Smaller Learning Community Study Visits: Hillsdale High School
- October 1-2, 2012
- February 11-12, 2013
- March 14-15, 2013 — New: Hillsdale 2.0
This year we are also offering Hillsdale 2.0: A new session for returning attendees only. Hillsdale 2.0 offers a deeper look into Hillsdale’s practices focusing on performance-based assessment, professional development, and leadership.
"I saw that once administration sees itself as a partner (and not top-down administrators) an SLC can truly become effective. When the administration sincerely shares decisionmaking, then an SLC can truly emerge."
"[Hillsdale staff] are truly awesome! I am highly impressed by their willingness to try and their openness and flexibility regarding what's possible. They have given me great hope about what's possible and our collective future as a society."
Hillsdale Study Visits are inquiry-based tours to the smaller learning communities (SLCs) at Hillsdale High School in San Mateo, CA. They are designed in careful collaboration with the school to create a meaningful exploration of key issues of school redesign and SLCs.
Hillsdale Study Visits provide professional development for teams to learn how a high school can be organized into SLCs, and to observe the structures and practices that support SLCs. Teams learn how the Hillsdale process can be translated and applied to inform their own redesign efforts. School teams are invited to register.
Hillsdale has received national recognition as an exemplary school that has built teacher capacity and dramatically increased college-going rates for its students. Hillsdale is a longterm partner of the School Redesign Network (SRN), a SCOPE-sponsored center. Hillsdale is featured in our study tours because of its very effective implementation of structures and instructional strategies that model the SRN framework of 10 Features of Good, Small Schools. Each study visit is customized for teams to identify their own needs and goals and frame their own school context within the visit.
The study visit will address such questions as: Why create smaller learning communities? What are the benefits for students? What does a smaller learning community look like? How do teachers interact and collaborate differently? What does it take to lead conversion and change from a comprehensive high school into a smaller learning community?
Day One takes place at Stanford University. This session provides participants with an overview of Hillsdale and the history of its conversion into smaller learning communities. Teams will reflect on their own experiences and goals in learning about Hillsdale High School.
Day Two takes place on the school campus, with observations of advisories, instruction, teacher collaboration, and sit-down sessions with teachers, students, and administrative leaders.
