A
Vision for Riverbank Unified School District
Riverbank Unified School District serves nearly 3,000 students
with diverse educational needs. Half of our students and their
families are qualified as socio-economically disadvantaged and
more than half of our students are English Learners. While
nearly all of our schools are making yearly academic progress,
as measured by the Academic Performance Index (API), each one of
our schools fall below the state’s expected API. While students
continue to achieve at higher levels than they did nearly a
decade ago, our district has been targeted as a system in need,
a Program Improvement district.
Our students and their families continue to come to campus with
increasingly diverse educational needs. We must broaden our
definition of education to include essential support and
services that engage our families and strengthen our community.
By focusing on a wider array of support services rather than
just traditional educational services, we will be more equipped
to work with all students.
Therefore, as educational leaders, we must create a coherent
system of support that connects all services and programs to
the established academic expectations for all students.
While focusing on building a coherent system of support
that is aligned to the instructional core, we will remain
relentless in our pursuit of instructional reform to ensure
quality classroom instruction for all students. We will build
capacity for instructional improvement by investing in our
teachers through ongoing, research-validated professional
development and instructional coaching. We will build a
common language around the technical core of student
learning to create an articulated learning experience for
students and a professional learning community for staff. We
will ensure that all schools have the resources and supports
they need to provide all students with the opportunities to
learn.
In order to build and maintain a system that is responsive to
the dynamic and changing needs of the Riverbank community, we
must commit ourselves to building and sustaining an effective
and productive team. Effective teams are built around open
dialogue, discussion and debate on essential ideas that impact
the education of our students. Our Leadership Team will design
a communication and decision making loop that is transparent and
efficient.
As instructional leaders we must adopt and implement data
analysis protocols for ourselves and our staffs, design a
system to monitor and support classroom instruction, and create
a coherent and coordinated professional development plan. We
will support teachers through frequent classroom visitations,
provide feedback on instructional practices, engage in
conversations that encourage reflections on classroom practices
and participate alongside our teachers in collaborative planning
and in professional development.
As a Leadership Team we will engage in our own professional
development so that we can respond to changing needs of our
staffs and departments. We must become proficient in
anticipating challenges and hurdles rather than only reacting to
barriers that we will face in leading our organization. We
must hold ourselves accountable for making sure that what we do
on a daily basis directly relates to improving what happens in
every classroom every day for every student.
Each leader brings a unique perspective and approach to their
work. This creativity and wide range of experiences will only
strengthen the foundation of our Leadership Team.
