SELF-STUDY VISITING COMMITTEE REPORT

WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES CALIFORNIA STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

FOR

Alliance Health Services Academy High School

12226 South Western Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90047

April 6- April 9, 2014

Visiting Committee Members Dr. Thomas Littlefair

Principal (retired)

Mrs. Colleen Marble Teacher, Urban Discovery Academy

Ms. Meg Rydman Director of Education, Golden Valley Charter School

Mr. Michael Santos Teacher/Department Co-Chair, San Dieguito High School Academy

Ms. Cynthia Woodruff Assistant Principal, Temecula Preparatory School

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Chapter I: Student/Community Profile: Data and Findings

Briefly summarize the most critical information from the student/community profile that impacts the school. Include the following:

� Brief description of the students and community served by the school. � School’s analysis of student achievement data (e.g., CAHSEE, AYP, API, AP, college SAT, graduation rates, and Program Improvement status). � Other pertinent data (e.g., attendance rates, size of EL/LEP population, teacher credentialing, class size, dropout rates, programs for students). � Appropriateness of identified critical learner needs and their linkage to school wide learner outcomes.

➔ Note: Show data in chart format and comment. Include sections of the profile that show student achievement findings and interpretations.

� Comment on significant findings revealed by the profile and/or pertinent data that were not included in the profile.

History Alliance Health Services Academy High School (HSA) is a public charter

school developed and operated by Alliance College Ready Public Schools under the auspices of the Los Angeles Unified School District. HSA opened In August 2009 with a medical-health services theme and a college preparatory curriculum

and rigorous coursework. The school is located in South Los Angeles. The school’s mission is to prepare students to enter and be successful in college and

to equip students with the skills and motivation to choose health majors and careers. Research and feedback provides information that minority students

from South Los Angeles are not properly represented in the Health Care Fields. Core Values

HSA has a small high performance model as do all schools run and operated by Alliance College Ready Public Schools. The school has the following core

values: high expectations for all students, small and personalized schools and classrooms, increased instructional time, highly qualified principals and teachers,

and parents as partners. The Work Based Learning (WBL) Program is a key component of the HSA model as it focuses on preparing students for health care majors and careers. The HSA program follows a four year path from 9th through

the 12th grade including: · Laboratory and medical science classes.

· Medical training and certification in first aid, CPR and HIPAA · Job skills training.

· Service learning projects, · Health related field trips.

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· Guest speakers from health service professions. · Mentorships provided by local college, university, and medical students.

· Job shadowing. · On-site internships and non-profit/for profit health service organizations.

· On-site internships with universities and non-profit/for profit health service organizations.

The above elements give the foundation for the health care/medical science course work that students complete while attending HSA.

Vision

HSA provides students with a college preparatory environment in which all students can learn the academic skills, leadership qualities and self-advocacy to

prepare them for college, careers and adulthood. Mission

The mission of HSA is to provide students with small, high performance learning environments so they will be prepared enter and succeed in college and

pursue advanced degrees in medical science and/or health services field. VIA Model

The HSA administrative team began using the VIA Model in 2013-2014 to review the HSA school vision and mission statement. Following the review of the VIA model as explained by Dr. Mary McCullough the administrative team and out-of-classroom team developed a breakdown of how this vision would be

implemented and the ways it would be reviewed/assessed. The out-of-classroom vision statement is:

HSA will be a school that values, represents, and respect all stakeholders. We will develop the minds and hearts of each child through effective teamwork and

communication. This vision statement was the result of a group effort following a summer

assignment where every staff member was asked to create an individual vision board.

The administrative team and out-of-classroom personnel finished their VIA model and process at the end of 2013 summer. Students in the class of 2016 and 2017 took part in vision setting activity during Summer Bridge—a week

long transition program for incoming 9th graders. At the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year the staff development centered on each department writing vision statements, establishing goals, implementations steps, and assessment

strategies. The HSA departments representing home groups for WASC are:

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· English · History · Math

· Medical Science/Physical Education · Science

· Spanish and Special Education

Expected school-wide Learning Results (ESLRs)

The 2013-2014 School Leadership Team received the ESLRs from the prior administrative team. The Leadership Team reviewed, evaluated and began to

modify the ESLR’s before handing them over to a student committee for review. The Leadership team chose to involve the student stakeholder group in

creating the document. The staff and School Coordinating Council also approved the ESLRS: The ESLRS are:

1. Become College-Ready · Develop test taking, student and organization skills.

· Set and achieve pre-college goals. · Exceed A-G university entrance requirements.

· Take PSTA, ACT, and SAT · Pass California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) on first try.

2. Gain Experiential Education · Expose students to health services and medical science.

· Motivate students to pursue college degrees and motivate students to consider health care related majors.

· Gain professional skills related to technology and the health services. · Improve overall student achievement through the Work-Based Learning Program.

3. Become Self-Advocates · Gain effective communication skills.

· Become problem solvers. · Become responsible and accountable for all choices and actions.

· Become civic-minded leaders and activities. Since the CST is being phased out to make way for the Common Core Standards, Alliance is utilizing the Lexile Level Set Test for ELA and the Mathematics Diagnostic Testing Project

(MDTP). The first three classes of HSA student were surveyed. The data showed that students felt a more specific focus of passage on the first attempt of the CAHSEE needed to be added to the school’s

goals. Student surveys run through the WBL program also found a wide range of career interests, prompting the addition of “motivate students to consider” healthcare related measures.

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The ESLR’s at HSA reflect the community it serves. Description of the Charter Management Organization

HSA is one of 22 schools under Alliance College-Ready Public Schools—a nonprofit charter management organization formed in 2004 is comprised of 22 free, pubic charter high schools and

middle schools. Together, these Alliance Schools serve 10, 500 low income and underrepresented students in Los Angeles. Alliance stems from (LEARN) Los Angeles

Educational Alliance for Reform Now—a reform movement started in the Los Angeles Unified School District in 1991.

The charter for HSA or College Ready Academy High School #8 was written in 2008 and approved for the 2009 academic school year. As a result of proposition #39, a temporary home

on the Henry Clay Middle School Campus in Local District 8 was selected as the site for HSA. When it came time for the charter renewal, HSA was to renewed serve the Washington

Preparatory High School due to remaining on the Henry Clay Middle School campus.

Description of the Community HSA is located in Los Angeles neighborhood of West Athens. HSA is the eighth of 22 Alliance

College-Ready Public Schools. West Athens is an unincorporated area close to the cities of Gardena, Inglewood and Hawthorne. It is also near the community of Westmont. The 2010

census demonstrates there is a total population of 8,720—a four percent decrease since the 2000 census. According to the 2010 data, 29% of the population is under the age of 18. 21% of the population is below the poverty line. Median household income is $47,773. Only 46% of the residents owned their home between 2007 and 2011. African-Americans constitute 52% of the

population followed by 44% Latino, and 18% white. Home ownership decreased by 9% between 2000 and 2010

Community Education Levels HSA serves the West Athens area where 16.5% of adults over 25 hold a Bachelors Degree or

higher. This is lower than the California state average of 30.2%. 67.8% of the residents 25 and over have a high school diploma, which is lower than the state average of 80.8%.

Service Planning Area (SPA) 6 HSA is located Los Angeles County’s Service Planning Area (SPA) 6. There are four other high

schools in the West Athens community. This same area is one of the most disadvantaged and under-resourced in medical services. In 2011, a County Health Department survey discovered

that 44% of residents have difficulty accessing medical care and only 64% felt their neighborhood was safe—the lowest percentage of all surveyed areas (LA County Health Survey,

2011).

Neighborhood and Feeder Schools The Neighborhood High Schools that feed into the HSA school community in SPA 6 are George Washington Preparatory High School, Gardena High School, and Alan Locke High School. The

feeder schools in SPA 6 are Robert Peary Middle School, Bret Harte Middle School, Samuel

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Gompers Middle School and Henry Clay Middle School, which the Green Dot Charter Schools turned into Amino Western and Amino Phyllis Wheatley.

Facilities

Since opening in 2009, HSA has been on the original Henry Clay Middle School site at 12226 South Western Avenue in South Los Angeles through a Prop. 39 agreement with LAUSD. HSA

is currently seeking a permanent site in South Los Angeles allowing students to access health services and professionals. The Alliance Home Office is in negotiations for this facility.

Faculty and Staff Leadership

HSA was founded by the first principal Dr. Erik Elward who served from 2009-2013. He designed the prototype for high school with a medical science focus. When HSA opening he had one Assistant Principal and seven teachers. Each year HSA grew by grade level. The 2013-2014

school years brought HSA a new principal, Dr. Carla McCullough who was the assistant principal for two years, and two new assistant principals, Evelyn Castro, the founding Spanish

teacher, and Veena Gogate. Staffing

HSA opened the 2013-2014 school years with 23 teachers, two full-time counselors, on school psychologist and five classified staff members. The entire teaching staff meets the highly

qualified teacher requirements (HQT) of NCLB. Eight teachers are enrolled in BTSA and six are university interns. The complete staff consists of 42 certificated and classified staff members—

26 female and 16 male. There are 33 certificated staff members including 19 female and 10 males. The ethnic breakdown of certificated staff is: 43% Latino, 28% White, 10% Asian and

7% other. Nine teachers have advanced degrees. Professional Development

Weekly Professional Development (PD) occurs weekly on Wednesdays from 2:00 pm until 3:45 pm. An assistant principal oversees the planning and implementation of PD including gathering and distributing data to drive the curriculum and instructional needs. The Assistant Principal and PD team meets monthly to discuss upcoming topics after reviewing data. There is a PD calendar

for the 2013-2014 school years.

Teacher Leadership Roles HSA teachers and staff are allowed to fill leadership roles including department chairs and

positions as coordinators. Some coordinators positions are ELL Coordinators, testing coordinators and class coordinators.

School Governance The school governance structure includes the Alliance Board of Directors, the HSA Board of

Directors, School Coordinating Council (same as a School Site Council) and Parent/Community Town Hall Meetings.

HSA Student Data

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Chapter II: Progress Report

Organizational Changes

Since the initial WASC visit when HSA housed only the 9th and 10th grades, Alliance College Ready Schools only consisted of 17 schools, 11 of which were

high schools. HSA was located at Henry Clay Middle School—a traditional LAUSD school. In 2010, Henry Clay Middle School dissolved in 2010 and Green Dot bid for the school through Public School Choice. Two Amino

Schools—a part of Green Dot took over the Henry Clay side of the campus. HSA became a co-located charter school along with the two Amino or Green Dot Schools from a different CMO. Then the Alliance Board elected to

name the school from Health Sciences Academy High School to Alliance Health Services Academy High School.

Administrative Changes

In the beginning, the Alliance Administrative team only consisted of a Principal and an Assistant Principal. In the second year, a part time counselor joined the administrative team. By the third year, the administrative team grew to two full time counselors, a new assistant principal and a director of instruction. In the

fourth year, the director of instruction position was changed to assistant principal. During the 2012-2013 school years, the founding principal ended his tenure and the assistant principal along with head counselor transferred to other

school sites. The 2013-2014 school years brought about change with a new principal and two new assistant principals. One new counselor joined the administrative team. A

new Work Based Learning Coordinator took over and several new office positions were filled including: a part-time office clerk, a full-time school

psychologist after school coordinator through YPI, and a WBL Assistant—a position funded through a grant.

Initial WASC Visit A two-person team completed a one-day initial WASC visit in March

2010. They listed the areas of strength including the following: · Strong support system from Alliance.

· Strong administrative support at the school. · Excellent teachers who are also student advisors.

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· Excellent support staff at every position in the school. · HSA had one of the highest perfuming initial first years on an open enrollment charter

school in LAUSD. · Excellent staff developments.

· Good follow-up on data to help guide curriculum needs. · Support for students as soon as they need it.

· Attendance is tremendous (99%).

The two person initial WASC team identified the following as critical areas of growth:

· There needs to be an increased school-wide effort to intervene to increase CST scores since they are quite low.

