Further, staff moved to thinking about how our school practices perpetuate WSC and send negative messages to our students. However, when we name oppression, racism, and more explicitly White Supremacy Culture, folks have to determine where they stand, what they value, and why they work in education. For example, pushing students to work independently or write before processing verbally can lead to stress and isolation. Photo at top courtesy of Joe Truss: VVMS staff match examples of White Supremacy Culture to the definition of each characteristic. For the majority of urban students, drugs, gangs and violence are part of everyday life. and students grade point averages rose each year. Education in collaboration with the San Francisco Unified School District research department, had more good news. Imagine that. A $60K Starting Salary for Teachers? Norman E. Rosenthal is a psychiatrist and the author of Super Mind: How to Boost Performance and Live a Richer and Happier Life Through Transcendental Meditation.. Week 25 newsletter in different languages. It contains 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. This has included making decisions about curriculum, school partnership, and hiring, without authentically involving teachers or students in the process.
183 Tucker Ave, San Francisco, CA 94134 | MLS# 422698295 | Redfin Chris Stewart / The Chronicle Visitation Valley Middle School, campus violence MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/NO SALES-MAGS OUT, No seriously, dont drive up to Tahoe this weekend, Horoscope for Friday, 3/03/23 by Christopher Renstrom, Horoscope for Saturday, 3/04/23 by Christopher Renstrom, Snowboarder dies at Tahoe ski resort following historic blizzard, Wife of Jeffrey Vandergrift issues somber update, Oakland ransomware attackers leak 'confidential' data, Mochi muffin bakery closes SF cafe after just 4 months, Even Salesforces tower HQ isnt safe from office cuts, The Warriors broke Russell Westbrook, just like old times, The best fried chicken is at a San Francisco strip club, National Association of Secondary School Principals, You can still overpack the smaller Monos check-in suitcase, In search of vegan food, I found a world-class Mendocino inn, Your Privacy Choices (Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads). We were looking for a way to get kids to relax, he said. (Love, 2019) It is imperative that we examine these deeply held beliefsboth conscious and unconsciousto build on top of a new set of habits, behaviors, and systems. This has the power to unite folks at the foundational level, setting the stage for deeper commitments to learning new strategies, practices, and routines.
Week 25 Newsletter | SFUSD Meditation program mends troubled Visitacion Valley Middle School Racial-equity work is like trying to defuse a bomb and cutting the wrong wire. I think of my mantra, and it helps me calm down., Bob Roth, Executive Director for the David Lynch Foundation, said meditation is not just a way for students to relax but has real cognitive benefits. As for getting the children to start meditating, ODriscoll says the biggest hurdle was getting them to feel comfortable with their eyes closed. A restless din filled the large room. Sign up for a school tour at sfusd.edu/tours. In recent years however, Principal Dierke and a growing number of other educators have found a way to break the predictive power of demographics. 5/28/2021. Principal Broker: William J Oliver. A lot has changed over this period, including three principals coming and going, but ODriscoll puts the turnaround down to the one constant: the calming influence of the meditation programme. I am deeply honored and excited to have the opportunity to serve as Principal of Visitacion Valley Middle School. . campaign: %%CAMP%% -- %%CAMP_UID%%, creative: %%ADID%% -- %%AD_UID%%, page: %%PAGE%%, targetedPage: %%TARGETEDPAGE%%, position: %%POS%%, evaluated in public middle school students performing below proficiency level, Under Stress, Students in New York Schools Find Calm in Meditation. David Lynch Foundation, involved introducing two 15-minute periods of quiet into the school day. June 4, 2021 Dear Visitacion Valley Middle School Community, I am deeply honored and excited to have the opportunity to serve as Principal of Visitacion Valley Middle School. Grades: 9-12. . They are not guaranteed to be accurate, up to date . One teacher, Mary Chirichella added, "Some teachers had the courage to approach others to have tough conversations about microaggressions. We might also see students connecting their identities to their learning and applying it back to their communities to manifest social justice. were the happiest in the whole of San Francisco, to more schools in the city introducing the programme, Center for Wellness and Achievement in Education, recommended the Department for Education designate three schools to pioneer mindfulness teaching, international lessons in education series. Otherwise, white fragility will shut the anti-racist party down; its an equity consciousness buzz kill, for real. At times, it appeared that we weren't clearly aligned philosophically and did not have a focused call to action.
