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BPHS Info Session 1

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Bradley and Dreher - Introduction. Christopher - Freshmen year - transitioning to independent learning, Advisory community building, independent projects. Dave - Internship overview, counseling, college and career readiness. Bradley - Experiences schedule. Dreher - Community partners program. Mark - Math Program. Dreher - Junior and Senior Institute. Chelsea - Senior thesis, college classes. Allison - Special Education program. Bradley/Dreher - Application process and upcoming info sessions.

Show Transcript

well welcome everyone we're getting started a little late due to due to technical difficulties as we say my name is Bradley Heart in I am the principal Durango big picture high school and I wanted to start by just a brief introduction everybody will introduce themselves when they when they speak but big picture you know a lot of people don't know a lot about it started in 1995 from Two Gentlemen who were just kind of dissatisfied with the traditional form of high school education and since then is kind of spread across the United States and its actually in over 11 countries as well so it's you can say it's gone International it has gone International and so so our school was one of four in Colorado that use the big picture learning model so there are four school three other schools in Colorado besides s of course we're the only one here in Durango and so we're part of this very large Network dedicated to you personally learning deeper learning internships and in doing leaving to learn and so just want to say we're thankful for all of you here today learning more about us the great thing about Durango is even though we're a small call Town there's a lot of options for students and so we think it's really great that we're one of those options if people can choose so thanks for being here today hi Andrea Robertson I'm the assistant principal and currently also an advisor and kind of a Swiss army knife in the building I'm not going to say a whole lot you're going to hear from me here in just a little bit so I will pass it on Grismer may just do an introduction right now not going into the Freshman adviser piece you can introduce yourself and then go ahead and jump in all right Christopher clay keas and this year I am the Freshman adviser sticking with this crew of students for the next three and a half years to see them through their High School experience this is my ninth year as a big picture advisor my 12-year and education going to talk a little bit about what that first looks like the Freshman advisory is a unique time and opportunity to first and foremost build advisory culture you're going to have the same advisor as I mentioned and you're going to be with the same students all four years and so I think it's really important that you as an advisory we we work on the team building in years past free covid-19 alot of that would take place through leaving to learn opportunities so past 4 my classes I've been able to take to you know different Equine Therapy opportunities tours of different businesses restaurants in our town Museum yeah just things again to connect whether it be through fun or through education so that's a big piece The Advisory culture another big piece to the freshman year is really the transition to be being in the in the Lerner in an independent learning model so there are some systems within big picture such as something called project Foundry and online platform the students use to track their projects in their work self it's using these tools and support students to to help them take ownership of their education with these tools so also organizational processes really big Focus freshman year again as we want them to transition to an in tenant learner one of the ways to gain that independence of your education is to to be organized with what you need to work on when you need to have it completed by things like that and then learning the LTI process is another portent transition into the Independent Learning model and so that's one thing the Dave supports this with I'm as the internship coordinator in our school and helping students understand the process of obtaining an internship which is a great part of our program and then I would say the last component of of freshman year is really about kind of discovering finding or diving into your your passions or your interest through Project work so some students come in and they already know you know I'm really into skiing snowboarding or into music or into engineering and and so that's great and we start with working in those projects on projects in the areas of interest to help them further explore their passions and some students come in and they're not sure exactly what it is that gets them going and gets them driving forward with their education so that's one of the things we do freshmen near as we kind of help them understand the price idea how to build a project and then as you're going through your project how to stay committed to it even then if you discover in the middle of the projects this is not something I'm super interested in we want you to still complete it because that's an important part of our programming and honestly anything you do right is completion so that's a little bit about freshman year again big on it developing advisory culture on the transition to kind of becoming an independent and discovering your resources both Human Resources as well as kind of your your processes and systems that help you stay organized and then really discovering or diving deeper into your passions and interests that's all I got all right let's have my Dave go next hey Bradley before they move on you might want to make sure it's in I'm speaker view so that the recording will show the big version of the speaker speaking hi everyone