EducationNews.org

Newsweek.com recently featured Hillsdale High in San Mateo, California for its excellent program motivating students to "want to learn" and their exemplary scholarship record. Hillsdale was noted as one of "the top 1,300 high schools in the country." In this interview, Jeff Gilbert discusses the key elements that have resulted in success in Hillsdale.

1) Jeff, your school seems to have done quite well recently. When did you take over, and what were some of the first things that you did?

I came to Hillsdale as a social studies teacher in 1996 and joined a school community that put a heavy emphasis on teacher leadership and innovation. I have been in the role of Lead Principal for two years now and there is nothing, really, that I have done beyond facilitating and growing the work that has been happening for 10+ years. We believe that the whole school community is responsible for creating and nurturing the vision, and that we are all responsible for continuous improvement. One unique aspect of Hillsdale is that we do have a shared vision and a common pursuit, which drives our collective work.

2) Tell our readers about some of these small learning communities. Are they based on any theory?

Much of the most interesting work being done at the secondary level right now is being done in small schools, often charter schools, that carry on the spirit of Deborah Meier's work at Central Park East in New York City. Hillsdale is trying to take the lessons learned in small, innovative schools and apply those lessons to a comprehensive and diverse high school.

Small Learning communities are based on the research that shows that smaller high schools create a more personalized and meaningful educational experience for students. On a basic level, we believe that people learn in a deeper way from people who they know and trust and, at the same time, people teach better to those that they understand.

Small Learning Communities are groups of approximately 100 students who share four core teachers (math, science, social science and English) for a two year cycle. The four teachers only teach those 100 students and also serve as the students' advisor. The advisor becomes the lynch-pin in the design, acting as the student's key contact, advocate, supporter, disciplinarian, etc.

Advisors keep in consistent contact with families, using School Loop as the criticaltool, in order to both inform and understand the unique world of each student. Teaching teams have common preparatory time and meet about curriculum and students almost daily.

The model is about shrinking the world of the student and teacher and creating coherence in an often chaotic system.

3) It seems to me that your small teacher- student ratio may have alot to do with your success- Are our teenagers looking for more adult interaction?

The class sizes in 9th and 10th grade core classes are smaller at Hillsdale (25-1) but the key ratio is the total number of students that teachers see over time. We try to limit the number of students that each teacher gets to know, whenever possible, and limit the number of teachers each student gets to know. Students aren't looking for more adult interaction but they are looking for deeper, more personal interactions, which only happen when the adults and students have time to learn about one another in a meaningful setting.

The interactions have to be about important things--students' lives and work-- and they can't be artificial, which takes time and dedication on the part of the adult.

4) I have known for years that there is plenty of scholarship moneyout there---how did you manage to tap all those funds out there?

We think that Smaller Learning Communities have helped us get to know our students so much better that we are much more effective at finding opportunities for each student. The problem is often creating the motivation and sense of possibility around scholarships and post-secondary education, not that the opportunities don't exist. When students are connected to the school and to adults at the school who can guide them, scholarships and college acceptance become much more likely--we have students going to four year schools now who never would have applied ten years ago. And we have a great counseling and guidance staff who work with our advisors to seek out options.

5) Some school systems indicate the number of AP classes orInternational Baccalaureate classes as one criteria of success. What is your criterion of success?

We look at a lot of data and we are trying to move the needle in a number of areas, but of late the one thing that we have been talking about the most is our graduates' success rate in the first year of college. We have now gotten to the point where 90+% of our students plan on attending college when they graduate but, like most schools, we don't have a good handle on how well they do in college when they get there, and the attrition rate at the college level leads us to believe that they probably aren't doing as well as we would like.

We are working with our local community college to track our data and we can also follow our students' progress in UC and CSU's which creates the measuring stick. At the school, we are working on requiring all students to develop and defend a portfolio of work across content areas that will reflect college-readiness in content and in academic skills and habits.

We have also set a goal that all students will graduate high school with at least 20 units of college credit completed through concurrent enrollment courses--we think that students need early and appropriate exposure to college in order to know where they are going.

6) Jeff , behind every successful principal is a loving wife, andbehind every successful principal is a good guidance counselor. Tell us about both of these individuals.....

My wife is patient and understands the nature of being a high school principal, which has been a huge support. She is running an on-line business right now that allows her to stay at home and still develop her creative side. We have three great kids,ages 3, 5, and 8, and they love to hang out at the school, go to basketball games and play with the older kids, and I love to have them around.

Our guidance counselors and college counselors are reflective of our staff as a whole--they are amazingly committed to kids and the idea of collectively solving problems. As our model evolves, which it does every year, we rely on people who are flexible and innovative and the counseling department is often at the center of the change, as they have expertise that no-one else does and they have to figure out ways to adapt and to share with the advisors, who are now so close to the students.

7) How did you go about changing the "culture" if you will of thehigh school?

Culture is reflected in the language, artifacts and rituals of any institution and so we have to be attentive to changing those things in order to change culture. We did not used to have a culture of collaboration but we knew it was important so we redesigned the master schedule so that collaboration was built in to the day and we empowered the teachers so that what they collaborated about was important.

We did not previously to do a good job of communicating with parents, which we also knew was important, so we made sure that every student had an advisor who would work with families, and we found and implemented School Loop, a tool that has made it far easier to communicate on a daily basis.

Culture does not change without specific and targeted actions in the areas of concern. We have worked hard to define our mission and our values which we refer to constantly, which has helped us stay united in our work, which makes cultural shifts happen. We have also clearly allocated our resources (time, money and people) to address the issues that are central to our vision, so that people know that our mission is not just lip service.

8) Tell us about the community and the community support that youreceived...I do recall traveling through your community many years ago...

Our community is a diverse one, but reflective of California as a whole--our student population is about 46% white and 25% Latino, with dozens of languages spoken on campus and a wide range of socioeconomic realities. We are located 15 miles south of San Francisco, on the San Francisco Peninsula, which in now one continuous suburban/urban stretch between The City and San Jose. Our students don't have a strong sense of community, the way students do in a small, or clearly defined, town, so we work hard to create a community on campus.

We are on the edges of Silicon Valley (we can see Oracles' towers from campus) but California's school funding system means that we still struggle to adapt and utilize technology. Our families have rallied behind our reforms and parent support increases every year. We are working to partner with local businesses around internship and job shadowing programs but there is not as much a sense of "local" as there used to be--communities blend together and things move very fast in Silicon Valley so we are going to have to do more to create strategic partnerships.

9) What lessons have you learned over the past five years?

Schools need to take the time to agree on what is most important to them. There are many ways to improve schools but there is no doubt that it can be done--schools have to own a vision of reform and improvement and the school as a whole has to drive a stake in the ground and agree to a long-term plan. Resources have to be funneled to the vision and tough choices have to be made to nurture and sustain the improvement plan but the long-term vision can't waiver (the structures and strategies will change and adapt, but the vision must be held up).

Schools have to take hiring seriously and get the right people on board, which can take time. We have really been at this for 10 years now and we always hire in terms of how the person fits in the vision.

Finally--small works. Comprehensive high schools have to become more coherent and focused and reduce the number of moving parts for students and teachers. At the core of our vision, structurally, is that idea of 100 students with four teachers over two years. The success of those 100 students becomes the responsibility of those four teachers who will be supported to make it happen.

Published August 28, 2008