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Date: 8/2/2022
HOLYOKE – After more refinement, the Holyoke Public Schools (HPS) are nearing a final draft for their Learner Profile, a document designed to establish a high-level description of the student experience for students.
Community members were invited to join the district on July 26 at the Holyoke High School North Campus to participate in a workshop to work through the most current draft of the document. The Learner Profile being established by the district stems from the Graduate Profile model that school districts use to specify the cognitive, personal and interpersonal; competencies that students should have when they graduate.
According to Chief of Strategy and Turnaround Erin Linville, the district decided to turn their document into a Learner Profile to include students outside of those in high school. The document was co-created with input from key stakeholders in the district and from teachers and parents. The profile is intended to provide a clear visualization of priority goals for teaching and learning that can be easily communicated to students, parents, faculty and staff to align their collective efforts.
Linville said the district decided to broaden the document after feeling a Graduate Profile could be perceived as what the district wants students to accomplish by the end of their time in the district.
“It’s kind of like an outcome whereas we were interested in the concept of a Learner Profile because it speaks to the entire journey of a student in Holyoke schools. You can apply a lot of these things [in the Graduate Profile] to the younger children too,” Linville said.
For example, Linville said the Learner Profile will clearly state what the district looks for when evaluating students’ ability to communicate effectively. Linville said this is different for each age group and the district wants to be cognizant of that and have standards represented throughout students’ careers.
The establishment of a Learner Profile has been an extension of previous work completed by the high school redesign teams and Middle School Collaborative Study team that were all formed in the last five years. These teams developed an outline of what they want to see from graduates and identified levels of communication, critical thinking, engagement and productiveness and more.
With these ideas established, a document for the high school level was in place. The redesign teams then brought in Habits of Work and Learning, referred to as HOWLs – the academic mindsets and character traits used to develop a culture of inquiry where students and adults are active and engaged learners.
As a result, there were two different high school documents which shared ideas but still differed. After working further with the teams in the early days of their own work on the Learner Profile, Linville said they identified the top themes they wanted reflected through the new document that would not only replace the high school level guides but apply to all students in the district.
Joining her as the lead setting up workshops was Holyoke teacher Emma Pascarella, who was already working on the district’s Strategic Plan Advisory Committee. Pascarella is a first grade teacher in the district as well as a parent to two students in the district.
Linville said it was great to be able to work with a teacher in the schools. She noted Central Office personnel and those on the ground day-to-day in the schools do not always team up for this type of work.
“She helped me co-develop the workshop. I just appreciated that as like a growth area for us between central office working in close partnership with the schools and this was one example,” Linville said.
During their workshop, Linville said she received valuable feedback that could be applied once the Learner Profile was complete. One suggestion was about making the point that “Holyoke learners take action” to encourage students to take ownership of and responsibility for their community and get involved.
Linville said she will be taking much of the feedback from the latest workshop and take the time to consider the different ideas before releasing the final draft. She plans to have the official document ready for the new school year with an announcement in August.
“It goes to show we wanted to build on the work that’s already been done previously because those were all inclusive processes with a variety of stakeholders, and reflect on where we are today,” Linville said.
Linville added she has been encouraged by the cooperation between parties and said they wanted a broad range of stakeholders. She said teachers and parents have been vocal in assisting this work when community feedback has been sought after.
“This is a nice activity, but this is the start. We want it. We want to make sure that it would come alive in the classroom,” Linville said. “It’s both learning through the process and learning from what we’ve done exploring outside and in discussion. There’s a lot of power in good ideas coming together.”
Once an official Learner Profile document is released, Linville said it will always be open to revision if needed to address any new or missed points of emphasis needed to be established. She added documents like this could always benefit from future refreshers and thinks they will create a stronger document following implementation and refinement.
Linville said overall the Learner Profile will be a positive addition to the district as it is more specific about some of the cognitive or personal competencies that students should have as a learner and then when they graduate.
“I think that can help provide clarity in terms of those softer skills that you’re working on in the classroom. Habits and ways of working that are important skills and characteristics and competencies that students have a chance to practice in and outside the classroom that are just absolutely critical to be effective in the world,” Linville said. “I feel hopeful about the learner profile to provide some clarity on what we want learning to look like in Holyoke classrooms.”