Smaller Learning Communities

What is SERVE’s role in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE’s) SLC initiative?

Through funds provided by OESE, SERVE staff work to provide support for grantees in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina in the following ways:

• Federal Grant Monitors: perform site visits to grantees and report findings back to OESE Program Officers
• Technical Assistance Providers: as required by OESE Program Officers or as requested by grantees on a contract basis
• Liaisons for OESE and Northwest Regional Education Lab (NWREL): aid grantees in meeting grant deadlines and requirements
• Information Dissemination and Logistics: disseminate SLC-related news related to professional development activities, funding cycles/opportunities, late-breaking research, and peer-to-peer networking
• SLC Regional Center Partnership Associates: meet quarterly with peers at other labs and regional centers to discuss findings, share successes, broach challenges, and help plan Leadership Institutes, Bidder’s Conferences, and other SLC-related events
• SERVE Internal Planning Committees: meet regularly with fellow SERVE programs to coordinate and compliment activities and ensure sharing across our organization.

What are SLCs?

The United States Department of Education (USDOE) defines SLCs as, “schools within schools, career academies, restructuring the school day, instituting personal adult advocates, developing teacher advisory systems and other innovations designed to create a more personalized high school experience for students and improve student achievement and performance.” For more in-depth information, feel free to download and distribute the latest work by Diana Oxley, Smaller Learning Communities: Implementing and Deepening Practice. This work is provided by our partners at NWREL.

What does an SLC look like?

Over four years with the SLC project, SERVE has completed more than 26 visits to school districts in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. While performing these duties for OESE, we have ascertained that SLCs can take many forms, reflecting the complexity of their student populations and district leadership styles. Core components can typically be broken down into structures (i.e. schools-within-schools, career academies, houses, etc.) and strategies that support the overarching structures (i.e. professional learning teams, student advisories, flexible scheduling, etc.).

Some common features of successful SLCs within our region:

• widespread understanding for the absolute necessity of High School redesign
• strident support for SLC restructuring at both the district and school levels
• a willingness to be creative and make difficult decisions regarding what components of the learning environment intrinsically promote student achievement and are therefore integral
• involvement by all stakeholders: students, techers, parents, administrators, and community members
• attention to research and performance data to ascertain problems within the district
• vigilance in maintaining equitable SLC access for all students
• provision of high-quality, relevant professional development for teachers and accountability measures to ensure utilization within the classroom
• advance planning for sustainability and staff changes

In those districts where these features have been demonstrated, new learning environments have been created, and research indicates that SLCs can increase student achievement.

Tell me more about funding.

The OESE has just announced the SLC Cohort 5 grantees. Cohort 5 grants are unique in that they have a longer funding cycle (5 years), no funded first year of planning, and larger award amounts. Future requests for proposals will be available via the Federal Register. To view prior grantee information from applications, visit the Southwest Educational Lab’s (SEDL) SLC website*10.

For more information, please email Teresa L. Hague or Adam C. Hall or feel free to call: 1-800-755-3277.

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