my name is Dave Lyle I am the school counselor internship coordinator SM earlier focus a great deal on concept of beating Solara that means that obviously test drives if you will prior to post-secondary decision so through Hands-On experiences our students gain confidence in their ability to contribute to the world we support our students yearly in obtaining an area of their interest Buick station skills while gaining valuable experience and acting professionally and responsibly only it's our hope that our students enter their senior year and we both more of who they are and what they want to do now another aspect of that college and career-ready that our goal is to Foster an environment for her when she believes prepare students for their post-secondary goal and aspiration therefore we look to develop adepts and breadth of experience has that build self-awareness and confidence so through utilizing the pictures into individual eyes learning model and are concurrent enrollment program in the neighboring colleges she will discuss that later the students have yearly internships that are tailored to meet their developing interest and the ultimate goal is creating a college and career-ready Ashley my one of the components of that is the counseling program provide social emotional counseling which to be delivered or individually in class or other group setting vegetating growing the whole person which includes emotional and social awareness as well as I receive honest feedback and self-reflection so that the person can become a more gibbeting regulating that's the programs that I work with as well as we have now but she'll see is going to speak of later thanks Dave Dreer did put this in the chat but again if if any questions come up we are going to have time at the end for questions as well but if any of you want questions please feel free to type those in the chat and then we can make sure they're in there if you don't want to ask them publicly that's totally fine so I think you've seen a couple of things already Christopher mentioned in. projects that students can work on so they can take a passion of theirs and decide what kind of project they want to work on and whether they want to write about it do do historical research apply science skills or or any of those things from different content areas I want to talk next about our experiences and we call them experiences because we don't like the word classes so that's why we call them something else but we also we also do want to make those classes really that we want them to be experiences we're trying to give students learning as well as having to apply what they've learned and so are Xperia does Ron about 7 weeks on Monday Wednesday and Friday we start with one or more content areas it could be an English language arts or social studies or any content and then we create experiences around though so some ones that we have going on right now our histories Mysteries snow and climate science s-town podcast exploring your Curiosities with science math lab adulting 101 sources of strength archives and music and students are in the experience to First be exposed to the content and then to learn more about it from a point of view that they want to take with it and then to try to show for fish on one or more of our performance indicators which are then aligned you know they're lying to the state standards for that content and so what these experiences allow students to do over 7 weeks is really learn about content you know have fun with it apply and then be able to try to show proficiency or exemplary attainment in that to us that's how we that's how we do credit at big picture credit can be attained by students actually learning things that's what we care about sometimes in school students can bring in a box of Kleenex for extra points you can't do that a big picture you can still bring us a box of clean but we're not going to give you points for that we want to give you credit for showing us that you've learned things so so that's a little bit about the experiences that we offer again every 7 weeks we offer those and over the course of the year there's a vast amount of different experiences that students have options to take an hour to have drear's talk about our community partners program all right I said earlier Andrea Robertson and the assistant principal my entire professional career has occurred at Big Picture started off as a student teacher longer ago than I care to mention turn that became an advisor then an administrator and now I'm doing like for jobs one of those jobs which is super cool is a program that we're in our second year of its that's all about partnering with the community to bring an education resources and so we are currently working with seven different organizations that offer the experience is Bradley was just talking about you know one of them some of them are non-profits like we work with the hive Durango on there in our building from 2 to 3 dirty Monday Wednesday and Friday teaching art classes we work with the I am music institute there also hear there's three days a week teaching two separate classes typically we have a band going the big picture band they call it Ensemble and then we also have an independent project is a class where students are working on everything from learning an individual instrument to music production and mixing sounds pretty cool we work with Colorado clay I don't know if anyone knows about color of its way but it's a it's a Pottery Studio that it's just right down right across the street from Buckley Park and seen some pretty cool pieces coming over there Dave Blau gets the support that class on Fridays as a will he call you now Dave every aspiring artist I'll take that okay I'm sorry excuse me one of the cooler programs we have in partnership with mountain Studies Institute done some really cool stuff with them is some of