A key part of the City Connects model is the whole class review.
To conduct this review, our Coordinators meet with teachers and discuss every student, reviewing their strengths, needs, and interests.
The whole class review help schools do a better job of seeing the whole child in all four domains — academics, social emotional wellbeing, family, and health — that City Connects supports.
At Beverly High School, the whole class review helped Carla Ann Femino see that “The students in our English Learner program had really high needs and didn’t have enough supports to address that.”
At St. Peter Claver Catholic School in St. Paul Minnesota, whole class reviews helped Sarah Jackson boost family engagement. As we blogged last year, “Working with families is also easier thanks to the school’s close-knit community. When Jackson conducts whole class reviews, she can go into more depth. And strong relationships within the school make it easier to know who might have a need they’re not sharing, and easier to reach out and say, There’s this opportunity, what do you think?”
And as a Coordinator explained, whole class reviews also create opportunities for teachers to be heard:
“It’s an opportunity for someone to listen to them. Because for years, teachers have sat with this knowledge in the classroom with no one to act upon it. And now here comes another adult in the building that wants to know about your kids. I want to know what you see as strengths. I want to know what you are concerned about. And I’m writing it down. So if I’m writing it down, it must be important, right? And it might be something I can follow up with. Teachers are feeling like, ‘Someone’s listening to me and someone’s going to help my students.’ Because teachers are passionate about what they do. They care.”
A Minnesota teacher elaborates, adding:
“There are so many factors and experiences that my students have each and every day before entering the classroom. It puts things into perspective for me, and I feel I am more willing and understanding as I adjust and modify learning activities for students to meet their needs on all levels.”
In addition to helping us see individual students, the data we collect in whole class reviews helps us see trends in schools and in districts. And this information can help policymakers understand larger community needs.
And it all starts with the vital request, Tell me about this student.