· Increase the rigor of coursework. · Organize staff development centered on involving students more in their own learning. The

classes appeared to be to teacher directed. · Continue to improve intervention and assessment strategies for incoming students who score

far below basic in math and ELA. · Improve the site-based special education program.

The areas of growth were addressed in the following ways:

Recommendation #1: Increase Low CST scores

Since the initial WASC visit in 2010, one person has been put in charge of school wide testing initiatives. For the 11-12 and 12-13 school years, this person was an assistant principal. The assistant principal also provided

students with CST preparation including Advisory, Saturday Boot Camps, and school-wide competition. English and math were the targeted focus.

In 2013-2014 HSA began providing a teacher an additional conference period to serve as the new testing coordinator. The testing coordinator assists analyzing district-wide and standardized test data on five-week progress reports and 10-

week report cards. HSA purchased Achieve 3000 to assess and determine individualized reading

levels and Lexile levels for all students. Recommendation #2: Improve the Rigor of Coursework

New courses have been added since the initial visit in 2010 at the additional grade levels to provide expand course offering so students will have more opportunities to prepare for college. These new courses including Medical Science 11 and 12, numerous AP courses and a few upper level math courses

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build rigor from the prior year. HSA certificated teaching staff have high expectations for proficient student performance are now standardized across all disciplines. Rubrics sharing the criteria to reach proficiency are more commonly shared school wide. School wide grading policies are maintained at each grade level. Grade levels meetings occur on the 5th Wednesday of every Month. The purpose of these meetings is to give department members an opportunity to study data, discuss student concerns and continue standardizing practices across every content area and grade level. Recommendation #3: More Student Involvement in Their Learning

The initial WASC visitation team recommended professional development time needed to be set aside to provide staff with instructional strategies/best practices to increase more student involvement into their own learning. Several components of the new teacher evaluation rubric have helped implement these new strategies. A new evaluation rubric called the College Ready Promise (TCRP) was implemented in 2011. This rubric has two domains dedicated to instructional strategies. Domain three addresses instructional strategies including questioning strategies and helping students engaged in academic discussions with their fellow peers. A level 4 practice teaches students to gain deeper and richer meaning of the content through questioning strategies. Alliance-wide Professional Developments, Instructional Rounds Walkthroughs have also helped teachers implement new instructional strategies to increase the level of academic instruction and rigor.

Recommendation #4: Assessment and Intervention Strategies

An English support class was added to the Master Schedule following the 2010 Initial WASC visit where the two member team identified a need to address the needs of incoming students who had received Far Below and Below Basic CST

scores English Language Arts (ELA). An Algebra support class has been a class at HSA since the school’s founding in 2009. During the 2013-2014 school year, HSA’s master schedule listed one class of English CAHSEE Support and

two courses of CAHSEE math support in addition to four classes of Algebra support.

Recommendation #5: Special Education

The final recommendation of the 2010 Initial Visitation WASC committee was for HSA to improve the site-based special education program. After reviewing

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various data points, a full time psychologist with a PPS Credential became a new HSA staff member in 2013-2014 school years. The role of the HSA

psychologist is to provide additional social-emotional support in addition to DIS counseling as specified in ten to thirteen IEP’s. HSA currently has a resource specialist for the upper grades and an additional resource specialist is assigned

to the lower grades. These specialists make more use of the push-in model, which provides the resource specialists and general education teachers at HSA with an opportunity to collaborate on those best practices to assist the special

education students. Chapter III: Overall Summary of School’s Demographics

Since HSA began five years ago in 2009 there has been a demographic shift within the school community of HSA or SPA region 6. The school reflects the change as the Latino population increased 26% to 81%. The African-American

population decreased 17% from 45% to 28%. There has been no change in the number of ELL students and students with an

IEP since HSA opened in 2009.

Most students come from the local middle school but with the addition of Green Dot Charter Schools more students now come from charter schools. The API has been increasing as evidenced from looking at the data of the class of 2013 who entered HSA with an average API initial API score of 665 and finished

with an API of 717. The API data demonstrates since opening in 2009 HSA has been making

progress: � API growth from 2009 to 2013: 665 to 717

� African American subgroup API: 632 to 634 (2012 base 696)

� Latino subgroup API: 688 to 735

� Socio-economically disadvantaged subgroup API: 682 to 714

� Students with Disabilities subgroup: 414 to 432

HSA reports the 62-point drop from 2012 to 2013 represents students that were in Advanced Placement courses that did not align to CST standards. Data demonstrates there was an increase in HSA students scoring Advanced or

Proficient on the ELA and Math CST’s from 2012-2013 in all areas, but ELA 11th grade.

Implications of Data with Respect to Student Performance

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HSA students are showing academic gains as evidenced by the growth in the API and grades on coursework.

Areas of strength: � Standardized test scores increase for incoming students after one

year at HSA. � Professional staff developments are aligned to increasing student

achievement. � The school climate is positive and focuses on academics not

discipline. Areas of growth:

� The number of HSA students enrolled in AP courses. The AP passage rates are quite low.

� The passage rate for sophomores taking the CAHSEE for the first time.

� Improving the academic growth of ELL students and special education students.

� Retaining staff from year to year. HSA’s critical academic needs address each area of growth. Critical Academic Need 1. College and Career Readiness

HSA needs to increase the number of students completing A-G requirements and entering four year colleges and universities

Evidence to Support Academic Need #1

1. Less than 80% of the students are on track with A-G requirements at each grade level.

2. Less that 40% of the class of 2013 or first graduating class enrolled in a four-year college or university. The majority of the class of 2013 enrolled in a

community college. 3. Less than 50% of students take at least two AP courses. With the exception

of Spanish where 80% of the students pass the AP exam, 5% or less of HSA students pass the other AP exams.

4. HSA graduates score below the state average on college entrance exams. Critical Academic Need #2: Increased literacy

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In order for HSA students to access and succeed in the content areas, the literacy rate of all students needs to increase. This will help English Language

Learners who will benefit greatly.

Evidence to Support Academic Need #2

1. The majority of HSA students score below grade level on the Lexile Level set test. The average Lexile levels of students are at 6th grade level.

2. The CELDT proficiency rates on each sub category are below 50%. Reclassification rates are slowed when HSA students score a C or below

in their ELA coursework. 3. CAHSEE ELA passage rates are below 90%.

Critical Academic Need 3: Special Education

There is a need to increase the literacy rates, academic growth and college opportunities for Special Education students.

Evidence to Support Academic Need #3

1. Since 2009 Special Education students have not scored at least an API of a 499, which is Far Below Basic.

2. Report card data demonstrates many Special Education students fail multiple courses and require extensive remediation.

3. Data from the class of 2013 shows there are limited job opportunities and enrollment into four-year colleges for special education students.

Critical Area of Growth: Staff Turnover

There is a need to reduce teacher and staff turnover to maintain consistency, grow institutional knowledge, which will positively impact student learning.

Evidence to Support that Area of Growth

1. Teacher retention rates continue to decrease from year to year. There has never been a year in which 70% of staff returned from the prior school year. 2. Data shows a reduction in Advanced and Proficient test scores in those

courses where there has not a higher turnover of teachers. of each criterion are addressed (see the WASC Accreditation Status Determination Worksheet).

CATEGORY A. ORGANIZATION: VISION AND PURPOSE, GOVERNANCE, LEADERSHIP AND STAFF, AND RESOURCES

A1. Organization Criterion

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To what extent does the school have a clearly stated vision or purpose based on its student needs, current educational research, and the belief that all students can achieve at high levels? To what extent is the school’s purpose supported by the governing board and the central administration and further by school wide learner outcomes and the academic standards? INDICATORS: Use the following indicators as a guide to ensure all key aspects of the criterion are addressed. Add any additional reflections based on the criterion. Vision – Mission – School wide Learner Outcomes – Profile: The school has established a clear, coherent vision and mission (purpose) of what students should know and perform; it is based upon high-quality standards and is congruent with research, practices, the student/community profile data, and a belief that all students can learn. The Alliance Health Services Academy High School’s (HSA) mission and vision statement provides a clear purpose as to school wide student outcomes. In addition the school has developed vision statements for the out of classroom team and for individual departments. The new model that the school reworked in the 2013-2014 school year establishes a clear vision and purpose based on research, practice, and the community profile. HSA is located within the South Los Angeles area near the city of Gardena. Historically, schools that operate within the same community as HSA fall within the Far below Basic or Below Basic range of school-wide API Scores. HSA believes that the improvement of the community’s academic performance is a priority. The ethnicity of students in the community is predominately Latino and African American and the school demographics of HSA reflect the community’s ethnic make-up. HSA is located within Los Angeles County’s Service Planning Area (SPA) 6. Research shows that SPA 6 is one of the most under-resourced and disadvantaged communities in the nation, particularly in medical services. With the apparent health services need in the community, and research that shows minority medical caregivers are more likely to serve in minority communities, HSA set out to employ the theme of health care in its college-preparatory curriculum in order to improve the academic outcomes of the young people and to improve the public health of the community within which it resides. Development/Refinement of Vision, Mission, and School wide Learner Outcomes: The processes to ensure involvement of representatives from the entire school community in the development/refinement of the vision, mission, and school wide learner outcomes are effective. The School Coordinating Council (SCC), Town Hall meetings, Pizza with the Principal, and Parent University are all ways that the school strives to involve stakeholders in the development and refinement of the vision, mission, and school wide learner outcomes. The SCC that consists of 12 members who represent the school’s many stakeholders. The SCC is made up of four classroom teachers, one other school staff member, one classified staff member, two parents, and two students. HSA’s principal and Associated Student Body (ASB) president serve as ex-officio members of the council, which meets on a monthly basis on the school’s campus. The Parent/Community Town Hall meetings hosted by the school provide another opportunity for key stakeholders to participate in the school’s progress. The school principal, administrative staff, and members of the HSA Board of Directors attend the Town Hall meetings, which are held on the school’s campus. The HSA principal hosts an event titled, “Pizza with the Principal” once a month, the goal of which is to provide a space where parents and families can feel comfortable asking questions and getting involved in the vision and mission of the school.

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HSA counselors, in conjunction with the home office, provide Parent Universities for the parents of HSA students on select Saturdays. Parent University serves as a place where parents can come to learn about pertinent issues. In addition, the ESLRs are referenced in the student’s daily lessons. The vision was modified over the past summer with input from staff and students. Understanding of Vision, Mission, and School wide Learner Outcomes: Students, parents, and other members of the school community demonstrate understanding of and commitment to the vision, mission, and the school wide learner outcomes. A discussion and review of the school’s ESLRs was conducted during the 2013-14 school year. A revised and refined document outlining the ESLRs was developed with input from all stakeholders. The ESLRs are a part of the everyday work of teachers, and they are referenced in daily lessons to varying degrees. Data is consistently used and shared with all stakeholders to discuss where the school is, along with areas of strength and growth. The vision demonstrates an understanding and commitment to the mission and vision of the school as well as to the ESLRs. Regular Review and Revision: The school is implementing an effective process for regular review/revision of the school vision, mission, and the school wide learner outcomes based on student needs, global, national and local needs, and community conditions. The school has implemented several processes to ensure regular review and revision of the mission, vision and ESLR's. Many of these processes are new and will need to be monitored and reviewed to order to adequately evaluate the effectiveness of the program. Employee performance evaluations, instructional rounds, LEA oversight by LAUSD, and academic data are some of the processes used to review and monitor the effectiveness of the review and revision of the vision, mission, and ESLRs. HSA’s principal has the primary responsibility and accountability to the school community for implementing the core values, beliefs, curriculum, instruction, and best practices of its CMO, the Alliance College-Ready Public Schools (Alliance) education model. The Alliance home office is responsible and accountable for guarantees made to HSA in providing operational and management services, monitoring academic progress, and documenting and publishing results to the school community and the community of Los Angeles. Ongoing evaluation serves to document best practices achieved, provides longitudinal data for continuous improvement, and most importantly, informs parents and the community of the degree to which HSA is achieving its stated goals for individual students. Standardized testing data contributes to identifying how effectively HSA is achieving its mission. HSA’s first graduating class left the school in spring 2013, so there will soon be quantitative data that provides insight on how students are succeeding after they leave the school, including whether they are pursuing health service related majors and careers.