it's been limited this year by covid-19 oh we have we have students that have gone up and done acid mine drainage studies where it at the Gold King mine spill site with you instead of place water quality monitoring devices I guess for lack of a better word all over Hermosa Creek to look at what the 416 fire did to that that water source and what it's done to the body of the water coming into town goodness we work with Jungle Gym Durango now Summit Fitness is a PE so our students her down there to take doing that getting crazy jumping up wall actually seen most of the staff members in here make it up the Warped wall so that's pretty cool but anyway the idea of the program is that we we have all of these amazing experts in their fields in our community and sometimes an expert in field science is better teaching science then then maybe a science teacher in the classroom and going up to Silverton and taking water samples at the bottom of a mine still is probably more applicable than you know testing water in the lab in the classroom that expertise and give some real-world experience to our students and it's something that's pretty cool it's funded for this year and next and we've got several several ideas for funding for moving forward be on next year I'm so regardless of the funding goes your students if they decide to come to Big Picture will have an opportunity to partake in those and I think it's something that will be pretty easy to keep going so that's all I got about that all right we're going to have more talk next about our math program so thanks Bradley I'm Mark Palmer and I am both the the math teacher and the sophomore adviser so a lot of we teachers even though we have our separate content areas where we do the fences Monday Wednesday and Friday we also have an advisory and we bring those up from freshman all the way to the senior right now I have a sophomore so they will be my juniors next year with me so in all of our experiences. we try and make all of those individualized project-based and real world and math is one of those areas that I think a lot of us who went to traditional high schools have contact if you go in you do worksheets you problems from the book you take a test if that's the whole deal I don't do any of that instead what we do is I structure all of my math experiences three independent projects that are always individualized zabal examples here in my we're doing a linear equations experience is part of what most of we do most of us do for Algebra 1 but instead of mapping out equations from books I'm having the students separate into groups and create their own linear relationships in the real world and then Translating that into an example of one group right now that getting the digging out of a skier who has been trapped under an avalanche and so they're going to go outside and actually dig up Snow and and time how long it's going to take them to dig up snow in Kern that into a linear relationship I have another student who's going to do are working or set of students who are working to drop a balloon from a really high height and map that balloon drop into linear equations and so that's what we have our kids doing a ninja pottery class we've moved into volume and surface area but students are applying that by taking monuments and Landscapes that they're passionate about whether it's the Pentagon Washington Monument Shiprock things like that the Eiffel Tower and their determining the surface area and volume of major landmarks they personally care about in the student gets to pick whatever it is they want to do and then guide them through these projects at higher-level mathematics were doing quadratic equations were doing exponential equations but again all in real world I have my math 3 students out lighting paper on fire today and we going to turn the spread of that fire into an exponential equation that they can then apply will would have fire happened in the real world how dangerous would this be so those are some examples of how I'm making projects in our mouth variances that are individualized based in the real world and all-around projects not test hopefully. text Mark Dreer we're going to have you talked next about the Junior and senior Institute Gateway yeah and I'm going to address a couple things I'm seeing popping up in the chat just in case you're not monitoring that chat I'm sober text structure of the week in Big Picture High School is we run from 8:20 to 3:30 students come in the building at 8:20 and they go to their advisory there in that advisory from 8:20 until 10 every morning and that that structures typically we start with the circle app check in with her students and then they have time to work on their independent projects during that. And that are experiences run at 10:11 and 1 and then the majority of our students turn to advisory at 2 we do have the art class and occasionally some PE classes being offered not to our the experiences Stiller advisories are capped at 19th students and our experiences don't get any bigger than that either someone asked about the ratio of teachers to students I think currently Mark has a geometry class that has 19 or 20 and that's our biggest class by far some of the experiences only have you know 10 to 12 students depends on the interest level in and what they're doing so anyway I hope that answered most of those questions I think so Bradley so I'm back to talk about Junior and senior Institute so you know Christopher talked about students coming in as fresh women beat in learning how to be independent Learners and then their sophomore year is really about putting together evidence that they're hitting what we call the Gateway Keys Witcher kind of what guide all of the learning we do it big picture it's personal social and act make skills that we think are necessary to be successful and so they're building this portfolio to go through this process