Healdsburg school board members vote to collaborate with UC Berkeley

The Healdsburg Unified School District (HUSD) Board of Trustees voted unanimously to work with the College & Career Academy Support Network (CCASN) of UC Berkeley at their board meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 16. Part of the goal of the partnership is to help prepare more high school students for college and to implement changes to curriculum, including testing, coming with the new Common Core State Standards.
“The state has provided us with Common Core implementation funds,” said superintendent Jeff Harding. “They recommend we use a part of them for this relationship, to take our high school and junior high to the next level.”
According to superintendent Harding, a few of the services to schools coming with CCASN include the training of teachers, an increase of integration, better preparation of students for entry into the world of work, implementation of Common Core Standards and the use of the new Smarter Balanced Assessment System, designed to replace most old STAR testing.
Erin Fender, project manager of CCASN since 2009, addressed the board at the Oct. 16 meeting with some of her hopes for HUSD’s partnership with the UC system. “We help the schools put research into practice, based on what we know from experience,” she said. “We conduct practice-based research…we basically say, this is what the research is telling us, this is how you should spend your money.”
CCASN will provide support as the district redesigns their instructional program to incorporate the new Common Core Standards, New Generation Science Standards, and Career Technical Education Standards, according to HUSD Director of Curriculum and Instructional Services Annie Millar. They planned to start Nov. 1, during the district’s first all-day staff development day.
“CCASN staff will work with our staff at Healdsburg High School to outline the scope of the project and to design a plan of action for the year,” said Millar. “Some of our key activities include providing professional development and coaching to sustain the change process as we shift to a more inquiry-based model, designing ways to involve our stakeholders, students, parents, and community members, in the process, and building on the success of the 11th grade internships.”
The district will be moving to a more inquiry-based instructional program, Millar went on, which focuses on real-world problems to drive the work which students do. The process involves identifying a problem, doing background research, developing and testing different solutions, reporting findings and making recommendations to an outside audience.
“This is a major shift from No Child Left Behind,” said Millar, “which was a very textbook-driven program. There are many components embedded in this approach, including making sure that there is rigorous content and assessment…to ensure that students are learning and defining what’s good enough as a work product.”
These complexities in new instruction, Millar pointed out, make training and support from CCASN so important in making this change.
“We are indeed fortunate,” said superintendent Harding. “There are very few institutions with the experience, prestige and effectiveness of Berkeley and we’re thrilled to enter into a relationship with their graduate school of education.”