A2. Governance Criterion

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To what extent does the governing board have policies and bylaws that are aligned with the school’s purpose and support the achievement of the school wide learner outcomes and academic standards based on data-driven instructional decisions for the school? To what extent does the governing board delegate implementation of these policies to the professional staff? To what extent does the governing board monitor regularly results and approve the single school wide action plan and its relationship to the Local Educational Agency (LEA) plan? INDICATORS: Use the following indicators as a guide to ensure all key aspects of the criterion are addressed. Add any additional reflections based on the criterion. Governing Board: The policies and procedures are clear regarding the selection, composition, and specific duties of the governing board, including the frequency and regularity of board meetings. There are clear policies regarding the Board's duties and role. Regular meetings are held and stakeholders are advised as to outcomes and given an opportunity to be heard. HSA is incorporated as a nonprofit corporation and is the corporate entity responsible for operating the school. HSA is one of 22 nonprofit corporations affiliated with the Alliance. The Alliance is responsible for fundraising and overseeing the charter schools that are affiliated with it, and they provide additional support to HSA and the other schools. The Alliance’s Board of Directors is made up of a maximum of 30 members who serve 3-year renewable terms. HSA has its own Board of Directors, which includes nine voting members. The Alliance’s Board of Directors appoints five members to the HSA Board; two teachers and two parents hold the other four seats. The school’s Board of Directors is responsible for providing fiscal accountability by approving and monitoring the budget. Additionally, the Board ensures effective organizational planning by approving long-range goals and annual objectives, monitoring the general policies, and overseeing that the school’s resources are managed effectively. The school’s administrative staff and other school personnel are responsible for all aspects of the day-to-day operations of HSA. Relationship of Governance to Vision, Mission, and School wide Learner Outcomes: The governing board’s policies are directly connected to the school’s vision, mission, and school wide learner outcomes. The self-study did not actively address this criterion. The report states the HSA board is responsible for fiscal, organizational planning, monitoring of policies, maintenance of facilities, and management of school resources. The Alliance VP communicates the HSA principal facility needs to the Alliance board and management. The principal of the school is a nonvoting member who serves as the voice of the school and as such reflects the mission, vision, and ELSR’s in the board meetings. Understanding the Role of Governing Board: The school community understands the governing board’s role, including how parents can participate in the school’s governance. Parents understand how they are able to participate in the school’s governance. Primarily this opportunity is given through the Town Hall and SCC meetings. The Town Hall meetings and the SCC also include parents and community members and provide them with information regarding the governance of the school. Parents are included as members of the HSA Board to provide parent representation at the Board level. Parents are notified of Board meetings and outcomes via email notices and online notifications. Meeting agendas and meetings are posted in order to ensure that all of its

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stakeholders are informed of the governing body and the responsibilities that the group manages. Governing Board’s Involvement in Review and Refinement: The governing board is involved in the regular review and refinement of the school’s vision, mission, and school wide learner outcomes. No mention of how the governing board is involved in the regular review and refinement of the school’s vision, mission and school wide learner outcomes is included in the self-study report. The board is involved in monitoring policy at the school. Alliance Home Office staff members serve as a bridge between HSA and the CMO organization. Professional Staff and Governing Board: There is clear understanding about the relationship between the governing board and the responsibilities of the professional staff. There is a clear understanding about the relationship between the governing board and the responsibilities of the school staff. The HSA Board delegates the day-to-day operations of the school to the principal and the school staff, under the principal’s direction. Board’s Evaluation/Monitoring Procedures: There is clarity of the evaluation and monitoring procedures carried out by the governing board, including the review of student performance, overall school programs and operations, and the fiscal health of the school. The school’s Board is responsible for providing fiscal accountability by approving and monitoring the budget. Additionally, the Board ensures effective organizational planning by approving long-range goals and annual objectives, monitoring the general policies, and overseeing that the school’s resources are managed effectively. The Alliance board supports the school staff in the review of student performance. Complaint and Conflict Resolution Procedures: The established governing board/school’s complaint and conflict resolution procedures as they apply to the school’s stakeholders are effective. The complaint and conflict resolution procedures for HSA stakeholders are step-by-step processes that are included in all Alliance school charters. The Human Resources (HR) department provides training on the complaint procedures and assists with the logistics of it. Neither the complaint or conflict resolution procedures have been utilized under the current administration.

A3. Leadership and Staff Criterion To what extent based on student achievement data, does the school leadership and staff make decisions and initiate activities that focus on all students achieving the school wide learner outcomes and academic standards? To what extent does the school leadership and staff annually monitor and refine the single school wide action plan based on analysis of data to ensure alignment with student needs? INDICATORS: Use the following indicators as a guide to ensure all key aspects of the criterion are addressed. Add any additional reflections based on the criterion. Broad-Based and Collaborative: The school’s planning process is broad-based, collaborative, and has commitment of the stakeholders, including the staff, students, and parents. All planning decisions are based on the annual Action Plan, also known as the Single Plan for Student Achievement (SPSA). The Action Plan is updated annually and shared with all

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stakeholders. The plan is utilized to make decisions within the following governing bodies and school meetings: • Administrative meetings; • Bi-monthly office meetings; • Monthly leadership team meetings; » Includes administrative team, department chairs, and grade level chairs • Monthly SCC meetings • Monthly Town Hall and Coffee/Pizza with the Principal meetings In all of the stated governing bodies, there are representatives from the all of the stakeholders groups. The principal ensures school wide decision-making is a collaborative process, and all decision-making is founded on data. School Plan Correlated to Student Learning: The school’s Single Plan for Student Achievement is directly correlated to the analysis of student achievement about the critical academic needs, school wide learner outcomes, and academic standards. The HSA Action Plan is reviewed and updated annually, and it provides evidence of consistent academic data analysis. This plan is composed based on the critical academic needs, ESLRs, and overall academic focus. During the WASC visit evidence of student achievement data from previous years and its impact on current outcomes was not apparent. Correlation between All Resources, School wide Learner Outcomes, and Plan: There is correlation between allocation of time/fiscal/personnel/material resources and the implementation, monitoring, and accomplishing of the Single Plan for Student Achievement. The school demonstrates a correlation between the allocation of resources and the implementation and monitoring of the Single Action Plan for Student Achievement. Resources have been leveraged for the purposes of improving CAHSEE results, career readiness through the hiring of a Work Based Learning Coordinator and assistant, the purchasing of a Lexile Testing program to improve literacy, the hiring of a school psychologist and an additional full time aide, as well as the implementation of a push-in teaching support model. In addition, funds have been allocated to provide additional support to teachers for professional development in preparation for the transition to Common Core State Standards.

A4. Leadership and Staff Criterion To what extent does a qualified staff facilitates achievement of the academic standards and the school wide learner outcomes through a system of preparation, induction, and ongoing professional development? INDICATORS: Use the following indicators as a guide to ensure all key aspects of the criterion are addressed. Add any additional reflections based on the criterion. Employment Policies and Practices: The school has clear employment policies/practices related to qualification requirements of staff. HSA adheres to state requirements as well as additional requirements as outlined by the Alliance and the school to assist in hiring well-qualified employees. The school has a clear process for selecting candidates and actively involves stakeholders in the hiring process. Qualifications of Staff: The school has procedures to ensure that staff members are qualified based on staff background, training, and preparation. The majority of the certificated staff have less than three years experience in the field. Over 21% of the classroom staff are on assignment through Teach For America. There are many

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opportunities for staff training and preparation through both site-based as well as Alliance-based professional development programs. Maximum Use of Staff Expertise: The school has a process to assign staff members and provide appropriate orientation for all assignments, including online instruction and specialized programs so that the expertise of the staff members is maximized in relation to the impact on quality student learning. Staff members are assigned to their roles based on content level, credential, master schedule demands, and levels of need. Staff members are provide with an orientation, teacher support, and administrative support in an effort to support student learning. There is a need for content level and professional expertise in order to maximize student learning. Defining and Understanding Practices/Relationships: The school has clear administrator and faculty written policies, charts, and handbooks that define responsibilities, operational practices, decision-making processes, and relationships of leadership and staff. Responsibilities and relationships are well defined. Each staff member receives a resource binder that consists of the HSA vision and mission, a staff handbook, a parent/student handbook and professional development agendas. Staff members also receive a breakdown of the responsibilities of each person at the site. New staff members undergo an on-site new hire orientation in which they rotate between the principal, the two assistant principals, and the office manager to learn about all of the policies, practices, processes, and overall aspects of the school. Every staff member is assigned to one of the three administrators as their direct supervisor. Internal Communication and Planning: The school has effective existing structures for internal communication, planning, and resolving differences. HSA places an emphasis on communication and collaboration between staff members through its use of email, Drop box, meetings, and shared calendars. Staff Actions/Accountability to Support Learning: The school evaluates the effectiveness of the processes and procedures for involving staff in shared responsibility, actions, and accountability to support student learning throughout all programs. This includes an evaluation of the collegial strategies used to implement innovations and encourage improvement, such as shadowing, coaching, observation, mentoring, group presentations. The staff is focused on building a culture of collaboration and accountability. HSA staff members attend weekly professional development meetings, which facilitate collaborative site-level student strategies, interventions, site procedures, and accountability. Teams were established to provide staff with additional direction and assistance with college readiness strategies for the students. However, this remains an area of critical need due to the inexperience of the teaching staff as a whole. Seven teachers are involved in BTSA, which allows teachers with preliminary credentials the opportunity to discuss their practice and determine areas of strength and growth. Teachers at HSA hold office hours for a minimum of one hour per week to support student learning and some teachers offer additional tutoring hours in order to provide coaching and mentoring services. Once a semester, each department meets for the entire day to discuss topics such as vertical planning and curriculum alignment within the department as a means of providing accountability for student learning. All staff members are engaged in continual observations, reflection, and conversations with their accountability partners.

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Many of the practices are new to the school so it may take additional time to confirm the effectiveness of the practices currently in place. Evaluation of Existing Processes: The school leadership regularly reviews the existing processes to determine the degree to which actions of the leadership and staff focus on successful student learning. The administrative team meets weekly to review data and current practices. There is an administrative workday that occurs once a semester, which provides a focused opportunity to review processes and reflect on next steps. Additional Findings Evidence indicates high teacher turnover rates at HSA. In order to counteract these high turnover rates, HSA has taken the following steps:

1. Placed an emphasis on professional development. 2. Teachers are able to provide input on the decision-making processes of the school. 3. Provided opportunities for teachers to take on leadership roles through coordinator positions and through professional development. 4. Expanded meetings to include weekly principal meetings, bi-monthly office leadership team meetings, monthly department chair/grade level meetings, and monthly counseling team meetings.

A5. Leadership and Staff Criterion

To what extent are leadership and staff involved in ongoing research or data-based correlated professional development that focuses on identified student learning needs? INDICATORS: Use the following indicators as a guide to ensure all key aspects of the criterion are addressed. Add any additional reflections based on the criterion. Support of Professional Development: The school effectively supports professional development/learning with time, personnel, material, and fiscal resources to facilitate all students achieving the academic standards and the school wide learner outcomes. The school conducts weekly professional development meetings, differentiated and relevant to the needs of the teachers. Teachers are involved in the planning of the professional development topics. There is an identified lack of external speakers as well as limited implementation of follow-up procedures to ensure teachers are utilizing the professional development in their classroom. The Alliance conducts Alliance-wide professional development and meetings. However, space is limited and popular workshops fill up quickly. Teachers attend conferences on an as needed basis. The Leadership Team discusses grade-level and departmental visions and long-term planning and focuses on curriculum development as well as vertical alignment of instruction. Approximately once a month, HSA holds open Professional Development (PD) team meetings in which professional development agendas are planned for the upcoming months. Newer and novice teachers receive support from outside, experienced teachers through BTSA. Supervision and Evaluation: The school implements effective supervision and evaluation procedures in order to promote professional growth of staff.

