Community Planning Team Final Meeting

On May 12th, 2022, the Community Planning Team had their third and final retreat of the year. It was a wonderful day of learning and conversing in person. The retreat was in four parts: 

• A historical overview of the work of the Community Planning Team, 

• 2021/22 goal celebrations 

• 2022/23 proposed goals, followed by reaching consensus within the team

• An opportunity to give input on our MSA strategies and action plans. 

You can access the slides from the presentation here. 

After a brief review of the planning process, Greg Clinton facilitated a timeline activity wherein participants reviewed goals achieved, organized by strategic pathway, from 2012 onwards. Participants added memories and accomplishments before stepping back and discussing the evolution of AISC over the years.

Goal leaders then shared achievements from their 2021/22 goals before presenting their draft goals for 2022/23 for consideration and feedback. After each presentation, team members were able to ask clarifying questions and give input before voting on the essence of each proposed 2022/23 goal. I am happy to share that all goals for 2022/23 were accepted! You can view the approved goals for next year in the May Planning Team Retreat found on the sidebar. 

Finally, Mary Kelly Bello, our Curriculum Coordinator, shared information about our Middle States Association (MSA) plan for growth and improvement. AISC selected three growth objectives to work on over the eight year accreditation. You can see the objectives below. 

Mary Kelly invited the team to identify successes from the 2021/22 school year as well as make suggestions to the strategies and action plans for 2022/23 and beyond. 

We ended the day thanking the full Community Planning Team and saying goodbye to departing members.

Have questions? Want to learn more about futures planning at AISC? Contact Joelle Basnight

Learning and Diversity & Equity

As you may know, the school added a pathway to the 2021/2022 Futures Plan in support of Diversity and Equity. It reads:

The goal related to this pathway for this academic year was: To build understanding of diversity, equity and international mindedness at AISC through sustainable professional development, community events and auditing and revising published policies.

Below please find a few examples of some of the accomplishments from this year. None would have happened without the dedication of our Diversity & Equity Council.

Community Events

Community events we offered to faculty, staff, students and parents throughout the year.

Portal Project

In both the educator and parent editions of the Portal Project, focused sessions were offered to explore the question of “Who is Unheard.” Specifically, Tricia Friedman offered a session on “Challenging Heteronormativity” as well as “3D Case Studies for the Modern Caregiver.” Homa Tavangar offered a two part parent discussion exploring courageous conversations about race, culture and beliefs at home. Finally, our very own Marion Whisnant and Barbara Bowman offered a session exploring racial and cultural literacies both as part of the Portal Project and on the March 21 All-School PD day. 

GOA Flex Course and Discovery Day Activities

Last October, nine HS students opted to take a GOA flex course, Conversations about Race, and shared together in lunch conversations. From this, a 12th grade IB student created a November Discovery Day activity as his CAS project. Both opportunities helped students expand their comfort zone; using poetry and video stories, students conversed about culture, the complexities of identities, and implicit bias. Moving forward, we plan to regularly seek ways for HS students to opt into these types of discussions. 

Auditing and Revising Policy

DEIJ Board Policy

The council drafted a board policy for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice for board consideration. This draft policy went through a number of reads and revisions at the board committee and full board level. The board will vote on the policy in May. If passed, the policy makes way for DEIJ work related to admissions, educational programming and employment. The board also requested that the team author an outward facing DEIJ statement for our new website. 

DEIJ Vocabulary

The council developed a DEIJ vocabulary database that covers race and culture, gender sexuality, neurodiversity and accessibility, and large DEIJ concepts. The database has been workshopped with several groups to gauge our present comfort and familiarity with the usage of these words within some documents that we crafted for each division. Moving ahead to the 2022-2023 school year, the council will develop more exemplar documents, create an accessible database with refined vocabulary, and provide workshops for the vocabulary that is unfamiliar or uncomfortable to those on our staff and faculty.   

Should you have any questions about this pathway or AISC’s Diversity & Equity efforts in general, please contact Joelle Basnight (bjoelle@aischennai.org). 

 Data     

Part of our futures plan involves advancing the systemic use of data to drive organizational growth and transformation. Our work this year around data has focused on two primary targets: building out a new school website that can tell the dynamic story of AISC using various data sources, and to build data tools for teachers and administrators.

The website project is massive in scope – essentially, a school website is a living document that tells the story of hundreds, thousands of people, all learning, growing, and collaborating. It is the story of an entire culture, which is difficult to encapsulate. From the perspective of “data” the website showcases academic achievement data, our school culture as feeds of qualitative data, as well as serving as the foundation for ongoing school data projects involving environmental responsibility and student life. The refreshed website will create a platform for communicating our school culture and growth across many domains.

