In 2011, Trevista was designated as a turnaround school which means that it was in need of drastic improvement. In June 2012, we applied for innovation status as a strategy to turn Trevista around through flexibilities. We were granted innovation status between 2012-2015, we have renewed our innovation in 2015-2017 spring, and most recently were approved for 2020 – 2023. Our most recent Innovation Plan is linked here.
Some of the flexibilities that we have been able to have because of our innovation plan are:
Our innovation plan allows us flexibility in the folks we hire so to ensure we have the best educators for our kiddos. We are very proud to say that we have two adults in every classroom; in ECE-2nd grade we have a teacher and a paraprofessional and in 3rd-5th grade we have a teacher and a para educator intern or a preservice year teacher.
We know that our students benefit from more, meaningful, instruction so our students have an extended day compared to other schools. Our day begins at 8:05 a.m. and ends at 3:15 p.m. We also operate under a modified calendar to ensure that our teachers have more time for professional development and planning/preparation.
At Trevista, we value biliteracy and bilingualism. Our students benefit from an ELD class and we differentiate between: beginner, intermediate, and advanced/native speakers. Our ELD classes are taught by experts who are passionate about this important content area.
As an innovation school, we were allowed flexibility in curriculum selection before the board of education passed this as an option to all schools. As a result, we were able to pilot common core aligned curriculum that is now the opt-in option throughout DPS. We have opted in to the district curriculum for mathematics and literacy.
Another flexibility that we have through innovation before the the district made it a district wide option was in assessment. We partnered with The Achievement Network (ANet) and this partnership has assisted us in making big shifts for common core state standards. ANet created a series of common core aligned assessments which we used to inform instruction throughout the year and we learned a lot. We continue to partner with ANET to ensure that our teachers are supported to engage all students in grade level instruction.
We have an extended day that guarantees our emerging bilingual students receive a 45 minute ELD block which focuses on reading, writing, speaking, and listening using ELAchieve as well as 150-165 minutes in our literacy block. Our students are able to participate in a very balanced literacy block which includes whole group read aloud and close reading, multiple guided reading groups, and responses to reading which require high levels of thinking that are aligned with common core. Furthermore, we use Lightsail at our intermediate grades to provide a personalized independent reading experience on our iPads that our students love! We use CreativeCurriculum for ECE, Benchmark for K, and Expeditionary Learning for 1st-5th.
Our students also have an extended math block at Trevista due to our extended day between 80-105 minutes. We are very excited to opt into the DPS curriculum, Eureka (Engage NY) for ECE – 5th.
At Trevista we offer all of our students physical education and visual arts programming. In addition to these opportunities, we also host a variety of after school options such as Enrichments like our School Musical, Sticky Fingers Cooking Class, Art Club, Mad Science, Book Club and much more. We also have Discovery Link and Leading Edge!
We have a very strong community at Trevista and our partnerships enable us to support students outside of the school. We offer additional resources for families and organize regular family and community events including parenting classes, volunteer opportunities, monthly informational meetings, and many more.