The things we do together make us who we are.

Worlds of Learning Days

Our annual Worlds of Learning Days is an engaging, interactive, school-wide experience emphasizing exploration, choice, and movement. Breaking from the typical school day routine, students will travel from classroom to classroom throughout the day, collecting stamps in a passport booklet. Instead of regular classes, students will choose from a wide range of destinations to experience, prompting curiosity and inquiry. Destinations will range from experiencing culture and foods of various countries, getting creative and hands-on with art medias, learning about career and life skills such as resume building or college applications, and tapping into their wellness and personal growth.

Destinations will be run by teachers, students, community members, alumni, and local organizations. We look forward to partnering with the University at Albany, Siena, Hudson Valley Community College, and Russell Sage to set up their own destinations for students to connect with current undergraduate students.

Moreover, passport booklets will include a map of all the topics, cultures, and ideas they will be exposed to. It will also have a meaningful reflective component asking students what they found interesting, what challenged their thinking, and which topic did they want to explore further. These booklets will also act as a low stake assessment for active participation. Students will earn satisfactory, unsatisfactory, or an incomplete credit.

Student-Run Farmers Markets

Our Student-Run Farmers Markets are carefully designed real-world experiences where students in our life skills program demonstrate and further develop their independence, confidence, and job skills. To build school community and inclusivity, students plan, prepare and operate a small, seasonal farmers market selling fresh produce, simple handmade goods, plants, and pre-packaged baked goods. We partner with local farms and community gardens to acquire produce, specifically Troy's Farmers Market. Students are also encouraged to make items such as snacks, drinks, and jewelry to be sold.

Our markets are not simulated, rather they use real money, real prices, and track actual profit/loss. Students take on real roles such as customer interaction, cash handling, inventory, and marketing and promotion. Our exceptional students have an opportunity to exemplify the math, communication, and social skills learned in their life skills classes. Inclusion is key to our seasonal farmers market. We encourage our general education students, staff, administrations, and community members to volunteer.

One School, One Story

Every year we will engage in a school-wide reading initiative, best known as One School, One Story. The month-long, community-driven experience will allow reading to feel collective, interdisciplinary, and relevant, rather than detached and isolated. Students will read the same core text, chosen around a distinct theme, whether it is identity, power, injustice, or resilience. There will be three to four options presented to students and they will have the opportunity to vote on the text. Each text option will be culturally relevant to open discussion of social issues that are absent in curriculum (Flores, 2018).

They will also be of different reading levels and provided in various formats including physical copies, audiobooks, brailles, large print, and digital texts. Students are expected to read, on average 50 pages a week (10 pages a day). Every Friday, students will take part in collective discourse with members of their Common Ground Community, discussing their progress, questions, and connections. These productive talks will have rules for participation including active listening, respectful communication, equity, and preparation. They will be defined by specific aims as students will have weekly student-led discussion prompts.

Students will also assume different roles each week, such as facilitator, summarizer, etc. The goal-oriented routine will encourage students to engage in academically productive discourse as well as create an opportunity for individual learning and collective knowledge building (Windschitl, 2019).

The Capybara Conference

One School, One Story is an exciting month as it sets up for our Capybara Conference, transforming reading into active exploration and inquiry. Our goal is to move students from consuming information to creating knowledge (Freire, 2005). The following month, each Common Ground Community will be tasked with developing a driving question inspired by the reading. Each Common Ground Community will choose a faculty advisor to oversee their project, responsible for scaffolding question development and guiding students toward questions that are open-ended and researchable.

Providing scaffolds will enable students to participate in abstract conversations (Windschitl, 2019). Scaffolds might include organizing interactional work that is not overtly procedural, providing specialized tools such as sample questions, or teacher modeling on how to approach question development (Windschitl, 2019). Students can choose from a variety of media to present their findings, including live presentations, documentaries, interactive stations, presentations, or QR codes for digital works.

Teachers will encourage students to develop a question investigating a local issue. This protects culture as it says, publicly, that students' communities are worthy of study. It also embodies culturally responsive-sustaining practices by treating local culture and lived reality as knowledge (Hammond, 2018). Parents and community members will be invited to the conference, allowing them to see the world through the eyes of our students.

Additionally, cross-grade collaboration will be essential in the process of developing presentations. Senior groups will choose Freshmen groups to mentor as they will have already planned and participated in numerous conferences. On the last day of the month, each classroom will turn into presentation spaces where students can rotate and engage with peers' work. Students will have their journals as they take their gallery walk to reflect on the inquiry-based projects. At the end of the conference, student choice awards will be distributed as well!

Pep Rally

Towards the beginning of the academic school year, prior to our first home game, student leadership will plan, organize, and host a pep rally recognizing student achievement beyond sports, including arts, academics, and student leadership. The shared experience across grades will build a sense of belonging, school spirit and identity.

To ensure our high schoolers are engaging with authentic, interactive, and energetic experiences, a student-led Pep Rally Committee will be in charge of creating and running games, performances, competitions, and awards. Each year a new group of upperclassmen will take responsibility of collaborating and cultivating new ideas that exemplify the diversity and exceptionalities of *all* our students. A proposal will be made to a panel of faculty, volunteering to assist in preparation.

We encourage students to organize interactive games, including relay races, dance-offs, and team challenges. We urge competitions that emphasize school spirit including color wars, chant battles, or poster contests. Teachers and administrators are also more than welcome to participate in challenges to excite our student body.

As previously stated, inclusion matters and not every student will be comfortable in a loud, crowded space. We will offer alternative viewing spaces, headphones at the door for noise cancellation, dimming the lights for those who might become overstimulated, and interpreters for our ELL students.

Voice & Vision Assemblies

We intend to host monthly Voice & Vision Assemblies, a student voice initiative encouraging students to raise questions and concerns to faculty and administration. At the beginning of each month, each grade will participate in a short assembly where issues/events of the previous month will be reviewed, students will have a chance to submit ideas and feedback, and faculty will speak on progress updates. The consistent structure will demonstrate real accountability, transparency, and follow through.

Our ballot system will have numerous options for submission including paper ballots or digital QR codes. All submission will be anonymous. Students are welcome to suggest changes and new events, or concerns on school culture and policies. Sentence starters will also be provided to spark creativity and inquiry.

Following each assembly, a small group of administrators, teachers, and student representatives will review ballots, identify key themes, attempt to respond, monitor and track progress.