called Gateway where they do a series of presentations the first one is is really about self-awareness and where they are and all those Gateway keys and the second one is the only presentation at big picture that pass-fail it's called the gateway to and students print present in front of a panel and that panel has parents and staff their peers on it and after their presentation that panel decides whether or not they've demonstrated Readiness to enter into what we call Senior Institute is a pretty cool thing so basically what it means is more freedom more responsibility for students still a good example is you know if there's an hour of experiences where they would feel like their time would be better used and independent work time they can sign up for an independent work time and if they feel like they I want to go work at the coffee shop for that hour that's their privilege it also means that it also means that they are now qualified to take college classes which we do require all big-picture students to take a minimum of one college class the graduate from our school we've got several students to take way more than that in that is paid for by the school and the school district I'm just seeing more questions pop up there anything I should address here is suit anyway it is basically students have demonstrated over to year. That they're ready to take control their learning and be independent and it's really all about being able to communicate with parents and advisers about what they're doing what they're working on how they're spending their time how do you say I'm looking for answering the questions in the chapter I see that but not everybody's in there so I figured yes they do they do complete a set of classes in math however if there was a standard or performance indicator that a student felt like they had a project idea for that they want to do a dress that says they absolutely could it's also important to mention with an independent projects that if a student is writing a paper or doing a research paper saved for history I always go with the Civil Wars my go-to example there they're doing research there reading their writing you know they're having to cite sources they're doing all these things and so we would actually evaluate them for both social studies and English at the same time and so there's a lot of cross curricular work that goes on in our building that's all I got Bradley. let's let Chelsea talk about senior thesis in college classes hi my name is Chelsea range I am the senior advisor is there an English teacher at big picture give that noise in the background my children are with me so I know back home but I'm going to speak to that question about Ela English language arts like you're mentioned what are the benefits of big pictures of cross curricular instead of leaving an English class and walking to your history class and feeling it's like it's redundant argumentative writing we really honor that cross curricular and are able to address multiple fast vegetation was students within one project and help them recognize the connections that those make so that's a that's a tremendous opportunity to talk about senior year and concurrent enrollment thank you how much de for letting me take the opportunity to talk about concurrent it's something that I've been really focused on in the spring prior to getting shut down to the povidone but also heavily focused on this year and supporting the seniors we do require our students to take one college class to graduate and I am actually an alumni of two of the three that we work with so I'm the opportunities for concurrent enrollment in this area between San Juan College Fort Lewis College Pueblo Community College something that our students have like full of deja for concurrent students are required to pass the cedar better or else they are financially responsible however that's a huge part of my being able to identify your future post secondary lights as you talk about your plan and also I'm to really explore your passions and interests I have several seniors that are in their last semester of high school and in crunch time because they're in concur Roman but two of them to my students are very different were doing some work with one another and one of them look for to spend in college class you get to sign up for a college class that you love and you're in and she also gives Goku gets to go be within her passions and interests in Florida education so it's it's a really cool opportunity especially because of the differences between seniors and freshman in high school and be on the young and old we have a seniors and how they're very much especially with Tobin experiencing very real world thing being a be able to be on a college campus and how that experience that even deal with the technical difficulties that that that provides is really fun to watch them grow and learn in that atmosphere senior year is interesting for me to speak to you Ivan advisor with this group sensor pressure in your identity picture of three and a half years now I'm obviously covid-19 they're really supportive of one another and really really am capable of going out in the world and making decisions that support their passions and interests into a facility their life goals so I'm senior year is definitely one of those things that can be very challenging for a lot of people for a lot of seniors but with the support that big picture it's a tremendous one of the big projects that they had senior years and Senior thesis we are expectation for argumentative writing is that they already called bubble paper as we built those skills rather time that is something that they want to share that can impact a community that they care about your experience they had this is something to prepare for and start brainstorming when they get into senior but it also comes along with the impossible Community project of