An Elementary School’s Secret to Cutting Suspensions: Recess Referees

Alec Patton talks to Beverley Jenkins and Kate Hogan of the System Improvement Leads Networked Improvement Community and Nicole Leveille of Cloverdale Unified School District about how Cloverdale dramatically increased the percentage of students with IEPs in the general education population, and cut chronic absenteeism among students with disabilities in half.

Alec Patton talks to Liz Chu, Executive Director of the Center for Public Research and Leadership (CPRL) at Columbia University, about the new book she co-authored, The Learning Hive: Leading Collective Innovation to Transform Education Systems.

Alec Patton talks to math teachers Sunny Chan and Sandy Tu, and improvement coach Amanda Meyer, about Fremont High School's remarkable success at improving ninth-grade on track.

Alec Patton talks to teacher High School teacher Karen Shaffran and student Alegria Vargas about how their class created a socially conscious cosmetics business, featuring products made from plants grown hydroponically in a storage room!

Alec Patton talks to Tammy Unck, Maria Smith, and Uchenna Lewis about Bernal Intermediate School's work with Partners in School Innovation on improving outcomes for multilingual learners, using techniques such as "shadow a student" and elements of the AVID curriculum. The result was remarkable: During the 2022-2023 school year, Bernal achieved a 250% increase in the rate of multilingual learners reclassified to fluent English proficient status!

Alec Patton talks to Lincoln High School Principal Melissa Agudelo about the challenges of bringing exhibitions of student learning to a large urban high school, and how they made it successful by literally doing everything all at once.

Alec Patton talks to Michael McDonald, Stephen Rinaldo, and Tarima Levine about how Yonkers Public Schools and Bank Street Education Center improved eighth grade math proficiency particularly for students who are Black, Latinx, or experiencing poverty.

Alec Patton talks to PBLWorks Lead National Faculty in Math Bryon Demerson about why led him to shift from being a highly successful "traditional" math teacher to embracing project-based learning.

Alec Patton talks to Dr. Kim Carter, superintendent of Battle Creek Public Schools in Michigan, about how her district broke a pattern of outmigration through building relationships with families and local businesses and nonprofits based on transparency and LOTS of conversations.

Alec Patton talks to Paola Capó-García about "Politics of the Personal," the twelfth-grade English project she created in which students chose a topic of personal interest to write an essay about—and create a piñata!

Bell Middle School reduced its D/F rate from 51% in 2022 to 28% in 2024. That's a 23 percentage point reduction. Even more impressive, for low income students, the D/F rate was 67% in 2022, and Bell cut it by more than half, down to 29% in 2024. In this episode, Alec Patton talks to science teacher Teddy Meckstroth about how they did it.

Alec Patton talks to Hamilton Elementary Principal Dr. Brittany Daley and San Diego County Office of Education Executive Leadership Coach Julia Bridi about how Hamilton cut its chronic absenteeism rate from 24% to 10% in a single year, using creative parent communication, home visits, data checks, and public sliming