CREEED, El Paso Community Foundation, and Transcend expand work into older age groups with support of $250,000 grant from the Prentice Farrar Brown and Alline Ford Foundation
By: Nadia Tellez
The energy at Carroll T. Welch Elementary School (CTW) on Friday mornings is electric—and not just because the students are excited it is Friday! As students arrive on campus, they are greeted by up-beat music in the hallways that leads them to the school gym and their weekly campus-wide meeting. This meeting is unlike anything I’ve previously experienced in my 20 years as an educator. These meetings bring energy and excitement to the students, encouraging them to dance, say hello to their classmates and teachers, “sending shine” to those who have had a great week, and affirming that they belong.
The positive energy at CTW extends beyond Friday mornings. Every day, in every classroom, students start out the day by sitting in a circle and with an affirmation: I am loved, I can regulate my brain, I believe in myself, I belong at CTW. They practice breathing exercises, and each student shares what they are feeling and what they are excited about for the day.
All of this is due to a regional learning journey that began more than a year ago with CREEED, the El Paso Community Foundation and Transcend, a national education nonprofit organization. Our mission was to redesign how schools work so that they can fulfill the needs of students with the goal of improving academic confidence and achievement. Our first cohort of schools from the region included:
- O’Shea Keleher Whole Child Academy, Socorro ISD
- Carroll T. Welch Elementary, Clint ISD
- Vista Del Sol Environmental Science Academy, Socorro ISD
- Jose H. Damian Elementary, Canutillo ISD
- Congressman Silvestre and Carolina Reyes Elementary, Canutillo ISD
- Gonzalo and Sofia Garcia Elementary, Canutillo ISD
- Jose J. Alderete Middle School, Canutillo ISD
- Canutillo Middle School STEAM Academy, Canutillo ISD
These eight schools became known as the El Paso School Design Collaborative, or SDC. Each school developed their own design team with a wide variety of adults who engage with students on campus: teachers, counselors, librarians, administrators, parents, cafeteria staff, maintenance staff. The teams then conducted focus groups and interviews–all designed to determine what the students at their campuses needed to succeed. Design teams took that information and developed a plan to redesign their campus to better meet those needs!
In the case of CTW, they found many students didn’t feel a sense of belonging and didn’t know how to deal with negative emotions, such as stress. With that in mind, they implemented daily affirmations within classroom circles, as well as student and staff Morning Meetings—all to bring students together and teach them to regulate their brains, emotions, and breathing.
At the core of all the El Paso School Design Collaborative schools is improved academic student success, and early data is showing positive results. Although only in their first full year of implementation of classroom circles and morning meetings, CTW has seen growth in many areas, including Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) and STAAR interim assessments scores. Because of that success, CREEED and the El Paso Community Foundation are excited to share that, thanks to a $250,000 grant from the Prentice Farrar Brown and Alline Ford Foundation, we are expanding Transcend’s work into higher grade levels at Clint Junior High and Clint High School! This expansion will help ensure students at all grade levels have the resources and supports needed to succeed academically at their current grade and in post-secondary education.
When our team first began this journey with Transcend, we traveled to Washington, D.C. to visit a school Transcend labeled as a model for the rest of the country. I couldn’t believe all the innovative and supportive techniques being implemented there. Now, I am proud to say that El Paso will soon have our own schools to serve as a model for the rest of the country.
