Each school included in the application shall design and implement policies and procedures that include all of the following core restructuring elements when applicable to elementary or secondary schools or both:
(a)
Curriculum, instruction, and assessment designed to meet individual pupil needs while assisting all pupils to meet high subject matter standards.
Instructional strategies shall go beyond teacher lectures and may include cooperative and mastery learning as a school-wide strategy. Strategies should decrease teacher workloads and increase contact time between teachers and pupils. This may be accomplished, for example, by organizing teachers into teams in two or more subject areas in order to promote a rigorous core curriculum for all pupils, including reading and writing skills for their development and critical thinking skills in the core subject matter areas required for high school graduation.
An expanded and enriched curriculum should be offered to all pupils within and across subject matter areas, for example, by organizing teachers into teams, or by promoting cross-discipline curriculum development and implementation on an articulated, multigrade basis.
The curriculum and the instructional strategies to implement these objectives shall provide early and sustained opportunities for limited-English-proficient and non-English-speaking pupils to become proficient in all English language skills by using a variety of instructional methods. The school curriculum may also offer opportunities for pupils to become proficient in two or more languages.
The testing of pupils in demonstration schools shall move away from reliance on multiple-choice testing to an authentic pupil performance based system that strives to provide a holistic assessment of each pupil’s improvement and achievement. Greater emphasis shall be placed, for example, upon a pupil’s writing as a better way of assessing thinking and problem solving skills.
The curricular, instructional strategies, and assessment tools shall also provide for accelerating the achievement of pupils performing below their potential to levels beyond the overall rates of pupil improvement and achievement.
(b)
A plan for inclusion in appropriate curriculum programs new and expanded opportunities for 11th and 12th grade pupils to attend classes in colleges and universities, to enroll in specialized schools and programs, and to participate in internships or other field work with business, industry, schools, and community organizations. These opportunities shall be fostered and implemented in both the public and private sectors.
No project shall receive funding if there is any indication that this component is designed or implemented in a fashion so that pupils are directed, rather than counseled, regarding these opportunities, or if the activities in any way foster the tracking of pupils.
(c)
Assess, and where necessary, redesign the roles and involvement of parents and all other persons who participate or work in the educational program at the school. Staff development, including leadership development, which emphasizes decisionmaking skills and organizational principles of teamwork and collaboration, shall be a critical component in reorganizing and restructuring the school for effective instruction.
(1)
Roles and responsibilities may be differentiated among all school personnel, particularly instructional personnel, in order to provide more effective instruction to pupils. The anticipated need to provide increased support and assistance to beginning teachers may be achieved, for example, by reducing their instructional or pupil loads to permit their observation of instructional approaches utilized by experienced and effective teachers, or to allow time for mentoring and peer assistant relationships among all teachers.
(2)
Meaningful roles and responsibilities for parents shall be included as a part of the project. In addition to assisting pupils at home and at school, parents shall be given greater amounts of information and authority to participate in the placement decisions for their children in specific classes or programs. Placement considerations may include schools within schools to expand program diversity, open enrollment among schools that have different programs and instructional emphases, and specialized high schools to enhance particular talents in pupils.
(d)
The use of technology shall be addressed, at a minimum, in the following dimensions:
(1)
Technology as an instructional methodology to assist and enhance pupil learning.
(2)
Teaching pupils how to use the technology.
(3)
Technology as an instrument to better manage information and to enhance the organizational and administrative functioning of the school.
(e)
Subject to the availability of separate funding pursuant to Section 58925.5, elementary school projects shall include a preschool program component such as the federal Headstart Program, or a program with similar goals operating as a state preschool program pursuant to the requirements of Chapter 2 (commencing with Section 8200) of Part 6, or which may require requests to waive provisions of the Education Code or state regulations pursuant to Sections 33050 and 33051. All children four years of age or older from low-income families shall be given the opportunity to attend a preschool program.
Subject to the availability of separate funding pursuant to Section 58925.5, a restructuring proposal which involves a high school may include a schoolage parenting and infant development program operated pursuant to the requirements of Chapter 2 (commencing with Section 8200) of Part 6.
It is the intent of the Legislature that applicant school districts and schools consider contracting with local community agencies that may offer state-subsidized child development, preschool or schoolage parenting and infant development, in order to provide linkages to existing child care and development programs and to avoid duplicating or fragmenting child development service delivery.
The child care components authorized by this subdivision shall be deemed an expansion of existing state supported programs and an integral enhancement of the restructuring proposal. If separate funding pursuant to Section 58925.5 is made available for those purposes, the superintendent, subject to existing statutes and regulations, and a review of the quality of competing applications for preschool and schoolaged parent funding, shall give preference to high quality proposals that are included in a demonstration proposal in the approval of any expansion funding to demonstration district projects providing for one or both of these programs.