Smart Start Grant Overview for the Yonkers Public Schools

Grant Focus: The Yonkers City School District (YCSD) in conjunction with our Professional Development Support Provider, Teachers College, Columbia University’s Center for Technology and Social Change (CTSC), will provide 500 K-8 teachers and administrators in the district with professional development that will enhance their “expertise in computer science, engineering, and/or educational technology” over the course of this five-year grant. The professional development is focused on increasing content area knowledge across STEM-related pathways as well as providing development on Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) as a pedagogical strategy for content delivery.

Program Model: The model that is being used is a hybrid that will incorporate vertical professional learning communities, elements of lesson study, and a more traditional train-the-trainer model. The Yonkers Public Schools will provide an intensive professional development series to faculty and staff across the district. This series is designed to place grade-band teachers along with administrators into district-wide Professional Learning Community (PLC) cohorts. These PLCs will then be deployed to the schools to train faculty and staff on both the philosophical pedagogy driving IBL, and through IBL, how classroom teachers might focus on content-specific knowledge while integrating STEM into the classroom.

Program Scale: This is a large-scale initiative that engages 500 unique individuals in a series of professional development learning opportunities that will take place over the course of the next 5 years.

Target Population: Through this grant, the district is focusing on all district schools that serve students in grades K-8 (34 Schools total = 8 Pre-K-6; 2 Pre-K-5; 19 Pre-K-8; 1 Pre-K-2; 1 3-8; 1 Pre-K-12; 1 7-12; 1 6-12). On average, each grade band from K-8 has between 7-8% of the student population (approximately 1900-2000 students per band.)

District Description: The Yonkers Public Schools is the fourth largest school district in New York State, located in the lower Hudson Valley, immediately north of New York City. Today our district is a vibrant learning community comprised of 39 schools and 27,000 students from 100 cultures, backgrounds and nationalities in grades Pre-kindergarten through 12. Yonkers is one of the most diverse cities in New York State and the region is rapidly expanding. Immigration statistics show that 31% of the city’s residents are born outside of the United States and almost half of the households (46%) in the city speak languages other than English in the home (World Population Review, 2019). YCSD is also recognized as one of the few district-wide choice models in the United States. According to the NYS BEDS Reports, in 2017-2018 the YCSD was comprised of 25,142 students—58% of students identified as Hispanic/Latino; 19% as Black/African-American; 16% as White; 5% as Asian/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander; and 1% of the population identified as Multi-Racial. Out of the entire student population of YCSD, 80% of all students were considered Economically Disadvantaged with 76% of these students qualifying for Free and Reduced Lunch. Roughly, 18% of all students were categorized as Students with Disabilities (SWD) and approximately 13% were categorized as English Language Learners (ELL). In 2017-2018, approximately 1% of the student population was categorized as Homeless/Displaced. Yonkers, being one of the Big Four school districts across the state automatically categorizes YCSD as a High Needs district on the Need/Resource Capacity Chart (see Appendix D of the RFP).

Program Description: In 2018, an evaluation was conducted by the district to ascertain how teachers were integrating Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) into the everyday classroom. Upon analysis of the findings, the district concluded two major results significant to this grant proposal; 1) the majority of instruction in K-8 classrooms across the district was primarily teacher-driven and there was little to no evidence suggesting that students were the drivers of their own inquiries, and 2) in response to a survey given to ascertain STEM content knowledge of district teachers in general K-8 classroom settings, the teachers themselves expressed that they felt as if they lacked content specialty knowledge in STEM and STEM-related skills.

Based upon these findings, YCSD in conjunction with Teachers College, Columbia University’s Center for Technology and Social Change (CTSC) have co-constructed a professional development series that incorporates Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) as a pedagogical approach to STEM integration. This project also addresses building teacher content-area expertise in STEM and STEM-related skills. This development series is philosophically framed through the Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge framework (TPACK, 2019) as a method for organizing our professional development and “as a way to think about effective technology integration, recognizing technology, pedagogy, content and context as interdependent aspects of teachers’ knowledge necessary to teach content-based curricula effectively with educational technologies” (Harris, Mishra, & Koehler, 2014, p. 393).

Our professional development series seeks to promote a transformative shift in instructional strategies from teacher-directed to inquiry-based design. This project will promote cross-district collaboration, professional learning, and increase content-knowledge and shared problem solving in diverse settings. The district is also working with the Regional Economic Development Council (REDC) for Westchester County to align the appropriate content for this series with the 5-year job outlook for the region. We are also aligning instruction and assessment to the NYS Computer Science and Digital Fluency Learning Standards.

Our goals for this project are as follows:

1. To improve general pedagogical strategies and instructional practices for the classroom through the introduction of IBL as it is particularly related to STEM in the classroom;
2. To align teacher content-area knowledge and skills in STEM and the NYS Computer Science and Digital Fluency Learning Standards;
3. To foster an awareness of STEM-related skills through a comprehensive understanding of STEM career trajectories in the region; and
4. To share artifacts and findings within the district and with other NYS school districts through a repository website.