Internally, our work on the systemic use of data has been similarly multi-pronged. Effective decision making in schools is complex. This year, the Office of Teaching and Learning implemented a school-wide protocol for data analysis that drives conversations around assessment and wellbeing data at every level. In addition, a collaborative faculty and administrative effort to build data analysis tools has led to optimizations in our student information systems and a long list of professional learning around dashboard design and visualization. We are using this new capacity to build new tools to analyze and visualize assessment trends.

Should you have any questions about this pathway, please contact Greg Clinton (cgreg@aischennai.org)

Mid -Year Community Planning Team Retreat

The end of March marked our mid-year Community Planning Team Retreat and we were thrilled to have it on campus. The retreat was in two parts: goal updates and generative dialogues. You can access the slides from the presentation here. 

After a brief inclusion, Andrew Hoover reminded the team about the “what, why, how” of futures planning. 

AISC shifted from a more traditional five year strategic plan to a more flexible three year rolling plan in 2018, allowing the school to remain more responsive and nimble as an institution. 

Goals found in the futures plan are organized in one of the four pathways found below.

You can find the full futures plan here.

After this review, Joelle Basnight offered progress updates on all goals for 2021/22. 

Goals in the following pathways are on track:

• Learning and Experiential Opportunities (ES/MS/HS)

• Learning and Innovation in the System (ES/MS/HS)

• Learning and Wellbeing

• Learning and Inclusion in the System

• Learning and Research and Development

• Learning and Diversity and Equity

• Resources and Data

• Community and Environmental Responsibility

• Talent and Professional Growth

Now that the EY/KG students are back on campus, the hope is to achieve the Early Years Learning and Innovation in the System goal too.

The goals related to Learning and Vision for a Learner have been tabled for the year. This pathway will return to an all-school pathway next year. 

The final part of the retreat was a series of generative dialogues exploring possible pathways, goals and initiatives for 2022/23. This included: 

• The addition of a new pathway: Talent and Intercultural Competence
• The shift from a sectional implementation goal to an all-school “zero year” or reset goal for Learning and Vision for a Learner
• The possible goals in the coming years for Learning and Research and Development
• The preview and call for feedback on a public statement related to Diversity and Equity at AISC

The feedback from the generative dialogues will help shape next steps as pathway leaders prepare to present possible goals for 2022/23 to the team in May. 

Have questions? Want to learn more about futures planning at AISC? Contact Joelle Basnight

Transdisciplinary Learning

Transdisciplinary Learning is the exploration of a relevant concept, issue or challenge that integrates the perspectives of multiple disciplines in order to connect new knowledge and deeper understanding to real life experiences.

I am pleased to share that AISC High School will have our first Transdisciplinary Days (TDs), in-person, in April with the entire 9th grade class. Transdisciplinary learning starts with student experience, observations and interests. Students will identify an AISC community issue, challenge or idea to address to improve the experience of our community.  Using the Launch Cycle, a design-thinking model, students ideate on possible solutions, research and gather information from stakeholders and develop prototype solutions. After presenting the prototype to stakeholders, and gathering and responding to feedback, they present their action-solution.

During the two days, students will be guided through the Launch Cycle by AISC HS facilitators, with formative feedback from peers and stakeholders throughout. Subject teachers across the disciplines will be available to consult with student groups as they ideate, research, propose and prototype.  Students will present the action-solutions at the conclusion of the two day cycle to their classmates and stakeholders.

Students will take on one of the roles below, each associated with an ASIC competency. Students will be supported by facilitators and teachers as they act as:

Role Analyst Facilitator Spokesperson Architect Social Engineer Project Manager

Competency Applied Analytical and Critical Thinking Collaboration Communication Creativity International Mindedness Self-Direction

Our Transdisciplinary Days have been planned since 2019-2020 and have been postponed more than once until students could collaborate together on campus.  We are so pleased that we can anticipate two days for students to observe, dialogue, ideate, collaborate together, on their campus that they hope to improve! In-person, students will do an asset walk together, observing areas on campus they may not be familiar with, or view familiar areas with a different perspective–what are the strengths I see?  What might be issues or ideas for improvement that emerge through this observation and reflection?  How might we take steps to enhance our community - through more access, inclusion, sustainability, e.g.?  At the center of Transdisciplinary Learning is that students’ collaborative answers to these questions drive the thinking, inquiring, learning and producing.

Look for Transdisciplinary Day information in AISC’s social media feeds in April as students prepare for, experience and propose actions to enhance their community.

Need more information? Please contact Mike Malone at mmichael@aischennai.org

Pathway Update: Community & Environmental Responsibility - January 2022

Strategic Pathway: AISC enlists the participation of all stakeholder groups to incorporate environmentally sustainable responsible policies, practices, and programming in alignment with our mission and core values.