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HSA utilizes The College Ready Promise (TCRP) Support, which is a comprehensive teacher support and performance evaluation tool. Teachers are reviewed upon a multi-faceted rubric that evaluates teachers on a holistic domain of instructional planning, classroom based observations, coaching conversations, and staff professionalism. Teachers meet regularly with their direct supervisor for instructional support. Teachers are provided with both formal and informal feedback. Each administrator is TCRP certified to ensure fidelity. The Professional Development team is responsible for the implementation of long term planning for the school. A meeting is held once a month that allows all staff to have input in the professional development planning, Measurable Effect of Professional Development: There are effective operating processes that determine the measurable effect of professional development, coaching, and mentoring on student performance. Professional development surveys are used to allow continued reflection and refinement of the professional development program. The home office assists the school in the review of data and planning of professional development activities. Teachers are provided time to reflect upon their practice through looking at individual, content, and grade level data to identify trends, areas of strength, and areas of weakness. The professional development team uses this information to identify areas of need and evaluate whether they have been met. Attendees of Alliance-wide professional development activities are provided with an opportunity to evaluate sessions and provide constructive feedback for the session or presenter.

A6. Resources Criterion To what extent are the human, material, physical, and financial resources sufficient and utilized effectively and appropriately in accordance with the legal intent of the program(s) to support students in accomplishing the academic standards and the school wide learner outcomes? INDICATORS: Use the following indicators as a guide to ensure all key aspects of the criterion are addressed. Add any additional reflections based on the criterion. Allocation Decisions: There is a relationship between the decisions about resource allocations, the school’s vision, mission, and student achievement of the school wide learner outcomes and the academic standards. The school leadership and staff are involved in the resource allocation decisions. School leadership and staff are actively involved in the decisions regarding the allocation of resources. Each department is responsible for the budget regarding purchasing of resources. Monthly SCC meetings are held and budget review is part of the agenda. The SCC has oversight of unforeseen budgetary needs. These unforeseen costs are managed through discretionary funds as well as through the allocation of grant funds. Practices: There are processes operating in relationship to district practices for developing an annual budget, conducting an annual audit, and at all times conducting quality business and accounting practices, including protections against mishandling of institutional funds. (Note: Some of this may be more district-based than school-based.) There is an annual budgeting process in place. An annual audit is conducted, and the Alliance ensures quality business and accounting processes are maintained.

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Facilities: The school’s facilities are adequate to meet the school’s vision, mission, school wide learner outcomes, the educational program, and are safe, functional, and well maintained. The current HSA facilities are safe, functional, and well maintained, though they do not currently meet the desired requirements to fulfill the overall mission and vision of the school and the medical science focus of the school. The Alliance CMO is making efforts to locate or build an adequate facility, though there is no defined timeline for its completion. Instructional Materials and Equipment: The policies and procedures for acquiring and maintaining adequate instructional materials and equipment, such as textbooks, other printed materials, audio-visual, support technology, manipulatives, and laboratory materials are effective. The policies and procedures for acquiring adequate instructional materials is effective and provides departments with a voice in the decision-making process for the acquisition of educational materials. The school provides all students with an IPad for their use during the school day. The process for checking out and monitoring student use of technology appears to be effective. The school implemented the use of technology for the student body during the current school year in preparation for the implementation of Common Core assessments. The laboratory and science equipment needs are not being met at the current time and this is a primary focus for the school. Well-Qualified Staff: Resources are available to enable the hiring, nurturing, and ongoing professional development of a well-qualified staff for all programs such as online instruction and college/career. The staff is supported by administrators, through the use of BTSA, staff collaboration, and peer support. The school and Home office also provide a professional development program for staff members. Long-Range Planning: The district and school’s processes for regularly and effectively examining a long-range plan ensures the continual availability and coordination of appropriate resources supports students’ achievement of the critical learner needs, the academic standards, and the school wide learner outcomes. The HSA Board of Directors is responsible for providing fiscal accountability by approving and monitoring the budget. The HSA Board of Directors ensures effective organizational planning by approving long-range goals and annual objectives. Once the long-range goals are set and monies allocated into their respective budgets, the SCC handles all petitions for school monies. The SCC approves funds based on discussions and immediate needs of the school to ensure the progress towards the long-range goals.

A7. Resources Criterion [Charter Schools only] Have the charter school’s governing authority and the school leadership executed responsible resource planning for the future? Is the charter school solvent and does it use sound and ethical accounting practices (budgeting/monitoring, internal controls, audits, fiscal health and reporting)? INDICATORS: Use the following indicators as a guide to ensure all key aspects of the criterion are addressed. Add any additional reflections based on the criterion. Long-range Financial (and other Resources) Plan: The school regularly reviews it’s long-range (and other resources) plan in relation to the school’s vision, mission, and school wide learner outcomes. Decisions about resource allocation are directly related to the school’s vision, mission, and school wide learner outcomes. The HSA Board of Directors is responsible for providing fiscal accountability by approving and monitoring the budget. The Alliance Board of Directors ensures effective organizational

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planning by approving long-range goals and annual objectives. Once the long-range goals are set and monies allocated into their respective budgets, the SCC handles all petitions for school monies. The SCC approves funds based on discussions and immediate needs of the school to ensure the progress towards the long-range goals. Regular Accounting and External Audit Procedures: The school has defined regular accounting and external audit procedures. Alliance financial procedures provide regular accounting and external auditing oversight for the school. The school also has an internal financial report that is prepared for the home office that provides and additional system of checks and balances. Budgeting Process — transparency: The school develops and monitors its annual budgeting process to ensure transparency. The HSA Board of Directors is responsible for long-range budgetary planning. The SCC makes shorter-term decisions regarding the budget. Public meetings are held to provide transparency with the decision-making processes and to ensure that all stakeholders are represented and informed. Adequate Compensation, Staffing, Reserves: The school governing body provides adequate compensation to faculty, administrators, and staff; adequate staffing for the school’s program; and reasonable accumulation of reserves. Compensation is relevant to each employee’s education levels, experience, teacher effectiveness, and evaluations as it pertains to specific jobs. Staffing is adequate for current needs. The school maintains a reserve that is within acceptable guidelines. Marketing Strategies: The school has marketing strategies to support the implementation of the developmental program, including research and information to help develop future planning. Marketing strategies utilized by the school include the school website, a newsletter that is sent out to stakeholders 4 times a year, and 8th grade articulation visits to middle schools. Stakeholder Involvement: All stakeholders are involved in future planning, including addressing long-range capital needs. The school is actively making an effort to involve all stakeholders in future planning. The SCC name was established in the 2013-2014 school year in order to better ensure that all stakeholders are involved in future planning and to provide an arena for transparency in regards to the long-range capital needs of the school. A parent organization has been existence in an advisory capacity since the school establishment. Parent University and Town Hall meetings allow for parents and community members to express their immediate concerns for consideration by the school’s Board of Directors. This appears to be a recent endeavor, the school will need to accumulate data to verify the effectiveness of this criteria. Informing the Public and Appropriate Authorities: The governing authorities and school leaders inform the public and appropriate governmental authorities about the financial needs of the organization. HSA’s principal is a member of all associated governing bodies. The public is informed of the financial needs of the school thorough and during board meetings. Adequacy of Reserve Funds: The school ensures the adequacy of reserve funds to ensure the financial stability of the school.

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The Alliance provides the back office support that ensures the adequacy of reserve funds and oversees the financial stability of the school. Decisions — School wide Learner Outcomes: The school bases resource allocation decisions in relationship to the school wide learner outcomes and the critical learner needs of the students. The school has made efforts to base the allocation decisions on the ESLR's and critical needs of the students. As mentioned earlier the school has dedicated funds to the hiring of a Work Based Learning Coordinator, CASHEE support, EL support, and literacy testing, and SPED support.

A8. Resources Criterion [Charter Schools only] Has the charter school developed policies, procedures, and internal controls for managing the financial operations that meet state laws, generally accepted practices, and ethical standards? INDICATORS: Use the following indicators as a guide to ensure all key aspects of the criterion are addressed. Add any additional reflections based on the criterion. Written and Adopted Policies/Procedures: The school has written adopted fiscal policies and procedures for internal controls. The Alliance home office monitors the schools finances on a monthly basis. The HSA office develops and submits a monthly report of all expenditures to the central office for review. Annual Financial Audit: The school has an annual independent financial audit that employs generally accepted accounting principles, including a listing of audit exceptions and deficiencies, which the school has resolved to the satisfaction of the charter-granting agency. There are written policies on the scope and responsibilities related to an independent financial audit. The school sends the audit reports to the authorizing agency and other government entities as required by law. All financial information is audited on a monthly basis by the Alliance home office. The home office manages annual financial audits. Fiscal Management is one of four areas analyzed yearly during the LAUSD oversight visit. Compliance of Personnel: Personnel follow the fiscal policies and procedures. The school requires all personnel to receive approval prior to expenditures. While not addressed in this section, earlier in the report it was stated that each department is responsible for all expenditures within the department and for establishing and maintaining the budget. School personnel follow fiscal policies and procedures, including receiving authorization prior to purchasing as well as submitting receipts for reimbursement. Processes for Implementation of Financial Practices: The school has processes and protections for the following: 1) who is authorized to sign contracts, write checks, and release institutional funds; 2) the monitoring of payroll information; 3) the review of bank reconciliations and deposits/withdrawals of all school financial accounts; and 4) the policies and procedures for the use of credit cards and other lines of credit. The Alliance home office supports HSA with contracts, payroll, bank deposits, and credit card audits. The Alliance home office reviews all contracts to establish the legality and fairness to both parties. Only the principal may sign and approve contracts with the support of the home office. The HSA office manager prepares a monthly payroll report and submits it to the payroll department at the home office. The home office reviews bank deposits and the use of credit cards based on reports provided by the school’s office manager. Contracts — accounting: The school has a contracting process for services, equipment, and materials and accounts for all contracts of $75,000 or more and their purposes.

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The Alliance home office supports HSA with contracts, payroll, bank deposits, and credit card audits. The Alliance home office reviews all contracts to establish the legality and fairness to both parties. Only the principal may sign and approve contracts with the support of the home office.

CATEGORY A: ORGANIZATION: VISION AND PURPOSE, GOVERNANCE, LEADERSHIP AND STAFF, AND RESOURCES Areas of strength for Organization: Vision and Purpose, Governance, Leadership and Staff, and Resources (if any): Strong effort by new administration to involve all stakeholders. The new leadership team has implemented positive changes at the school. There is a focus on meeting the critical needs and ESLR's. The CMO actively supports the school.

Key issues for Organization: Vision and Purpose, Governance, Leadership and Staff, and Resources (if any): There appears to be a need to focus on facility growth and/ or management. The school is not able to meet its mission due to a lack of adequate facilities. Based on the data, the school is not meeting its mission and vision statement. College readiness and entrance into the medical field is low. The school is aware of this critical area of need.

Important evidence from the self-study and the visit that supports these strengths and key issues include the following: Many of the procedures and processes currently in place were implemented during the current school year. Examples include EL coordinator position, implementation of the VIA model, new WBL assistant, Youth Policy Institute, Lexile level testing program, use of accountability partners, addition of school psychologist, students were issued either iPads or chrome books for the first time this year, and establishment of the SCC. New administrative team for the 2013-2014 school years. Many of the graduates of the class of 2013, the school's first graduating class, enrolled in community college rather than a four-year college. One of the reasons cited was a lack of knowledge as to the processes and requirements for applying to college. There has been a high turnover in staff including the WBL coordinator. The school is housed at a temporary site.

CATEGORY B. STANDARDS-BASED STUDENT LEARNING: CURRICULUM B1. Curriculum Criterion

To what extent do all students participate in a rigorous, relevant, and coherent standards-based curriculum that supports the achievement of the academic standards and the school wide learner outcomes? To what extent through standards-based learning (what is taught and how it is taught), are the school wide learner outcomes accomplished?

