Fostering a College-Going Culture

Overview

Mission Viejo High School has a reputation of being one of the top schools in south Orange County.  This has been a result of many accolades in both academics and sports, including California Distinguished Schools and National Blue Ribbon status, a robust, long-standing International Baccalaureate program, an award winning Model United Nations program, and the list goes on.  With this great reputation, it was a shock to me, and many of my colleagues that only 47% of last year's graduating class met the UC a-g requirements.  After polling the faculty on what we felt the barriers were in reaching this requirement, it became clear that awareness was a major issue that needed to be tackled-awareness for both faculty/staff and students and their families.  Additionally, I felt that fostering a college-going culture throughout campus was essential in getting students interested and motivated to meet the requirements to be able to apply to California's public universities.

My Role

University Campus Tours

Being an AVID teacher has helped me to understand the positive impact that a college visit can have on a student.  For many, it's their first time ever walking on a university campus, and the idea of college becomes very real and concrete for them.  Many also begin to envision themselves at such a place in the near future and the importance of doing well in school and ensuring they meet eligibility requirements becomes a priority throughout their high school careers.  To help continue building this college-going environment at MVHS, I took my junior AVID class to the University of California, Riverside and the University of Redlands for campus tours.  They also attended information session regarding admission requirements, programs of study, campus life and financial aide at both schools.

College Door Signs

After visiting a high school where all teacher's doors had a sign that highlighted their college path, I thought this would be an excellent idea to implement at MVHS as we continue to try and foster a college-going campus.  For this activity, I first made a sample door sign to present to the Leadership Curriculum team to explain why I thought this was a great tool to use on our campus.  I shared that students often times ask me about where I went to college, which inevitably leads to a rich conversation with them about my higher education path and important information they need to know about how to achieve their goals of going to university as well.  I explained that I felt that if every teacher had a sign on their door it would help to spark those conversations with other teachers, enabling the students to hear lots of diverse paths taken to earn a college degree and hopefully serve the purpose of sparking interest and motivation in students to be on the "college-goig path".  The leadership team thought it was a great idea and I was given the green light to proceed.  I created an email explaining to the faculty why the door signs were begin made, along with a link to a Google form where they could enter their college information.  Because I felt that there would be more follow through and responses to the email if it came from administration, I sent the email to the Asst. Principal of curriculum, who then forwarded the email to the rest of the faculty.  We are currently in the process of gathering all of the information in order to create signs over the summer and have them posted in each teacher's classroom upon their return over the summer.

Project a-g

The a-g requirement, also known as the subject matter requirement, is one of 3 necessary requirements students need to complete before being eligible to apply to both the University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) systems as an incoming freshman.  At a faculty meeting in the fall, we were all made aware that only 47% of last year's graduating seniors were "a-g eligible".  I, like many of my colleagues was shocked at the low number and began to realize that I was also unaware of what the a-g requirements are outside of my own department.  Additionally, I felt that if I was unaware of the requirement, many students were probably just as unaware, adding to the problem of non-completion.  It became a priority for me to raise awareness of the "a-g" requirement for all stakeholders through various meetings and the creation of a visual awareness component.

Please see Leadership Project (Cultural Awareness tenet) for detailed information on this aspect of fostering a college-going culture.

Reflection

I found this project to be one of the most satisfying of all of the others I completed on campus.  As a teacher, I'm driven by teaching students new information and watching the "light bulb turn on" when students make connections or begin to understand something for the first time.  I also love being able to share personal anecdotes with my students about going to college and my own experiences.  Through this project I was able to do both.  The education piece allowed me to share information about the a-g requirement with students, their family and the faculty/staff.  This also led to question and answer sessions where both students and parents were able to get clarification on points of confusion, resulting in a great learning experience for all.  Both the a-g campaign and college tours also allowed me to work with stakeholders that are outside of the school.  The campus tours were inspiring to the AVID students and they returned to campus with a re-focus and commitment to begin 4 year eligible, which makes me extremely proud and happy.  By having the faculty provide their college path information, many that knew I was behind the campaign approached me to tell me what a great idea it was and that they can't wait to get the signs up.  I hope that this enthusiasm translates into positive conversations with students about college often, and throughout campus to help foster the college-going culture at Mission Viejo High School.

CPSEL Connection

CPSEL 1: Facilitating the development, articulation, implementation, and stewardship of a vision of learning that is shared and supported by the school community.

• 1.1 Develop a shared vision
• 1.2 Plan and implement activities around the vision
• 1.3 Allocate resources to support the vision

CPSEL 2: Advocating, nurturing, and sustaining a school culture and instructional program conducive to student learning and staff professional growth.

• 2.1 Develop school culture and ensure equity
• 2.2 Guide the instructional program

CPSEL3: Ensuring management of the organization, operations, and resources for a safe, efficient, and effective learning environment.

• 3.2 Create an infrastructure to support an effective learning environment
• 3.3 Manage the school learning-support system
• 3.4 Monitor and evaluate the program and staff

CPSEL 4: Collaborating with families and community members, responding to diverse community interests and needs, and mobilizing community resources.

• 4.1 Collaborate to incorporate the perspective of families and community members
• 4.2 Establish and manage linkage between the site and the larger community context
• 4.3 Engage and coordinate support from agencies outside the school

CPSEL 5: Modeling a personal code of ethics and developing professional leadership capacity.

• 5.1 Maintain ethical standards of professionalism
• 5.2 Guide sound courses of action using pertinent, state-of-the-art methods
• 5.3 Sustain professional commitment and effort

CPSEL 6: Understanding, responding to, and influencing the larger political, social, economic, legal, and cultural context.

• 6.1 Engage with the policy environment to support school success
• 6.2 Interact with stakeholders