Chaparral Applies for Empowerment School Status
In August 2006, the Chaparral
High School community under the leadership of principal Kevin McPartlin, began to collaboratively evaluate existing educational
practices and succeeded in reinventing ourselves into a school for the 21st Century. Our “new” Chaparral
is committed to offering a learning environment that provides personalized and rigorous academic programming within an organizational
framework that motivates students through their self identified areas of interest.
The school has demonstrated
enormous gains in student achievement, as evidenced by our Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) reports for 2006, 2007, and 2008.
Mr. McPartlin’s experiences in high school reform have provided him with the skills to foster and manage change in a
positive and collaborative environment.
As a result of our “reinvention”,
Chaparral has implemented many changes over the past three years. These changes include:
- the
8-AB Block Schedule
- a student advisory program
- a separate and
autonomous Freshmen Academy
- three independent theme-based academies for grades 10-12
- new elective programs within each academy such as Film Study and Production, Mariachi, Japanese, and Teen Leadership
- an ELL/ Community Literacy Center that offers language acquisition and parenting classes for our community
- and participation in the Inclusive Schools Practices initiative to ensure students with disabilities have the necessary
support while enrolled in rigorous general education courses.
Additional program expansions
include:
- Our nationally certified Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program
has been expanded to include 193 students. AVID strategies and philosophies are embedded in school-wide instructional
practices.
- We have doubled the number of Advanced Placement (AP) course offerings, and the number
of students enrolled in at least one honors or AP course has increased from 101 to 899.
- Our
staff adopted “Capturing Kids’ Hearts” as a standardized behavior plan to encourage positive relationships
while holding students accountable for their behavior.
- Our talented staff was willing to explore
new initiatives to increase student achievement and to reinvigorate the community of this once high achieving high school
which in recent years had fallen to stagnation.
Chaparral has proven comfortable and
successful when the East Region granted additional control over our entire “reinvention” process. We believe
our success proves that Chaparral is an excellent candidate for Empowerment.