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INDICATORS: Use the following indicators as a guide to ensure all key aspects of the criterion are addressed. Add any additional reflections based on the criterion. Current Educational Research and Thinking: The school provides examples that document the use of current educational research related to the curricular areas in order to maintain a viable, meaningful instructional program for students. HSA utilizes a number of research-based strategies to provide a sound instructional program to all students. The school implements the Alliance wide strategy of mastery learning that provides a better learning environment for students and makes them accountable over their own learning. Students may retake a unit assessment until a proficient grade of 4 is obtained. Administrative evaluations and observations allow for teacher support in implementation of this strategy. Use of standards (from California Content Standards and in some classes, the new Common Core Standards) are used to create learning objectives that are explicitly told to the students daily through instruction and displaying it on all teacher’s whiteboards in all classes. Some whiteboards have the ESLRs listed that will be covered in that day’s lesson. These standards are connected to the students’ assignments through the Pinnacle grading program and allows for teachers to see which standards each student is deficient in. HSA implements a minimum of two different types of summative assessments to measure student proficiency in each subject’s essential standards. This is made consistent throughout the school by the mandated uniformity of each teacher’s grade book to allow for these multiple assessments. The use of Specifically Designated Academic Instruction in English (SDAIE) strategies and tapping with prior knowledge activities are also used in classrooms to help enhance the learning activities. Teachers are also held accountable to using these data-driven planning and assessment strategies in their evaluations run through The College Ready Promise (TCRP). Life skill grades are given to students based on behavior and participation in the class. It is separate from the academic grade. This allows HSA to assess students on knowledge gained and not on homework completion. Academic Standards for Each Area: The school has defined academic standards for each subject area, course, and/or program, and where, applicable, expectations within the courses that meet the UC “a-g” requirements. Curriculum at HSA is aligned to academic standards. Each unit of study has defined academic standards that are correlated with the Pinnacle grading system. Alignment of common core grading standards is not consistent. Due to the facility restraints, the lack of required lab experience the chemistry course at HSA does not meet the UC “d” requirement. Congruence: There is congruence between the actual concepts and skills taught, the academic standards and the school wide learner outcomes. Teachers have aligned each assignment to a standard. The use of the Pinnacle grading program helps teachers in this endeavor by linking assignments to standards. This coherence to standards based lesson planning and its associated assignments are part of a teacher’s evaluation based off the TCRP Rubric. Seeing the standards and the ESLRs connected to assignments is apparent in class visits. The whiteboard lists the objectives and the standards it connects to. The academic content and skills taught do not align with the first ESLR of becoming college ready. In most classes, the ESLRs were also referred as being touched upon in activities and assignments. School wide benchmark assessments are administered every ten weeks and are used to assess the standards in the four core classes. Student Work — engagement in Learning: The school’s examination of representative samples of student work and snapshots of student engagement in learning demonstrate the implementation of a standards-based curriculum and the school wide learner outcomes. HSA’s career readiness training hits their first critical area need of assuring students are career and college ready. They are taught skills that are critical in obtaining a job. The school was awarded monies from the California Wellness Foundation to aid in the purchase of technology. The second ESLR of

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experiential education is addressed through the medical sciences taught at HSA. It gives the school a unique rigor that will prepare it graduates for a career in the health field. Med Sci 9 classes focuses on medical terminology and the body systems. Anatomy and Physiology is the 10th grade class in the Med Sci series and goes into the depth about the body and its functions. Med Sci 11 goes into ethics, HIPAA certification, nutrition, and diseases, while Med Sci 12 covers public health issues, internships, and job shadowing. Based on classroom visits, there is little evidence that supports that student work is supportive of HSA’s ESLR #1 of having students be college ready. Accessibility of All Students to Curriculum: A rigorous, relevant, and coherent curriculum to all students is accessible to all students through all courses/programs offered. The school examines the demographics and situation of students throughout the class offerings. The school’s instructional practices and other activities facilitate access and success for special needs students. Students at HSA have access to appropriate curriculum with the necessary support for success. Many different classroom strategies and school wide interventions are in place to support students academically. Teachers use leveled assignments, stations, differentiation of instruction, and after school help during office hours and tutoring. The resource labs are geared toward giving students with special needs a place and time to do remediation of skills and work individually with them on their specific needs. English Language Learners (ELL) also receives support by having teachers with these students trained on different strategies that can be used to help ELL comprehend and retain information. CAHSEE English, CAHSEE Math, and Algebra support classes are offered to help struggling students. These CAHSEE support classes are planned to be integrated into the 9th grade classes. Advance Placement (AP) is offered very sparingly at the present moment at HSA. Only six AP classes are offered with the hope of adding more in the future. The low pass rate of the students taking the AP test has been addressed with AP boot camps to allow for more preparation and instruction for the test and professional development for the AP teachers. Continued AP training with their PD fund. Academic rigor in AP classes have been seen to be at a lower level (ex. basic research in AP Government). The addition of English Honors 10 two years ago and the possibility of English Honors 9 next year, students will be able to experience more rigor to prepare for the AP classes later. Integration among Disciplines: There is integration among disciplines at the school and where applicable, integration of outsourced curriculum into the program so that curricular integrity, reliability, and security are maintained. HSA has integration between the subject areas. With some teachers needing double credentials (i.e. science teachers needing a science credential and an English credential) this creates an easier path for curriculum integration. The science and English department have collaborated on projects like the RAFT and Mummy projects while the Physical Education has partnered with science and partly with English to make connections between the physical activities and the anatomical basis while also doing reflective writing to continue developing their writing skills. Classes have multi-disciplinary curriculum and/or assignments. One example of one such assignment is the mummy project that integrates both English and science. Curricular Development, Evaluation, and Revisions: The school assesses its curriculum review and evaluation processes for each program area, including graduation requirements, credits, grading policies, and homework policy, to ensure student needs are met through a challenging, coherent, and relevant curriculum. This includes the degree to which there is involvement of key stakeholders (governing board members, teachers, parents, and students).

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Teachers of HSA have engaged in professional development sessions for the common core initiative and how they may incorporate it into their teaching. The English department has implemented common core instruction strategies and assessments’ Students also take school-wide Alliance benchmark assessments three times a year. Teachers participate in data analysis in weekly professional development meetings. Students and parents work as partners to ensure student’s needs are being met. The Alliance driven grading policy at HSA represents a scale that is not consistent with a college ready student. The grading policy that is instilled in the Alliance schools is not conducive to support college readiness in HSA’s students. Policies — Rigorous, Relevant, Coherent Curriculum: The school assesses the curriculum and its rigor, relevancy, and coherency after examination of policies regarding course completion, credits, grading policies, homework, etc. Teachers at HSA provide students with a curriculum that is relevant to the medical sciences. While HSA provides a coherent and relevant curriculum, the academic rigor varies across the course. Additionally, current levels of rigor do not appear to adequately prepare students for post secondary education. Based on the student achievement data, classroom observations, SAT scores, CST scores, EAP scores, AP passage rates students are not performing at a level that is consistent of a student’s that is college ready. Students appear to be challenged however, they do not demonstrate the level of rigor needed for college. Articulation and Follow-up Studies: The school articulates regularly with feeder schools and local colleges and universities. The school uses follow-up studies of graduates and others to learn about the effectiveness of the curricular program. HSA is open to all students regardless of their area of residence. This has made it important to HSA to create and maintain positive relationships with the surrounding middle schools through daily communication and participation in “High School Nights.” HSA also visits neighboring schools to inform students and parents of the opportunities available at HSA. Exit surveys are given to graduating seniors. Since there has been only one graduating class, 2013, there is very little data. The school plans to create an Alumni Liaison and implement an Alumni Tracking system to assess the effectiveness of the curricular programs and HSA. The school also plans to follow up with graduates to see their success in college and the connection of HSA’s curriculum to and higher education. B2. Curriculum Criterion To what extent do all students have equal access to the school’s entire program and assistance with a personal learning plan to prepare them for the pursuit of their academic, personal, and school-to-career goals? INDICATORS: Use the following indicators as a guide to ensure all key aspects of the criterion are addressed. Add any additional reflections based on the criterion. Variety of Programs — full Range of Choices: All students have opportunities to make appropriate choices and pursue a full range of realistic college/career and/or other educational options. The school provides for career exploration, preparation for postsecondary education, and pre-technical training for all students. Students at HSA are given equal opportunity to enroll in courses that will help one apply to a four-year university. These classes include regular college prep classes, honors, and AP classes. Some prerequisites are necessary to enter some of the more advanced courses to help ensure their academic success. Career exploration is incorporated in the school wide curriculum with the emphasis of health service related fields and allows for preparation for these careers through activities like writing cover letters, writing resumes, participating in mock interviews, and working with the Work-Based Learning program (with internships and job shadowing). The advisory course taken by all students throughout their

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high school career is another avenue that students use to help them plan for higher education (through SAT/ACT preparation) and getting academic and career support. Student-Parent-Staff Collaboration: Parents, students, and staff collaborate in developing and monitoring a student's personal learning plan, based upon a student's learning style and college/career, and/or other educational goals. (This includes the evaluation of whether online instruction matches the student’s learning style.) Collaboration between students, parents, and staff is evident at HSA. The yearly Open House that occurs at the beginning of every school year allows for interactions and discussion of class expectations, tutoring, requirements, etc. between parents, students, and teachers. Parent conferences will also occur every five weeks throughout the school year. To encourage parent participation in these conferences, incentives have been initiated for the student for parent attending these conferences. HSA has created the Parent Action Team (PAT), along with the help of the parent liaison, help improve parent involvement. Through their efforts and with incentives (baskets to win and childcare), the PAT has increased the number of parents that attended parent conferences to over 56%. HSA provides support to the parent’s body on various items such as accessing student grades via the internet. Monitoring/Changing Student Plans: The school implements processes for monitoring and making appropriate changes in students' personal learning plans (e.g., classes and programs) and regularly evaluates them. Students with IEPs work with resources teachers to help with academic help and to help them learn organizational, academic, and social skills. This is also a place where the resource teacher collaborates with the general education teacher to help accommodate the curriculum to best fit the needs of the special needs students. The Student Success Teams (SSTs) are set-up to create an intervention plan for teacher recommended struggling students. Post High School Transitions: The school implements strategies and programs to facilitate transitions to post high school options and regularly evaluates their effectiveness. HSA has the WBL program that provides internships and job shadowing opportunities to students. Few students participate in the job shadowing (6 in the current year). Many computer programs are used by students to help prepare them for post high school (Revolution Prep, Naviance, and Power School). AP classes do not demonstrate adequate rigor to prepare students for post high school education as shown by very low AP scores as and through class visits (e.g.. basic research skills and basic graphic organizer in AP Gov) B3. Curriculum Criterion To what extent are students able to meet all the requirements of graduation upon completion of the high school program? INDICATORS: Use the following indicators as a guide to ensure all key aspects of the criterion are addressed. Add any additional reflections based on the criterion. Real World Applications — curriculum: All students have access to real world applications of their educational interests in relationship to a rigorous, standards-based curriculum.

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The focus of the school allows for real world application of the curriculum through their opportunities of internships, speakers, and college/workplace visits this program offered through the WBL program. The WBL program connects the world of health sciences to the students of HSA. The 9th grade speaker series allows students the opportunity to hear about careers in the health sciences field as well as form networking connections in an area they may desire to pursue post high school. Meeting Graduation Requirements: The school implements academic support programs to ensure students are meeting all requirements, including the CAHSEE. HSA gives all new students a graduation tracker form that breaks down A-G high school requirements and keeps students on track to graduate if they keep record of their progress throughout their 4 years at HSA. The school oversees support classes to help struggling students, online support for the CAHSEE, ACT, and SAT tests, summer school and online classes to aid in credit recovery, as well as a summer bridge program to help students make the transition from middle school to high school easier and sets the students up for success in HSA’s classes and culture of high expectations. Office hours and tutoring are also available to support students to meet the requirements of graduation.

