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C
– Total Community Commitment
R
– Respect, Responsibility, Research
E
– Equity, Experience, Expectations, Efficacy
A
– Accessibility, Assessment, Achievement, Accountability
D
– Development and Data
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We believe that motivation to achieve, school success, community values and
community-wide support are all closely related. We seek to establish a new
social and educational network that personalizes support, that ensures equity
and opportunity for all students, that builds family and neighborhood strength
in correspondence with a sense of possibility and efficacy, that seamlessly
connects school, neighborhood, and community, and that makes learning, growth,
achievement and success a central focus.
- We aim to structure and align roles and responsibilities for students, parents,
teachers, higher education partners and community members in such a way that
they form the bonds of interconnectedness and mutuality necessary for a new
network of support and mutual responsibility to take root and grow.
We believe that this social ecology will nurture educational as well as
personal growth for all of the young people in our community.
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R – Respect, Responsibility, Research
- Our effort to support and make school success possible for all will be founded on
respect for each other, a value we aim to represent in the structure of our
communication and relationships and to embody in our work together.
- Our network of support will be bound together by a shared responsibility for
educational opportunity and achievement. The personal success of each student
will be the measure of our commitment as a community.
- Our work will be informed by research in areas such as education, sociolinguistics,
community-based development, and psychology as well as by local experience and
knowledge.
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E – Equity, Experience, Expectations,
Efficacy
- We believe that it is possible for all students to learn and to experience and
trust in their own capability as learners. We are committed to establishing the
conditions that will make school success possible for all.
- We acknowledge and respect local experience and knowledge, whether that be
represented by cultural tradition or innovative educational models, and seek to
build on them as personal and community strengths in our process of change.
- Our goal to promote academic achievement for all students cannot be realized without high
expectations, and high expectations cannot be fulfilled without a climate of
total support.
- Students need to trust that their effort is valued in the community and will be
worthwhile, will make a difference in their lives. We need to consciously
socialize efficacy and motivation.
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A – Accessibility, Assessment,
Achievement, Accountability
- We recognize that access to school learning and success depends on understanding
academic culture and attaining “academic literacy.” We are committed to
providing whatever cultural and linguistic bridges and supports are necessary to
make school learning accessible to all students.
- We see assessment not as mere evaluation, but as an ongoing inquiry into and dialogue
about what matters in learning, what constitutes quality, and what counts for
achievement, a process in which students, teachers, parents, and community
partners all participate. We see the assessment process as a tool for both
personal learning and growth in the community’s understanding of and
commitment to educational achievement.
- We will actively support and chronicle both growth and achievement as an integral part
of our programs of learning. We will promote intellectual work through public
exhibitions and recognitions. We are also concerned with benchmarks for growth
and demonstrable standards of achievement which are consonant with state and
national curriculum framework learning standards and goals. We aim to make the
goals of learning and standards of achievement as accessible and comprehensible
as possible.
- We share accountability for the quality of educational opportunity and performance of all
students. We will act on our responsibility by participating in
neighborhood-based or focus group efforts to implement change and foster
success.
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D – Development and Data
- We view our students as young people growing into maturity and community responsibility.
We are committed to helping them develop in this way as well as achieve
academically. We will also value and recognize personal stories in the community
as a source of understanding and measuring our success.
- Our system of assessment and evaluation will yield data that provide a portrait of
student growth as well as areas of need. We
will also chart progress in relation to critical quantitative and qualitative
measures of success, with attention to school attendance, student performance as
reflected in work products and presentations, successful student involvement in
community service, leadership and internships, MCAS and other standardized test
scores, and college applications and admissions.
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About WEP