course like I said what are the challenges we are currently very very very very much working on those considering the impacts of probing however you have stew that have bills are exploring their passes through through internship Center Community Partnerships and through experience as an independent project that would they get to senior year and they go yeah this is really what I want to focus on for this enormous paper and I want to share with my community and call to action for people to also care about this and I have students ranging from the inequality of feminine products to lack of financial support for teachers in their classroom to Wetland Restoration in the San Juan mountains in the impact it has on community water to the understanding of the dyslexia it is very it is rewarding to see these students NFI what they truly want to like do these projects on and it's been it's been a treat to watch and happy to be a part of a picture in a senior thesis and I've done my own projects I'm so for those of you who would like to know more about picture I am to go ahead and plug my senior thesis project which is a podcast that will be published in the next three or four weeks I'm as I accumulate interview so I have done my project on the benefits of a unique how do you spell environment and opportunity and really I'm supporting teachers to teachers and parents who support teacher high school students make the best decision for themselves thanks Chelsea is it worth me and I can do at the end or not at all I thought I would make it run to the list of what our students is taking right now but the more I don't know details examples that worth it and bake it sign language certified nursing assistant next to PCC Fort Lewis we have numerous students and college business courses Haitian courses biology algebra for calculus and then we have Automotive courses want to give some examples of diversity if you will not only that but what our students are taking based on their interest on to that so we do have soup student sometime soon as seniors they try to finish up all of the the credit requirements so that they're you know spring semester they're actually taking you know they could take more than one college course and will pay for it so did you know so the great thing about big picture is like the level to which we personalize what the student needs in their four years at the school so it's it's a really cool speaking of personalization we're going to have Allison talk about our special ed program on what she does with that, he wanted to still be on this is my first year at big picture I previously was in Arizona for the past 12 years so I feel like I can relate to you guys as you're here learning about big picture what it's really like as a new student what's cool about big picture from what you've been hearing is everything is individualized which goes along with IEPs for special ed it's a work at your own pace which is amazing I do a lot time spending with kids in the classroom checking in with them talking with them checking in with academics emotional state helping in the Freshman especially learn to become independent Learners it's a huge transition it's something that takes time and energy and lots of communication and talking with the students so as the years progressed it's a lot of you no communication either in the classroom or pull out model whichever works for the student and best so we usually want to tweak IEPs to fit the students needs at picture because we are only there 3 days a week for academics and we do the internships on Tuesday Thursday IEPs when you get to high school there really about transition and what is the goal After High School so what big picture their focuses you know here let's get you into a career with these internship opportunities let's get you into these college courses to give you experience with that and with special education I'm there working alongside all the teachers all the students supporting them in whatever need that maybe some students that might be a lot of need other students it's just a little bit here and there and so it's super individualized to whatever is needed for a student with an IEP and that includes accommodations and modifications and the one thing I can definitely say about all of the teachers and their experiences is that they are amazing at accommodating and modifying for our students and that's something that is not necessarily done across the board at other high school so super awesome unique opportunity for students with IEPs to get even more individualized instruction towards their passions where you want to answer that question that's awesome we had a question about our students and their ability to transition into college and pretty pretty much answered it as well as you could you know because our students go through a full application process we walk them through financial aid process is all that kind of stuff and then they have the opportunity to take a college class without her support their they're pretty successful at getting into college and doing what they need to do I'm Ashley you're asking about a LPS so the beauty of an LP is business curriculum centered around your student right and so yes we do have a tail piece in place for a GT kids and in what it means is we can we can create whatever levels of interest and rigor for students that they want and so I might children just walked into it might get a little loud in here but but you know I think Christopher would be a good person that speaks of this he's got several GT students in his class right now but that's that's kind of it's right like the sky is the limit with projects the bigger the idea of the more fun it is and the rigor is Created from passionate interest rather than just we're going to give you a whole bunch more worksheets right I didn't want to come at 4 everybody just about covid-19 functionality