2016 Hord Award winner
Tustin High\'s Leadership Team is made up of 13 instructional coaches (called iCOACHes), as well as three assistant principals, a \"coach of coaches,\" and school principal Christine Matos. The team engages in a cycle of improvement designed to increase their coaching skills and to help them use various forms of student and teacher data to improve teaching and learning.
\"The Tustin High School leadership team exemplifies the elements of a team using the cycle of continuous improvement in a collegial way to search out problems, explore solutions, and make changes to increase their effectiveness,\" said Learning Forward Scholar Laureate Shirley Hord. \"Team members openly share their classroom practices, and suggest to others how they might respond to classroom issues. The teachers\' talk is about data and its basis for their professional learning goals. It is clear that they believe that student achievement and the learning of the school\'s adult professionals are undeniably related.\"
Located in Orange County in southern California, Tustin High School is a Title I school that serves 2,200 students.
The team will be recognized at Learning Forward's 2016 Annual Conference in Vancouver, December 3-7. The award, sponsored by Corwin, includes funds to support conference attendance for team members, $2,500 to support collaborative professional learning, and a gift of Corwin books for the school\'s library.
Teams from across the United States submitted applications for the award. Applications included documentation of each team\'s work and its impact on teaching and learning, as well as a video showcasing the team engaging in the cycle of continuous improvement.
The HSHMC team will be recognized at Learning Forward's 2019 Annual Conference in St. Louis, December 7-11. The award, sponsored by Corwin, includes funds to support conference attendance for team members, $2,500 to support collaborative professional learning, and a gift of Corwin books for the school\'s library.
Pictured (L-R)
Eric Zamora, Derek Johnson, Maribel Herrera-Olmedo, Ryan Miller, Melissa Trout, Celeste Kelly, Jamie Ernst, Principal Christine Matos, Sheila Moeller, Delia Racines, Ali del Castillo, Joanna Vandal, Joanna Lane, and Randy Reta. Not pictured are team members Michele Boudreaux, Timothy Grave, Roland Jones, and Claire Gocke.
About Shirley Hord
Shirley Hord focused her ground-breaking researchon the impact of professional learning communities. Her research teams identified the attributes of effective learning teams and benefits to staff and students of collaborative learning. Later in her career she focused on assisting schools and districts in building structures and acquiring strategies for this form of professional learning. Shirley, who passed away on October 15, 2019, served as Learning Forward's scholar laureate.