CATEGORY B: STANDARDS-BASED STUDENT LEARNING: CURRICULUM Areas of strength for Standards-Based Student Learning: Curriculum (if any):

� The curriculum at HSA provides Experiential Education (ESLR #2) Key issues for Standards-Based Student Learning: Curriculum (if any):

� Chemistry not meeting the “d” lab science requirement due to lack of lab experiences. � Students are not provided with the level of rigor needed to be college ready (ESLR #1)

Important evidence from the self-study and the visit that supports these strengths and key issues include the following:

� HSA provides an experiential education through their Work Based Learning program, the 9th guest speaker series, and the Medical Science courses. � In order for the chemistry course to be considered a UC approved lab science “hands-on activities should account for at least 20 percent of class time.” This is based on the UC approved class requirements and classroom visits. � Based on the student achievement data, classroom observations, SAT scores, CST scores, EAP scores, AP passage rates students are not performing at a level that is consistent of a students that is college ready.

CATEGORY C. STANDARDS-BASED STUDENT LEARNING: INSTRUCTION C1. Instruction Criterion

To what extent are all students are involved in challenging learning experiences to achieve the academic standards and the school wide learner outcomes? INDICATORS: Use the following indicators as a guide to ensure all key aspects of the criterion are addressed. Add any additional reflections based on the criterion. Results of Student Observations and Examining Work: The school’s observations of student working and the examining of student work provide information on the degree to which all students are involved in challenging learning to assist them in achieving the academic standards and the school wide learner outcomes. The school, particularly, has evaluated the degree of involvement in the learning of students with diverse backgrounds and abilities and modified approaches based on findings.

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Student Understanding of Performance Levels: The students know beforehand the standards/expected performance levels for each area of study. Standards and objectives are posted and reviewed in all classrooms for every lesson. Students are provided with syllabi and consistently reminded of exemplar performance. Standards based rubrics are provided; expectations are posted on the teacher websites. Prior to assignments students are given access to examples that demonstrate proficiency on the assignment. Differentiation of Instruction: The school’s instructional staff members differentiate instruction, including integrating multimedia and technology, and evaluate its impact on student learning. Differentiation is offered in 3 main ways; class selection (Resource to AP courses), within each class and through varied assessment procedures. Students who need additional help are provided with accommodations. Teachers use homogenous grouping based on lexile levels as a differentiation strategy amongst their students. Students are also placed into support classes based on identified need. Assignments and tests are also modified to provide equal access to students based on identified need as well in order to focus on mastery. Choice is given to students to demonstrate mastery and they have the opportunity to answer questions at their mastery level. In math teachers base students on misconception as a way to reteach a skill. The school has provided each student with either an iPad or chrome book to help infuse technology into the instructional setting. There is a club on campus, TechYes that encourages the use of technology for school work. Student Perceptions: The students understand the expected level of performance based on the standards and the school wide learning results. Through interviews and dialogue with students that represent the school populations, the school learns about the students’ perceptions of their learning experiences, including all specialized programs such as college/career readiness and online instruction regarding the opportunity for teacher-student interaction to reduce isolation and encourage skill transference. Student perception and satisfaction surveys were issued. The results of the survey indicates that students feel the focus of the school is to prepare them for college, that different learning opportunities are available, homework is relevant, there are clear expectations for behavior, and a variety of learning materials and resources are used in the classroom setting. In addition, students feel that their teachers have high expectations and are available to provide extra help as needed. Each teacher has designated time each week for tutoring and assisting students that may require extra support. Students also indicated satisfaction with the administrative team. Additional Findings: Students feel that teachers and staff are supportive and available for academic support.

C2. Instruction Criterion To what extent do all teachers use a variety of strategies and resources, including technology and experiences beyond the textbook and the classroom that actively engage students, emphasize higher order thinking skills, and help them succeed at high levels? INDICATORS: Use the following indicators as a guide to ensure all key aspects of the criterion are addressed. Add any additional reflections based on the criterion. Current Knowledge: Teachers are current in the instructional content taught and research-based instructional methodology, including the integrated use of multimedia and technology. All teachers employed at HSA have a credential; in addition, the teaching staff regularly participates in professional development. Half of the teachers have master's degrees and 5 more are currently enrolled in a master's program. Alliance and the HSA staff provide ongoing professional development on current practices. The teaching staff is open to the learning of new strategies and methodologies. However, based on classroom observations, there is little evidence to demonstrate teachers using research-based instructional methodology in the day-to-day instruction. A strong collaborative community is in place that encourages the sharing of best practices. HSA is in transition with implementing Common Core Standards.

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Teachers as Coaches: Teachers work as coaches to facilitate learning for all students. Each department has a vision that guides the learning goals to ensure a challenging, supportive learning environment. Teachers use a variety of strategies to facilitate student learning. Teachers continually notify students on their progress on various standards and assignments. The self-study details strategies used within each department. All teachers have weekly office hours that allow students to schedule appointments. In addition, teachers are available to help students as needed. Students feel supported and that teachers are available to act as mentors and tutors. Examination of Student Work: Representative samples of student work demonstrate: a) structured learning so that students organize, access and apply knowledge they already have acquired; b) that students have the tools to gather and create knowledge and have opportunities to use these tools to research, inquire, gather, discover, and invent knowledge on their own and communicate this. Representative samples of student work demonstrate that students are able to think, reason, and problem solve in group and individual activities, project, discussions, and debates and inquiries related to investigation. School examination of student work revealed that students are assigned unit projects in various disciplines, research skills are taught and utilized, and students are encouraged to use higher level thinking skills in class work and projects as well as through the use of real life connections and experiences in the WBL program and other disciplines. Student surveys revealed that teachers have high expectations and are encouraged to think rather than just memorize material. Classroom observations, student interviews and student work revealed that students are expected to participate in interdisciplinary projects and inquires that require research and student investigation. Students often participate in debates based on research projects performed in class. Representative samples of student work demonstrate that students use technology to assist them in achieving the academic standards and the school wide learner outcomes. As of the current school year, technology is extensive used in the school both in instruction and learning. All student have been assigned an iPad or chrome book for use during the school day. Students use the iPads in most classes as a tool during instruction and for assignments. The school operates an extended day with staff on site from 6am until 6pm. Students who do not have access to technology at home are provided additional time and allowed to complete work requiring technology at school. Student work is reflective of self-advocacy and experiential learning. Representative samples of student work demonstrate student use of materials and resources beyond the textbook, such as use and availability of library/multimedia resources and services; availability of and opportunities to access data-based, original source documents and computer information networks; and experiences, activities and resources which link students to the real world. Technology is cited in the study as being available to students and used in the classroom by the teaching staff. Students have the availability of the use of computer information networks. Staff uses technology in instruction. Google Drive and Blackboard are used for student work submission and to provide students quick and immediate feedback. Student work demonstrates the use of materials beyond the textbook. Real World Experiences: Opportunities for shadowing, apprenticeship, community projects and other real world experiences and applications are available to all students. Students are offered opportunities to shadow and apprenticeship through the WBL program that was established when the school began. The medical science program provides opportunities for exposure to real world applications in preparation for post secondary careers. In addition, the 9th grade class is provided with guest speakers regarding career pathways, 11th grade students participate with Mock interviews with community members. HOSA, college field trips, job shadowing through UCLA, virtual job shadowing, HIPAA certification, CPR certification, Drivers’ Ed and Health Begins all offer additional opportunities for real world application.

CATEGORY C: STANDARDS-BASED STUDENT LEARNING: INSTRUCTION

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Areas of strength for Standards-Based Student Learning: Instruction (if any): Standards based curriculum is relevant and modified based on student need. Students are aware of expectations for outcomes. The Work Based Program provides students with real life experiences in the health field. Technology is used across disciplines. Department and teacher collaborations is strongly encouraged. Teachers are current in instructional content. Many of the teachers either have Master's Degrees or are in the process of obtaining a master's degree. There are also staff members with PhD degrees. Teachers act as coaches. Key issues for Standards-Based Student Learning: Instruction (if any): Literacy is an area of growth that the school is addressing. There is a need to increase rigor in all content areas, the school is also aware of this need. High turnover of teachers indicates a need for continued teacher support and development to encourage both retention of staff and college readiness. Continue to build on the use of technology in instruction. Coaching of students to ensure growth and success in order to fulfill the school mission and vision in relation to college readiness. Important evidence from the self-study and the visit that supports these strengths and key issues include the following: Teachers are credentialed and many are working on or have advanced degrees. Teachers have been assigned accountability partners in the current school year. There is a push toward the use of data driven instruction. As a result of the examination of data, the school has provided resources to support the continued development of students through the addition of instructional aides, a literacy program, and the CASHEE support program for example. The majority of students in the first graduating class attended a 2-year rather than four year college indicating a need to increase parent involvement in addition to rigor to better prepare students for college. CATEGORY D. STANDARDS-BASED STUDENT LEARNING: ASSESSMENT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

D1. Assessment and Accountability Criterion To what extent does the school use a professionally acceptable assessment process to collect, disaggregate, analyze, and report student performance data to the school staff, students, parents, and other stakeholders of the school community? INDICATORS: Use the following indicators as a guide to ensure all key aspects of the criterion are addressed. Add any additional reflections based on the criterion. Professionally Acceptable Assessment Process: The school staff uses effective assessment processes to collect, disaggregate, analyze, and report student performance data to all stakeholders. The school uses Data Director and Pinnacle to analyze student data. Parents and students have access to the information in Pinnacle. During professional development days teaches are able to analyze student data in order to make informed instructional decisions. Progress reports are given to students on a regular basis and parent conferences are held on a regular basis. In addition, the school web site does post data regarding school performance. Data is disaggregated to the community and stakeholders through board meetings, the School Coordinating Council,

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Town Hall Meetings, Parent University, the Parent Action Team, and during HSA staff meetings and Alliance PD meetings. Basis for Determination of Performance Levels: The school staff has determined the basis upon which students’ grades and their growth and performance levels are determined and uses that information to strengthen high achievement of all students. The teaching staff uses various forms of assessments to determine student performance levels. School student performance levels currently follow Alliance protocols and are based on CST proficiency guidelines rather than on standard grading protocols. Benchmark assessments, CAHSEE, and AP scores are reviewed by teachers and administration to inform instructional practices. In addition, the school has implemented the use of a Lexile testing program and Revolution Prep to strengthen student literacy levels. Professional development sessions also focus on the use of data to inform instruction. In addition there is a school wide expectation that teachers will examine and use data to reteach students in areas where proficiency has not been mastered. Appropriate Assessment Strategies: Teachers use appropriate assessment strategies to measure student progress toward acquiring a specific body of knowledge or skills such as essays, portfolios, individual or group projects, tests, etc. The school uses a variety of appropriate assessment strategies to measure student progress toward acquiring a specific body of knowledge. There appears to have been an active movement to use assessment to inform instruction during the 2013-2014 school year. Following the Alliance wide policy, HSA students are allowed to re-take unit assessments until mastery is met. Demonstration of Student Achievement: A range of examples of student work and other assessments demonstrate student achievement of the academic standards and the school wide learner outcomes, including those with special needs. The school lists a representative sample of student work as a means of demonstrating this criteria. Assessments demonstrate student achievement of academic standards for all students. Based on the policy currently in place for grading levels, assessment demonstrates standard mastery rather than college readiness. The school monitors the achievement levels of all students including those with special needs (IEP and EL learners).

D2. Assessment and Accountability Criterion To what extent do teachers employ a variety of strategies to evaluate student learning? To what extent do students and teachers use assessment results to enhance the educational progress of every student? INDICATORS: Use the following indicators as a guide to ensure all key aspects of the criterion are addressed. Add any additional reflections based on the criterion. Curriculum-Embedded Assessments: The school regularly examines standards-based curriculum embedded assessments in English language and math, including performance examination of students whose primary language is not English, and uses that information to modify the teaching/learning process. Through professional development and department meetings a focus has been placed on using assessment information to modify the teaching/learning process. The school administers Alliance benchmark assessments 3 times a year. A Data Director supports the staff in the assessments given. EL students are given an opportunity as a result to improve assessment scores. The school modifies the teaching/learning process through the use of testing retakes and modification of assessments based on student need. The English department is currently implementing Common Core based rubrics on assignments. Student Feedback: Student feedback is an important part of monitoring student progress over time based on the academic standards and the school wide learner outcomes.

