that must be for a teenager's brain,” said Killham. “Now, they can go ahead and use CER in social studies class. And if there's an anchor chart that they see in their science class, they can take a picture of it and take it to social studies class, so everything feels a lot more cohesive for students.”
The students’ familiarity with the format has allowed them to improve their writing both across subject areas and in different forms of writing within the Language Arts. Whether they are working on a comparative analysis or argumentative essay, they know where to find their ‘evidence’ or ‘reasoning.’
“Now students understand the structure so intrinsically that we can start to break it apart a lot more quickly,” Killham said. “They understand where they need to look to support their claim because it's a common language they're using all throughout the school.”
The Language Arts Department has also prioritized timely feedback on students’ writing. Despite how busy the teachers are, the department is committed to providing students with focused feedback in a timely manner, while the assignment is fresh on the students’ minds.
“Getting the rubric back in the hands of the students immediately after they wrote it, so that it's really fresh for them, has made a big difference,” said Killham. “We
really care about this. We really care about improving and helping kids learn.”
Alongside the push in writing, students are making strides in reading. Much of this includes vocabulary work, and pre-reading and post-reading strategies. Unlike elementary school where students read aloud, it is more difficult to discern where students may need support.
“We can't watch them comprehend or self-edit what they're reading, so we have to teach them how to do that and really support those structures. And with our pre-reading and post-reading practice, as well as our Academic Core Connection (ACC) work, we have seen a lot of growth in reading.”
To supplement reading instruction and math instruction, all students receive additional support three times per week during their ACC period. During this time, students who need targeted support meet in small groups or individually with a teacher or coordinator. Students who are not working with a teacher are working individually on math or reading programs. Students may rotate between reading and math support, based on reading and math assessments, and teachers across departments work together to determine which students need which supports.
Two years ago, Horizon Community incorporated two periods of ACC per week. The results of the targeted support were so impactful for all students that ACC was increased to three times per week last year, and Horizon increased the number of interventionists who can provide small group or individual instruction.
The dedication of Horizon Community staff is evident in the number of new programs developed or expanded last year, including streamlined restorative practices, a new math curriculum, aligned writing standards, and increased academic support, resulting in the highest test scores the school has seen in a decade.
“The ability for so many things to be going on at the same time relies on people having a common belief system and being given the space to be innovative in what our staff is doing,” said Dr. Weinhold. “To have all this happening is because great educators are behind the work. No doubt about that.”
The continued emphasis on student voice and community building in every aspect of school, academically, socially, and in community partnership, is instrumental to the success of the students and staff.
“We not only have exceptional educators, but our incredible students coupled with our supportive families make this community thrive,” said Dr. Weinhold. “The word community in our school name means something way bigger than just a word. It truly exemplifies what happens here.”
Posted 12/2/24.