This year, the work within the Environmental Responsibility Pathway has been focused on the establishment of the Environmental Responsibility Council. The Council, whose membership includes representatives from all AISC stakeholder groups, has had the opportunity to engage with external activists,  and organize efforts for positive change at AISC. The Environmental Responsibility Council is composed of the following community members:

Ryan McFarland, Student Life Director

Andrew Hoover, Head of School

Balajee Ginjapalle, SEVAI Program Manager

Chandrasekar Dharman, Information Technology Manager

Jodie Sovak, Parent

Chandramouli V, Purchase Manager

Antony Rex, Food Service Manager

Monicka Davi, ASA Program Director

Ilangovan S, Head Facilities and Maintenance

Ayush Mammen, Grade 11 Student

Govind Menon, Grade 5 Student

Keshav Menon, Grade 8 Student

Melchi Michael, Grade 9 Student

This group is charged to facilitate the realization of the following Indicators of Success for 2021-2022.  Here, we share a brief update on this vital work on-going. 

1. Create and establish 2021-2022 portfolio of accomplishments for the Environmental Responsibility Council. This year, the Environmental Responsibility Council has reviewed our past accomplishments as an organization, and gathered metrics in relation to our water, waste, transportation, and energy.
2. In order to build a network of environmentally active and mutually supportive organizations, Identify high impact partnership target areas and organizations within each area that might be compatible partners. This year, the Environmental Responsibility Council has begun to make local connections with organizations and services that can help AISC improve the impact of our efforts to be more responsible.
3. Test at least five partner events that enlist attention and participation of all stakeholder groups. This year, the Environmental Responsibility Council will promote the partner events in the second semester, primarily launching them during Earth Week which is April 18-22
4. Design and socialize an environmental responsibility ACT-UP Structure and Process which establishes and empowers student groups at each section to lead on environmental initiatives at AISC. This year, the Environmental Responsibility Council has deepened a connection with MUN Impact club with middle and high school students and the elementary Roots and Shoots club, empowering members of these clubs to pursue environmental projects of interest.

Please contact Ryan McFarland or Andrew Hoover with any questions.

Pathway Update: Learning & Vision for the Learner - December 2021

Pathway Update: Learning & Vision for the Learner - ES Vision inspiration projects implemented: reflection to include review and recommendations for following years.

December 1, 2021 marked the first time our Elementary School Vision Day was in-person, on campus since 2019 and it was a huge success! The Vision Day Projects highlight a Vision for a Learner attribute and provide an opportunity for students in grades 3, 4, and 5 to participate in experiential learning and work with peers from other classes. 

Students had time to look through the project options and then chose from a variety of projects such as:

Raptor Recipes

Drama-Rama

Stop Motion Animation

Zen Mindfulness

Robotics

Fractured Fairy Tales

Disc Golf

Gymnastics

Bottle Gardens

Students were able to meet in their project groups three times the week of November 29th. The first meeting was the project introduction, the second meeting was the full day project where students worked on a task with an end goal in mind, and the third meeting provided time for students to reflect on the experience and the Vision for a Learner attribute. 93% of the students reported that they were happy with their project experience and many of the students left school asking if everyday could be Vision Project Day.

Please enjoy a few minutes clicking through the Vision Day Celebration Slides.

 

We are already planning for the spring 2022 Vision Day Projects!

If you have any questions please contact Lynn Schneider at slynn@aischennai.org
 

Wellbeing,Research and Development Update - November 2021

Pathway: Learning and Wellbeing

AISC creates an integrated student wellbeing program that promotes and fosters healthy habits, self-awareness, self-management and positive relationships.

After completing a high altitude program audit, the Wellbeing Council is hard at work designing questions that can be used in a self-assessment tool at the elementary, middle and high school levels alongside an additional tool for faculty. Working closely with the technology department, the team decided to move away from a traditional survey and, instead, hopes to create an application wherein users can get immediate feedback on the four domains of the Wellbeing Framework within the application itself. This allows users to remain anonymous unless they choose to share their email address to download a copy of their self-assessment results. 

The team is working on devising age-appropriate questions that will ultimately offer feedback aligned with what is taught in health, PE and counseling curricula. The final tool will be vetted by health professionals, faculty teaching the related curriculum and the senior leadership team before prototyping the application in the late spring.

Research and Development

This year the Futures Plan includes a new pathway and a new faculty council: Research and Development. As part of our school commitment to innovation, our new faculty council, under the leadership of middle school math teacher Jayme Gawrych, has begun to shape our process for teacher-driven innovation and tackle some big questions we face: what can we use from our experience in virtual and hybrid to augment and improve our culture of teaching and learning moving forward?

Our first task has been to craft a “playbook” of innovation strategies and exercises that our faculty project leaders can use to ensure high quality and durable results for their projects. And second, we have re-launched the iLabs project, which calls for faculty around the campus and from within the R&D council to form ad hoc teams of teacher-researchers around projects that support our mission but that have uncertain outcomes.

Ultimately, we want to embed a culture of design, iteration, and collaboration into the ethos of the faculty, and where it is already embedded, to make it more visible and impactful. Look for more second semester when we launch the projects and publish the outcomes!