The committee developed the following criteria, or Grounding Statements, to use as a basis for its recommendations.  Valley High School by the design and organization of its smaller learning communities:

• Will enhance the connectiveness among all members of its learning environment – students, staff, parents and the community
• Will encourage student voice
• Will promote greater flexibility in the development and delivery of curriculum and the scheduling of courses
• Will provide a foundation for students to pursue a wide variety of post-secondary opportunities
• Will address the needs of all learning styles in a population with changing demographics
• Will incorporate ongoing technology improvements in all areas that enhance teaching and learning
• Will provide opportunities for each student to demonstrate competencies and intellectual growth in all courses

The Personal Adult Advocate program should be the organizing structure for the three smaller learning communities.  Presently, every Valley student is a member of a Personal Adult Advocate group (PAA) with approximately fifteen students in each group.  There are 124 PAAs in the school and each group is facilitated by a staff member. The primary purpose of the PAA is to build relationships (student-to-teacher and student-to-student) and promote better communication.  Although concerns were expressed about aspects of the current program, the committee believes the PAAs should be the organizing structure for the smaller learning communities.  This will require clarification of the aspects of the program that are working well and will present opportunities for improvement.

The committee recommends that the redesigned school be organized into three groups with about forty-two PAAs in each group (about 600 students each).  Each group of forty-two PAAs would share the same administrator and guidance counselors.  Each group of forty-two PAAs also would work together on service projects and share in social activities and possibly intramural activities.  Additionally, student government would be redesigned to reflect the representation of the smaller learning communities as well as the overall student body.

Advantages of Organizing by PAA
Organizing the three smaller learning communities around the Personal Adult Advocate program will open new avenues for students and staff to better know one another.  The administrator and counselors serving each smaller learning community will have opportunities to interact more frequently with the staff and students in their group through service projects, social activities and student government activities as well as through their time in the PAA groups.  Students may feel more connected to the school through the relationships built in the smaller learning communities.  And staff will have new opportunities to develop and strengthen the PAA process.

Breadth of Curriculum
Students will continue to attend classes throughout the building and continue to attend classes  throughout the building with diverse groups of students. The PAA structure will not limit any student’s course options or their movement around the school.  This will allow the continuation of the wide variety of curricular offerings while adding a unifying structure that increases personalization and a feeling of being more closely connected to others in the school.

It is recommended that the redesigned building add new types of learning spaces to facilitate experiential learning. Project rooms in which groups of students can work collaboratively and creatively on hands-on assignments using appropriate technology should be available for use by all classes. Seminar rooms for large group instruction should be available as well. 

It is recommended that the school include a multi-media studio in which students can learn video production techniques and high-end graphics applications and where speech, debate and the performing arts can utilize high tech multi-media equipment to enhance learning.  A combination town hall/courtroom space should be available for teaching the skills of debate, dialogue and group interaction.  This room could also double as a meeting room for faculty and the community.  A black box theatre (a room for small performances) is also recommended as is a small health clinic in which students can learn more about the health sciences. 

An optional interdisciplinary program in which a common group of students is shared by 3 or four teachers during a blocked period of time is also recommended.  This “matrix” program would offer another smaller learning community option for students.  Additionally, it is recommended that some groups of students be able to work with the same teacher for multiple years as they move through the various levels of courses.  For example, a mathematics teacher may work with the same group of students during two or three years of mathematics classes, once again creating a smaller learning community option.

New social spaces that support student-to-student and student-to-teacher interactions should be added, including a commons area where students can converse or work together on extracurricular activities. Traditional classrooms and labs for the sciences and vocational programs should be included in the redesigned high school.  And meeting spaces for teachers (either offices or conference rooms) should be included as well.  A newly designed cafeteria is also recommended as are new locker areas.

The specific location of classrooms, labs and studios should be determined after additional discussion. One option discussed by the committee is to co-locate departments in areas of the building in which natural interdisciplinary connections exist.  For example, the language arts and social studies departments could be located in a “humanities” area and the mathematics and science departments could be placed near each other as well.  Another option is for individual courses to be located near the experiential areas with which they would be most involved.  For example, speech classes, technology classes and graphics arts classes could be located near the multi-media studio.  And government and debate classes could be located in close proximity to the town hall/courtroom.

4. Daily Schedule

The committee discussed several possible ways to reorganize the daily schedule. The purpose was to explore ways to deliver instruction other than through the current eight-period modified block schedule.  A possible scenario that included three options for schedules was presented by the Valley administration.  Because most of the discussion about scheduling occurred in the final meetings of the Connections Committee, it was determined that this topic should be further explored and some options piloted by the school staff after the committee had concluded its work.

The Connections Committee believes a new Valley High School is needed at the current site for the following reasons:

• It will provide a learning environment that better supports the interests of all students
• It will allow for new ways to deliver instruction
• It will support the learning styles of all students
• It will support relationships and provide for a stronger sense of “connectedness” among students and staff
• It will enable better integration of technology into classroom instruction
• It will provide for a safer, healthier and more pleasurable learning environment
• It will allow for lower operational and maintenance costs
• It will attract outstanding staff members
• Staff will continue to hold high expectations for student achievement and maintain academic rigor in a meaningful and challenging curriculum

The committee members believe that investing in a new Valley High School today is an investment in the future of our community. The committee strongly supports the recommendation found in this document.