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The findings state that students are given several opportunities for feedback. Examples cited are surveys provided to students throughout the school year. The self-study states that student feedback is valued because it increases student interest in academics. Feedback is also provided during the learning and assessment process. Teachers give daily feedback based on formative assessments. Modification of the Teaching/Learning Process: Assessment data is collected, analyzed, and used as the basis to make decisions and changes in the curricular and instructional approaches. The self-study states in several areas that assessment data is used to inform decisions and modify instruction. Teachers meet once a quarter to review assessment data. Teacher collaboration is cited as another way that instructional decisions are made based on data analysis. This collaborative practice has allowed teachers to identify areas where more focus is needed to ensure content mastery. The math department is mentioned as one department who shows evidence of this practice. In some departments teachers administer multiple checks for understanding and adjust instruction based on student performance. Teachers are coached based on assessment results in areas where weakness is noted. The staff also reviews the results of standardized test scores are reviewed to help place students in appropriate level classes so that students may be provided with additional support or challenge within the identified subject area. Monitoring of Student Growth: The school has an effective system to monitor all students’ progress toward meeting the academic standards and school wide learner outcomes. Grades are monitored by students and staff on a regular basis. Students are also monitored in their process in meeting the A-G college entrance requirements. The responsibility for this monitoring is partially handed off to students in their junior year. Based on the findings of the class of 2013, there is a need to continue to provide support with college readiness. The application process, financial aid, completion of A-requirements are areas with support continues to be needed.

D3. Assessment and Accountability Criterion To what extent does the school, with the support of the district and community, have an assessment and monitoring system to determine student progress toward achievement of the academic standards and the school wide learner outcomes? INDICATORS: Use the following indicators as a guide to ensure all key aspects of the criterion are addressed. Add any additional reflections based on the criterion. Assessment and Monitoring Process: The following stakeholders are involved in the assessment and monitoring process of student progress: district, board, staff, students, and parents. All stakeholders are encouraged to be involved in the monitoring of student progress. Parents and students are actively involved in the assessment process through the use of Pinnacle, parent conferences and teacher/student interaction. The board and other community stakeholders are kept informed during community meetings. In addition achievement outcomes are reported to the community on the school web site. Reporting Student Progress: There are effective processes to keep district, board, and parents informed about student progress toward achieving the academic standards and the school wide learner outcomes. The school has a consistent process for reporting student progress to both parents and students, though the Pinnacle grading system, parent conference, progress reports and report cards, and communication through the website and email. There is a report made to the Board on the agenda regarding student progress.

D4. Assessment and Accountability Criterion

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To what extent does the assessment of student achievement in relation to the academic standards and the school wide learner outcomes drive the school’s program, its regular evaluation and improvement, and the allocation and usage of resources? INDICATORS: Use the following indicators as a guide to ensure all key aspects of the criterion are addressed. Add any additional reflections based on the criterion. Modifications Based on Assessment Results: The school uses assessment results to make changes in the school program, professional development activities, and resource allocations demonstrating a results-driven continuous process. The school uses assessment results to make changes to the school program demonstrating efforts to develop and implement a results-driven process. The school, based on assessment results, has allocated resources to support and improve the achievement results of the students at HSA. Two new assessment programs have been implemented during the current school year. Support has been allocated to improve CASHEE results, EL language proficiency, SPED support, literacy, and college readiness. Professional development activities focus on data analysis and teacher collaboration to improve instructional outcomes.

CATEGORY D: STANDARDS-BASED STUDENT LEARNING: ASSESSMENT AND ACCOUNTABILITY Areas of strength for Standards-Based Student Learning: Assessment and Accountability (if any): The school uses a variety of assessments to determine student proficiency at the state, district, and school wide level. The school allocates resources based on assessment results. Students are aware of standards and expectations for assessment outcomes. Teachers share assessment results with students and modify plans based on assessment data. Teachers reflect on assessment data and modify instruction based on results. Key issues for Standards-Based Student Learning: Assessment and Accountability (if any): Include stakeholders in the improvement process of assessment outcomes. The self-study and data found within the self-study indicates that there is a need to address assessment results throughout the school program in order to improve college readiness. There is a lack of evidence of the use of formative assessments in some courses. Important evidence about student learning from the self-study and the visit that supports these strengths and key issues include the following: The school uses a variety of assessments including interdisciplinary projects, the use of Lexile assessment, Revolution prep, portfolios, benchmark assessments, real life experiential learning, essays, presentations, participation in mandated state testing, college readiness testing, and Socratic Seminars.

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The school has purchased Lexile 3000, Revolution Prep, and additional staff based on assessment data. Regular progress meetings are held to inform parents and students of achievement levels. Rubrics and samples are provided so that students are aware of learner outcomes. Accountability partners provide additional opportunities for reflection and collaboration based on assessment results. Teachers give students constant feedback on various assessments and provide support with areas of deficiency based on interviews conducted during the WASC visit. There is little evidence that stakeholders outside of the school staff are involved in the decision making process based on assessment data. Based on assessment data in the form of SAT results, AP results, and college acceptance results students are not meeting the school’s first ESLR, which is to become college ready. Based on teacher interview and the self-study, formative assessments are not consistent from course to course.

CATEGORY E. SCHOOL CULTURE AND SUPPORT FOR STUDENT PERSONAL AND ACADEMIC GROWTH

E1. School Culture and Student Support Criterion To what extent does the school leadership employ a wide range of strategies to encourage parental and community involvement, especially with the teaching/learning process? INDICATORS: Use the following indicators as a guide to ensure all key aspects of the criterion are addressed. Add any additional reflections based on the criterion. Regular Parent Involvement: The school implements strategies and processes for the regular involvement of parents and the community, including being active partners in the teaching/learning process. The school involves non-English speaking parents. HSA has implemented multiple strategies and processes for the regular involvement of parents and community, including non-English speaking parents. The school has won an Alliance award for parent participation levels. A parent orientation is conducted once a year prior to the first day of school. Parent University is offered on a monthly basis on Saturday mornings, and the sessions are conducted in English and Spanish. Workshops include both academic and socio-emotional topics that address the needs of the school population. At the end of every academic year, a parent survey is distributed for evaluation of the Parent University sessions. An Alliance parent engagement specialist develops various workshops and disseminates the curriculum and accompanying resources to all Alliance schools for implementation based on their need. The School Coordinating Council (SCC) brings together all stakeholders (staff, parents, teachers, students, and community partners) to discuss the school’s plans, decisions, changes, and implementations. Meetings are held once a month. Agendas for each upcoming SCC meeting and minutes from past meetings are posted on the school’s website in English and in Spanish.

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Parents are expected to participate in 40 hours of support each academic school year. Twenty hours are dedicated toward academic support and the remaining hours are geared toward school support. The school ensures all parents are involved by offering all communication in both Spanish and English and ensuring that their cultural background is considered in the opportunities they are offered to complete their parent hours. The school dedicates a portion of its website to parents. This section of the site provides information on how to complete the 40 parent-hour requirement, upcoming parent events, community resources, and school governance information as well as access to daily announcements, information about upcoming events, and school calendar. The development of a parent center has been discussed, and a version was piloted. The Parent Action Team is a teacher-created group that was developed this school year as a response to needs around parent engagement, specifically around engaging parents in the instruction and curriculum of classes. The team is comprised of a parent liaison, teachers, administrators, and students, and it meets once a month to strategize and develop ways to reach out to parents and increase attendance rates at school-sponsored activities. Parents clearly indicate their involvement is welcome and encouraged. They state that the school community is unified and feels like a family. They are well supported and can voice their concerns freely and they feel heard. HSA also supports the parents and family beyond the typical school responsibility (provide food and childcare, call home, translation of school material/presentation, and welcome parents on campus at any time.) Use of Community Resources: The school uses community resources to support students, such as professional services, business partnerships, and speakers. Experiential education is a priority at HSA. The school effectively utilizes community resources to provide this experiential education to its students, as well as to afford them opportunities for services. Westside Family Clinic has partnered with HSA to provide physical care to students through a once a month mobile clinic. HSA partners with UCLA Ronald Reagan Hospital to provide students with the opportunity to shadow a health care physician. HSA’s Work-Based Learning program builds partnerships with various community institutions in order to provide students with a number of opportunities. HSA's 11th grade students participate in mock job and college admissions interviews with a variety of professionals from the community. HSA’s 9th grade students participate in guest speaker series involving community professionals. Parent/Community and Student Achievement: The school ensures that the parents and school community understand student achievement of the academic standards/school wide learner outcomes through the curricular/co-curricular program.

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Parent conferences are held every five weeks. At these conferences, parents speak to teachers and counselors, as well as visit classrooms. Parents may visit with the principal, if a student is not achieving academically. Parents and students are provided access to the school’s online grading system, through which they can view the student’s academic progress, assignments, teacher comments, and grades. Parents and students are also able to view student performance on individual standards. The parent and student handbook provides a detailed outline for all student and parent expectations, school rules, policies, academic trajectory, and procedures. Parents and students are expected to read the handbook and sign a document acknowledging that they have read it and that they understood all terms.

E2. School Culture and Student Support Criterion To what extent is the school a safe, clean, and orderly place that nurtures learning? To what extent is the culture of the school characterized by trust, professionalism, high expectations for all students, and a focus on continuous school improvement? INDICATORS: Use the following indicators as a guide to ensure all key aspects of the criterion are addressed. Add any additional reflections based on the criterion. Safe, Clean, and Orderly Environment: The school has existing policies, regulations and uses its resources to ensure a safe, clean and orderly place that nurtures learning, including internet safety. HSA ensures a safe, clean, and orderly place that nurtures learning. Student surveys indicate: Students feel safe on campus; Students believe HSA’s culture stresses respect for others; Student behavior is not a problem in class; The campus is clean; Students follow the discipline policy. The school utilizes out of classroom personnel and Safe Passage employees to supervise the campus before and after school. Students are supervised during passing periods, nutrition, lunch and any other instances in which they are out in the common areas. Within the classrooms, the teachers are committed to creating a culture that is built on high character expectations that require students to exercise self-control and to interact positively with one another. High Expectations/Concern for Students: The school demonstrates caring, concern, and high expectations for students in an environment that honors individual differences and is conducive to learning. The staff demonstrates a high level of caring and concern for the students. High expectations are held for all students. All HSA students are enrolled in a curriculum that is meant to prepare them for success in college. Student surveys indicate: Students feel they are being prepared to be successful in college or a career; There are common expectations for behavior in every class;

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Students feel that even if the work in their class is hard, their teacher makes them feel like they can learn the material; Students support each other’s learning. Teachers at HSA differentiate exams, projects, and lessons to fit the needs and styles of their diverse learners. Students are offered courses in which they can challenge themselves or get the extra support they need. Any student who may not be succeeding (in terms of academics or behavior) may be referred to the Student Success Team (SST) to provide intervention as needed. These meetings bring parents, staff, and teachers together to formulate a plan for students that will help them succeed and it serves to open another communication channel with parents. The resource department regularly holds Individual Education Plan (IEP) meetings with resource and general education teachers, administration, parents, students, and the school psychologist. These meetings outline the strengths and areas for growth for students with IEPs and are meant to create an encouraging action plan that maintains high expectations for all students. Atmosphere of Trust, Respect and Professionalism: The school has an atmosphere of trust, respect, and professionalism. HSA demonstrates an atmosphere of trust, respect, and professionalism amongst staff members. The high rate of teacher turnover impacts the establishment of trust between students and teachers. The SCC, Professional Development Team, and Leadership Team each meet regularly to reflect on school operations and provide feedback on how the school and its teachers and staff can continue to improve. Each department has drafted a vision through a Vision-Implementation-Assessment model. Thus, students are consistently held to certain expectations throughout their high school careers. The implementation of this vision and how students are responding is discussed at monthly departmental meetings. The departments also discuss how they can better reach their stated vision. Many teachers give surveys to students in an effort to learn about them and create an increased level of investment and trust in the classroom, as well as allowing the teacher to improve lessons by tailoring them to fit current student interests. An interest survey is given at the beginning of each year to allow students to voice interest for various activities that fit their interests. The SCC provides a forum for teachers, parents, staff, and students to voice opinions and vote on the day-to-day operations of the campus. Student surveys indicate that students believe the student council has a voice in improving the school. Surveys also indicate that students believe their teachers have high expectations for them, but slightly fewer students feel that teachers show respect for all students. A culture of trust at HSA is exhibited in the level to which students are able to run various school events and fundraisers through the Associated Student Body (ASB) and in their handling of school technology through the TechYES program.

