Program Approach
Urban Essentials 101 can assist in improving your school by offering workshops focused on maximizing relationships and resources to facilitate the building of a sound Urban School Structure Plan. By using the UE101 program your school could benefit in the areas of improved attendance, increased teacher satisfaction, greater potential for teacher retention, decreased suspensions, detentions, tardy, and other behavioral problems. UE101 places academic achievement within reach of every urban school by focusing on three areas: the who, what and how.
Who?
The UE101 Plan is designed to improve student achievement by assisting in the development of Inspirational Staff Leaders, Authentic Relationships, Resource Alignment Strategies, the Development of Supportive Structures, and the Implementation of Quality Instruction.
Possibly the most influential component for success at any school is the ability for its leaders to inspire others. Inspiration is the number one job of any school leader. If accomplished, it could transform the entire school into a place of learning and civility. With so much at stake, the question then becomes: What is an inspirational leader? An inspirational leader is someone who can successfully develop authentic relationships, properly align the available resources, build the supportive structures that are vital to achieving the school’s mission, and deliver quality instruction. When this is accomplished, the urban success pyramid (see below) is easily attainable.
What?
The key to the UE101 program is viewing the school as more than an organism of academic achievement. Using the Maslow Model, the school is viewed as a needs-based environment. At UE101, we recognize that a school’s level of needs should be divided into Climate- and Culture-oriented categories that must be developed and instituted concurrently.
How?
We believe in FAITH: Fairness, Accountability, Integrity, Trust and Honesty.
First, we size up your campus breakdown by student typology according to long-, sling-, and straight-shots. Without fail, in each and every urban underperforming classroom throughout this country, there are students who are there, whether consciously or unconsciously, to disrupt and destroy the designed flow of the learning process. This group, to its detriment, consists of those students who have decided that the system, as established, is not working for them, and therefore they are not working for it or with it. When students reach this point, they are mentally far removed from the level of receptiveness necessary to receive the full benefits of the educational process. It is because of this separation and distancing that I call this group the long shots.
The second group is the straight shots. They are the conformers. These students, regardless of the social and academic barriers erected, will wholeheartedly buy into the structure of the program and successfully navigate it, without objection and with few missteps.
The final group is called the sling shots. The slings are the swing group. They are the students who will ultimately decide the direction of the class. They are the middle-of-the-road, lukewarm folk that can be persuaded to go either way. It should go without saying that it is the teacher’s knowledge of, and ability to relate with, all three groups that is almost the exclusive determinant over the direction and course of the classroom.
To start seeing benefits, all over the campus — classrooms included — we immediately begin introducing students to the tripartite of being human — spirit (conscience, morality, ethics, integrity, etc.), mind, and body. FAITH drives the tripartite. We also immediately begin the process of instilling developmental urgency through the 3 T’s — Time, Talents, and Treasures.
We also implement the Urban School Structure Plan (USSP), which provides the structural apparatus necessary for nurturing, growing, and sustaining all of the standards-based programs and initiatives currently found in most district school systems.
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