YESS at West Leadership Academy

Good afternoon West Community, All of us here at WLA were caught by surprise last week when DPS issued not ONE, but TWO snow days from. I can't say that the students were disappointed, as the situation became highly unprecedented. We came back on Friday to low-student turnout so it was as if they had a good week off of school. In any case, we got to work and we did the best with what we had to work with. On Monday, one of our former YESS students came down to the West campus to talk with our students about life after high school. Major shoutout to our lovely post-secondary navigators Emily and Angie for setting up the visit! He is a student at the Community College of Denver and is on his way to finishing up his first year of higher education. Fernando was able to provide a narrative for many of our students who do not believe life after high school is different (which in case you didn't know, IT IS) Several of my students took advantage of the situation and asked insigh...

Good afternoon West Community, Spring break is right around the corner, and the students here at WLA are anxious for it to come around. Personally speaking, I definitely am as well. That being said, we here in room 114 have not taken our foot off the gas pedal, and we are heading full-speed for the next two weeks. We were on a short schedule last week, as the school took Monday off to do some professional development for next month's CMAS testing. Tuesday and Wednesday, we dedicated the 90 minute block period to our middle school students closing out their grades, as the quarter was coming to an end. Many of our students have taken advantage of the time that we have provided to them and have significantly improved their grades. Many of my mentor pairs work together to ask for help in the classes where they might not have the best grades. The goal around that is to let the student know they are not alone in asking for help, as their mentor is behind them backing them up. We have see...

Good afternoon West Community, Last week, the class turned into one big studying session. Monday and Tuesday was dedicated to my students pairing up with their mentors and mentees and catching up on their classwork, as the quarter here at WLA is coming to an end. We take pride in offering a space where students can work not only on the classwork but also, the craft of being a well-rounded student. Classroom Instruction: Wednesday and Thursday: My class covered the Hot + Cool Buttons Lesson! The lesson essentially asks students how do we reinforce out limiting and empowering beliefs? What are or hot & cool buttons? And ultimately ask students to critically think about how their trigger points about themselves can become empowering rather than being limiting in just how much we belief in ourselves. The questionnaire is split up into 8 different sections, all of which have 8 statements to chose from that are relate able to the person taking the questionnaire -- However, the...

Good Morning West Community, Monday -- We did not have class in observance of President's Day.  Tuesday/Wednesday, we were able to start the lesson on Dating Abuse since I was not able to cover it during Valentine's Day due to the strike. The reasoning behind facilitating a discussion on Dating Abuse during Valentine's Day is simply because there are countless relationships that are in many ways, very toxic, abusive, possessive, and overall very negative that hide under the covers of "this is the way a relationship works" which is completely inaccurate. There is no doubt in my mind that some of my students have experienced some type of dating abuse, directly or indirectly. Many of my students were very open to talking and describing some of their own personal experiences with dating abuse, which is always appreciated. I provided several examples of what dating abuse looks like, via a video that was made by El Paso County Officials. The video description is a...

Good Afternoon West Community, I am more than comfortable writing this post now then I was 1 week ago, for a variety of reasons. Last week was certainly one of the more confusing and uncomfortable scenarios that this community, this school district, and this city have seen in over 20-years. I am talking about the DCTA/DPS negotiations that endured for 3-days, which became the main talking point for many around the city. I was not above talking about it, as I fielded many questions from students, colleagues and family members. It is only human nature to want to know what is happening, and what will become of a dispute. I am very glad to report that both parties were able to come to an agreement, and they certainly got everyone's attention. What I believe is the most fascinating topic to come out of the negotiations is the students themselves. All around the city, we saw students who expressed themselves in a variety of ways. From students throwing hallway parties due to lack of...

Good Afternoon West Community, As I write this blog post about last week's activities,  I most certainly will report on what has happened during the DPS teacher's strike, and more specifically, how has YESS been impacted at West Leadership Academy.  Classroom Instruction My class finished up our personality tests (which you can read about in last week's post) and have made great progress on building a culture of building educational pride in their work. My students loved the idea of being able to identify their strengths and weaknesses, and more specifically, how the knowledge they have learned from this assignment tie back into themselves being emotionally intelligent, which is one of the main components of the YESS Curriculum. We had our first official DPS snow day on Thursday, but Friday was dedicated on our bullying in education lesson.  For those of you who are not clear on what bullying looks like, our kiddos are more than happy to educate anyone who ...

Good Afternoon West Community, As reported last week, our students were caught off guard by the snowstorm on Monday morning. For those that did show up, I had them finish up any missing assignments from their classes, or in this class as well. Wednesday, the students were being facilitated a ACCESS test, so I was not able to see any of my students that day. Tuesday and Thursday, I had my two classes and I was able to assign them a new project, something that I believe to be engaging, fun, and overall, a deep connection in the sense of the students finding themselves. The engagement levels in the classroom took a turn, as I introduced a personality test. Essentially, what I have observed with our students is the overall lack of a self-reflecting structure. What I mean by that is our students know very little about themselves, their habits, if they are extroverted/introverted etc. I am sure if I were to talk with them about some of these traits, they would be able to carry a conver...