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E3. School Culture and Student Support Criterion To what extent do all students receive appropriate support along with an individualized learning plan to help ensure academic success? INDICATORS: Use the following indicators as a guide to ensure all key aspects of the criterion are addressed. Add any additional reflections based on the criterion. Adequate Personalized Support: The school has available adequate services, including referral services, to support students in such areas as health, career and personal counseling, and academic assistance, including an individualized learning plan. There are a variety of programs and resources available at HSA to support students academically, socially, and health wise. The academic support programs include nine full time teachers that go into classrooms and help selected students individually in their academic classes (Push-in), counseling services that help all seniors graduate on time by having administrators mentor a dozen seniors each year, and tutoring through mandatory teacher office hours and tutoring at the school’s after-school “hang-out,” called The Spot. HSA also provides emotional and social support with the employment of a full-time school psychologist that provides professional counseling and regular therapy throughout the day and after school to students (both mandated by an IEP and to drop-ins). Advocacy and support groups have also been formed by both teachers/staff and the students to support groups at the school. These groups include Gay-Straight Alliance, Rising Inner-city Students through Education, Girl Talk and WOMEN. The health of the students has also been addressed by HSA by the use of the Westside Family Clinic’s mobile unit that visits the school on the first Wednesday of the month to provide students with free check-ups, pregnancy and STI tests, and hands-on reproductive health resources. Other resources geared towards the health of the students are also used to address issues like anger management, sexual health, and drug/alcohol abuse are also done through external entities that are promoted at the school. Conservations with students demonstrate a strong feeling of support from all school staff. HSA clearly provides an avenue for all students to find a staff that they can confide in and be supported in academic, social, and emotional needs. A staff member drives students to school to make sure that they are on time for school. Student say that their teachers care and will take the time to help them in any way they can. Direct Connections: The school demonstrates direct connections between academic standards and school wide learner outcomes and the allocation of resources to student support services, such as counseling/advisory services, articulation services, and psychological and health services, or referral services. The school demonstrates a direct connection between academic standards, its ESLRs, and the allocation of resources to student support services. Resources have been leveraged for the purposes of hiring a school psychologist and an additional full time aide, as well as the implementation of a push-in teaching support model. In addition, funds have been allocated to provide additional support to teachers for professional development in preparation for the transition to Common Core State Standards. Strategies Used for Student Growth/Development: Strategies are used by the school leadership and staff to develop personalized approaches to learning and alternative instructional options which allow access to and progress in the rigorous standards-based curriculum. Examples of strategies include: level of teacher involvement with all students, a curriculum that promotes inclusion, processes for regular review of student and school wide profiles, and processes and procedures for interventions that address retention and redirection.

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Teachers use differentiated instruction in all classrooms to support all students. Teachers employ strategies like creation of accommodated assessments, station-based group work, and differentiated assignments. Student data (IEP, CST scores, ACT/SAT, ELL data, and unit assessments) also helps build curriculum that is taught in the classroom. Metacognition with the students is used through the use of learning logs and the checking of their own academic records using Naviance and seeing their own progress. Teachers “over-plan” lessons to allow for GATE/gifted students to go more into depth in the assignments that are finished early, while allowing other students time to finish that same assignment. The SST program at HSA is in its infancy and needs to grow in its procedures and in its recommendation protocol. But it has found success with 10 students reaching level 1 and only one student being advanced to level 2. Sustainability of programs for students in need of interventions is an area of growth. Support Services and Learning: The school leadership and staff ensure that the support services and related activities have a direct relationship to student involvement in learning, e.g., within and outside the classroom, for all students, including the EL, GATE, special education, and other programs. There is evidence that there is support for certain sub-groups of students at HSA. The English Language Learners (ELL) and the special education students have specific programs to help these students find success. The ELL students are identified and then teachers with these students are trained on strategies that will help these particular students find success in their class. The needs of the EL population are now being addressed by the appointment of a Spanish teacher to the CELDT and EL coordinator that both administer the CELDT test, as well as enhance the learning experiences of these students. The special education students have access to support classes to aid them in classes, if necessary. The teachers at HSA also meet regularly with the grade-level IEP teacher to check the progress of struggling IEP students. Equal Access to Curriculum and Support: All students have access to a challenging, relevant, and coherent curriculum to all students. Schools regularly examine the demographics and distribution of students throughout the class offerings (e.g., master class schedule and class enrollments) and the types of alternative schedules available for repeat or accelerated classes (e.g., summer, class periods beyond the traditional school day). All students not only have access to a challenging and coherent curriculum, it is expected they will meet all A-G requirements for eligibility for entrance to UC and CSU. Students have the opportunity for credit recovery through APEX learning (online courses) and summer school. Additional support is offered before and after school through YPI opportunities in addition to teacher office hours and tutoring.

E4. School Culture and Student Support Criterion To what extent do students have access to a system of personal support services, activities, and opportunities at the school and within the community?

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INDICATORS: Use the following indicators as a guide to ensure all key aspects of the criterion are addressed. Add any additional reflections based on the criterion. Co-Curricular Activities: School leadership and staff link curricular and co-curricular activities to the academic standards and school wide learner outcomes. Students have access to multiple co-curricular activities that support standards and ESLRs.. HSA’s ASB surveys the students and this drives what the school will offer based on the interests of the school. With the help of a grant by the Youth Policy Institute, HSA has been able to offer additional clubs this year as well as provide more support for existing clubs. These include many support and advocacy groups, HOSA (geared for healthcare interests), sports, yearbook, summer bridge programs, cheer, coding club, art and spray-painting club, TechYes (for tech leaders/savvy), and job shadowing. The work-based learning program (WBL) also provides opportunities to supplement the academic learning with connections to the community with guest speakers, the Peer Health Exchange Program (that allows college students to teach 9th graders about health issues), field trips to medical facilities and colleges, and providing students with opportunities for internships in the medical field. Student Involvement in Curricular/Co-Curricular Activities: The school has an effective process for regularly evaluating the level of student involvement in curricular/co-curricular activities and student use of support services. The use of sign-in sheets are used to show the amount of students that use the after school tutoring and the after-school clubs/sports. Student Perceptions: The school is aware of the student view of student support services through such approaches as interviewing and dialoguing with student representatives of the school population. Students are surveyed at the beginning and end of the school year to get information from them about services things the student body likes, dislikes, and their wants. Now that Youth Policy Institute (YPI) has taken over the after school clubs and The Spot, the use of sign-in sheets in teacher office hours has started to be less used since the students that come into office hours are more informal and drop in. The Spot has taken over the formal after school tutoring. ASB and advisory representatives also are able to bring concerns to the administration for consideration during bi-weekly meetings.

CATEGORY E: SCHOOL CULTURE AND SUPPORT FOR STUDENT PERSONAL AND ACADEMIC GROWTH Areas of strength for School Culture and Support for Student Personal and Academic Growth (if any):

� Staff at HSA demonstrates a high degree of care for their students � HSA has a culture of respect and openness between staff, administration, students and family. � HSA has increased parent involvement from last year

Key issues for School Culture and Support for Student Personal and Academic Growth (if any):

� Staff retention has been low at HSA. Important evidence about student learning from the self-study and the visit that supports these strengths and key issues include the following:

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� Staff at HSA demonstrates a high degree of care for their students as shown by student comments in student group meetings and HSA administered surveys. � HSA has a culture of respect and openness between staff, administration, and students as demonstrated by the conversations with stakeholders in various group discussions. � HSA has increased parent involvement as shown by the parent participation award given by Alliance and comments by focus group members.

Part B: School wide Strength and Critical Areas for Follow-up � Briefly comment about the previously identified school wide strengths and critical areas for follow-up.

During the initial WASC visit in March 2010, the following strengths were identified: � Strong support system from Alliance � Strong administrative support at the school. � Outstanding support staff at every position in the school. � HSA had one of the highest performing initial first years on an open enrollment charter school in LAUSD. � Excellent staff development before, during, and after needs. � Good follow-up on data to help guide curriculum needs. � Support for students as soon as they need it. � Attendance is tremendous (99%).

The following critical needs were identified: 1. Increase low CST score � The school has made some progress meeting this area as demonstrated by the class of 2013 who demonstrated a gain of 65 points on their CST scores.

2. Improve the rigor of coursework by standardizing teacher expectations for proficient student performance across disciplines.

� Since the previous visit additional AP courses were added along with Medical Science 11 and 12. Teacher expectations for proficient student performance are now standardized across disciplines due to the implementation of grade level teams under the direction of the grade level chairs and staff collaboration across disciplines. The new principal is in the process of developing a profession growth plan to assist in retaining teachers.

3. Increased staff development to teach the teachers more student involvement in their own learning. � Since the initial visit TCRP was implemented as an evaluation tool including a focus on the two domains dedicated to improving classroom practices, noted by domain 3, which deals specifically with instructional strategies,

4. Continue to improve the assessment and intervention strategies for incoming students who are far below basic in both mathematics and English.

� Intervention strategies have been implemented to address the high number of incoming students scoring basic and below basic in the content areas of Math and English with the addition of English, CAHSEE, and Algebra Support courses. Most recently CAHSEE English classes replaced CAHSEE support classes to provide needed support. Finally 4 sections of Algebra Support math are now embedded in the master schedule.

5. Continue to improve the site-based Special Education Program. � There has been noted improvement in HSA’s site based program with the addition in 2013-2014 of a site based school psychologists, two RSP teachers are now on the staff providing

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SPED support and instruction to the students. Processes are now part of the school culture to identify and support students.

� Synthesize school wide areas of strengths and list numerically. Be sure that these can be documented by other sections of the report.

Chapter V: Action Plan. Ongoing School Improvement Alliance Health Services Academy High School developed the Critical Areas of Growth to lead their Action Plan after completing their school’s self study in February of 2014 while working in close collaboration with their Leadership Team, all Focus Groups and meetings with staff, students and parent members of the Learning Community. The Visiting Committee concurred with the same Critical Areas for Growth selected by AHSAHS following their visitation. The Visiting Committee made this determination following classroom observations, Focus Group meetings, Leadership Team Meetings, meeting with all members of the learning community and reviewing state and school wide test data. The Visiting Committee identified areas of strength and areas for growth: Areas of Strength

� Effective and Supportive Leadership team � Staff culture of dedication, passion and camaraderie. � Strong focus on instructional support. (Implementation of instructional leadership instead of instructional management.) � Students exemplify the ESLR of self-advocacy and experiential learning. � Culture of respect, which significantly lessens the amount of time teachers need to spend on classroom management and discipline. � Integration of technology within and across the curriculum. � School is community oasis (extended hours, inviting campus, and excellent rapport amongst staff, students, and families.

Synthesize school wide critical areas for follow-up and list numerically. Be sure that these can be documented by other sections of the report.

� Confirm areas already identified by the school in the action plan sections � Confirm areas to be strengthened within the already identified areas � Identify any additional areas to be added to the action plan that have been identified by the visiting committee. This includes areas related to student achievement and other profile data, the school program and operation, and the action plan.

Critical Areas For Growth

Your own self-study identified and you should continue to work on:

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� Staff retention � College Readiness (rigor); A-G requirements being taught at the school needs to adhere the expectations of the UC/CSU system in order to prepare students adequately for college (lab sciences and its 20% hands-on requirement.); Support plan for new teachers who lack experience needed to teach rigor. � Literacy

As you plan and implement your work, include

� Lack of adequate facilities inhibit ability to fulfill the school’s mission and vision of college readiness. � Continue to build parent involvement through but not limited to parent university sessions in order to provide insight into the college readiness process and expectations. � Continued preparation for common core transition. � Continue to build opportunities for experiential learning for all students. The program is currently limited to a small percentage of the student population.. � Continued growth in the area of data disaggregation.