of our building because we are a small school it gives us the opportunity to be one cohort and so our students are in the same schedule that were always in Monday Wednesday and Friday class Tuesday Thursday internships and high bugs and they say about that thanks sweetie I just got a bracelet that was made at school today so you know my day is complete thanks sweetie she didn't go to school today but our kids did I completely got thrown off by that and I don't remember what I was talking about anymore happy about that anyway so we're in one cup of wine in our students are moving throughout the building during the day I know a lot of your students in the Middle School their there in one classroom and teachers move around to them the flexibility of having the one cohort makes it easy for us to operate we're wearing masks and we're waiting on PPE but we do get to move around so that's kind of nice all right don't the last thing I would like to talk about is just the upcoming session so we do have three more sessions next week session will be led by students and then the week after that will be a more in-depth about our internship program and finally the 4th week we do so much work with our Community Partners will go more in-depth on that as well the 4th week the last thing here before we take any other questions is the application process and so some people have already asked about cohorts I so again we've already got about three or four eighth-graders and rolled so we've got about 15 slots left and then we form a waiting list and basically what what needs to happen next is if anyone's interested they can go on to our website go to the little pencil says enrollment click on that and you can take a look at what what the process is with the processes that you would first with an application so you would fill out an application takes about 15 minutes it's all online the student and parent should be there to fill that out there questions for both of you on there and then and then we will give you a call and we would like to schedule either a half-day or full-day shadow where the student gets to come to the school they get to be at the school they could to experience everything and you know they get the full experience through that shadow and then after the the shadow day or half-day whichever one you want to do we bring you back in for an interview that is with the parents and the students and it stood to gain more Haitian from you about how your student learns different things with their passions are with their interests are and so and so that's a that's a great opportunity to get to know the family more and then at that point we figure out if it's a good fit and I would like to say this it's like a shoe you know if this if this big picture Shoe Fits your foot then you're going to love it and you're going to enjoy high school and and the next four years are going to be great and if it's not the right fit then it's not going to be great and so even though I believed it this is for every person you know it does take the right kind of students sometimes it's 2 to take charge of their learning time to be independent and work with their advisor to close way and so and so that's kind of the process but you can go to our website and and find that out as well you know it depends of the question here what windows are freshman cohort usually fill up it depends on the year so last year with covid-19 horrible for us we are now. Right level so we do not have any slots now ninth grade but but this year will be different we think you know people people are looking for smaller schools people are looking for more personalized attention for their student during this time of covid and and having you know everyone feels affected in a different way and so having the ability of a staff to work with students more personal and individually so it is different every year but we anticipate that within the next month beautiful I will the shadow day be affected by covid-19 I have that shadow day experience so thanks for that question Drear anything else you want to add you know we are open on Wednesdays unlike the rest of the districts which creates a perfect opportunity for middle school students to come visit us and not have to miss any synchronous learning that's pretty cool I went I was just going to throw in if anybody has questions for anyone other than Bradley or myself Christopher wants to say something. I love you guys ask the advisors and teachers any questions and then maybe let them go and Bradley and I are happy to hang around and answer any questions beyond what they might be able to answer for you go for Christopher the one thing I really want adding it's been spoken about but I think important thing to know is that we really work hard to develop the whole person not just a student at her school but to support them personally in their Social Development to be a good yeah Community member as well as you know as well as their academics in their student that that's a really big component of our program that I'm proud of I think each of us take some sort of STL approach to know if the social emotional learning in our classroom so I just wanted to speak to that it's it's it's a really important piece for me thanks Christopher and again as you can imagine the advice you're really gets to know the family and you know we tell families that you know if you need to reach out to the advisor you text them or email him or call him and and so you've you got this opportunity did you work with another person who cares about your student multiple levels and is going to see that their Successful by personalizing their plan for the four years at their they're so we appreciate everyone come in tonight so thanks again for coming out we appreciate it and let us know how we can serve you better have a good night

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