O'Shea Keleher Whole Child Academy celebrated the campus’s third year working as a School Design Collaborative, an initiative launched by CREEED and the El Paso Community Foundation in partnership with the national education organization Transcend, with a special event May 22 at the school.
The collaborative aims to expand student-centered learning models across the region by integrating innovative programs and comprehensive support systems that promote student success. A group of O’Shea Keleher fifth graders and administrators proudly presented their progress with their innovative instruction, including villages, hands-on learning and universal design learning.
“Our goal is to showcase the work that our students are doing to grow in all areas as part of the Whole Child Academy,” said O’Shea Keleher principal Laura Garcia. “We focus on academics, but we want to make sure that their bodies are strong, that their minds are strong, their hearts are strong, their mental health is good.”
A key part of the showcase was demonstrating the success of the school’s unique villages program, which was developed through research and data to help students develop strong relationships with their peers, Garcia said. Each week time is dedicated for students to interact with students from different grade levels and classes to work on things like team building, self-confidence and motivation.
“Here we talked about our villages, how we really enjoy it because you get to meet new people and you get to have more friends and you're not just working with the people in your class itself,” said O’Shea Keleher fifth-grader Monique Alvarado. “You're working with other people combined and you're collaborating with them and you get to hear others' ideas. It's really good for us students because we get to adapt to different students and it helps you become better at like your life skills, your people skills, as they say, and I think it's really fun.”
Crusader student ambassadors also led tours of the school’s learning garden. During the showcase, the campus unveiled the new name of the garden to honor an O’Shea Keleher Pre-K teacher who died. “Gina's Garden of Hopes and Dreams” honored Virginia “Gina” Striplin’s legacy and commitment to her students and future learners.
The garden is an integral part of the school’s whole-child approach, which emphasizes mental health and social-emotional learning. It provides children with hands-on experiences in math, science and life skills. Visitors and students planted flowers together to demonstrate their shared investment in O’Shea Keleher’s growth.
“I think the garden is important because it's a symbol to show that we're active and we care about nature,” said fifth-grader Sebastian Tarin. “I think it's a learning opportunity for gardening. If you ever want to garden when you grow up, you're like, ‘oh, in this school, I did this, so this is how I know how to do this. It's just overall fun and it's teaching us how to help the world.”
The School Design Collaborative at O’Shea Keleher has resulted in impressive action based on the student, staff and community needs and vision, said Celestina De La Garza, school design partner with Transcend.
“With our small little nudges and thoughts and ideas, these student experiences have come to life through piloting. They've designed it together as a community, piloted components, tweaked it over years, and now have fully implemented villages across campus for the past two years,” De La Garza said. “And this year we began to design and pilot Crusader Quest, which is an opportunity for students to choose what and how they learn in class with teachers' guidance.”
The test run of the universal design learning program called Crusader Quest was from Pre-K through fifth grade. It has shown lots of growth with students naming reasons for how they choose to learn, such as it was easy, their friends were with them or wanting to try reading fiction over non-fiction text.
“So, making intentional choices around that, seeing that growth is so important, and then also seeing the progression because now we know what they need to start this implementation school-wide,” De La Garza said. “Next school year, they're going to start with teaching kids about why they may make choices in their learning, identifying their goals, and what kind of choices might support those goals, all to help with the implementation of Crusader Quest.”
The success of the innovative instruction has been through true listening and learning among school administrators and teachers, which results in strong partnerships and positive student experiences.
“It's amazing to see our fifth graders who are able to stand in front of adults and ask and answer questions. It's very joyous for me as a principal to see them and to see how they've grown,” Garcia said. “When I had them starting at Pre-K and they would cry every day, I was constantly walking with them and now to see them as feeling so confident in themselves, it's very gratifying as a principal to say, ‘yes, we did this.’”
The School Design Collaborative at O’Shea Keleher event photos