When they started everyone said it would be impossible to get 12-year-olds to sit for even a minute, but through transcendental meditation (TM) they proved critics wrong. 3. Mr. Dierke wondered whether meditation might reduce students stress levels and help them learn. This is true for our staff as well, contributing to racial fatigue and staff sustainability for IBPOC. 3rd Street Youth Center & Clinic Government Administration SAN FRANCISCO, California Students are encouraged to use the time to meditate, but Dierke says students can simply clear their mind, think about schoolwork, or even sleep. One day children came in to find three dead bodies dumped in the schoolyard. To do it properly Visitacion Valley middle school made the day 30 minutes longer. One other middle school and two high schools in the Bay Area adopted the program. Were not perfect, Dierke said. As a leader, I hold three core values close to me: connection, growth, and appreciation. You can listen to Mr. Dierke speak at a conference in Los Angeles in December 2011 about his school districts research on the effect the Quiet Time/TM program has had on his students and teachers since it became part of their school five years ago. If I can be vulnerable and honest, white educators can and must do the same. For instance, we might see folks making eye contact, leaning into conversations about racial identity, and asking probing questions. Students straightened their backs and closed their eyes. In between, she spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English in Cape Verde, West Africa. Visitacion Valley Middle is a public school located in San Francisco, CA, which is in a large city setting. In 2007, James Dierke, then the principal of the Visitacion Valley Middle School in a troubled neighborhood in San Francisco, was determined to improve both the quality of education and. This is a 4-bed, 3-bath, 1,597 sqft property. ft. home is a 2 bed, 1.0 bath property. I like to think of myself as a recovering perpetrator of WSC. 3. . Historically, those predictions have been accurate.
Breaking the "predictive power of demographics": SF principal talks This leads to resistance or failure to follow through, maintaining a status quo of disproportionate outcomes for students based on race. When Dierke took the helm of Visitacion Valley in 1999, it was the lowest-performing of San Francisco's 18 public middle schools on the state's Academic Performance Index; now the school ranks 10th. You can find more information about the fair at sfusd.edu/fair. C. Visitacion Valley Middle School is a public school located in SAN FRANCISCO, CA. Dierke, who has been principal at the school for 13 years, said things reached a turning point about five years ago. He attributes that to higher levels of job satisfaction. "I think that it really means something - not only for me, but for my staff and for my kids - to have this recognition.". CWAE specialists counseled students on meditation techniques and five full-time staffers remain on campus to help maintain the program. In the first year of Quiet Time meditation, suspensions at Visitacion Valley were reduced by 45%. The letter is also available inChinese/andEspaol. Dr. Bettina Love writes in her book, We Want to Do More Than Survive, To even begin to attack our destructive and punitive educational system, pedagogies that promote social justice must help educators understand and recognize America and its schools as spaces of Whiteness, White rage, and White Supremacy, all of which function to terrorize students of color. (Love, 2019) It is imperative that we examine these deeply held beliefsboth conscious and unconsciousto build on top of a new set of habits, behaviors, and systems. She is a frequent guest on KQED's "Newroom" television show and "Forum" radio show. Parks near 83 Ervine St include Visitacion Valley Greenway, Bayview Park, and Louis Sutter . A pioneering programme has reduced stress and improved grades at Visitacion Valley middle school with lessons other schools can learn from. His school, along with other urban middle schools in low income neighborhoods, is in the midst of a battlea battle against the predictive power of demographics. Students. Anther example might be superficially speeding through content or discouraging interruptions for questions. Maybe having half an hour just to focus on themselves so they get awareness and grounding, might have some impact., And it could help reduce costs later. Meditation strengthens the areas of the brain that control our fear center, he said. $5,220. White Supremacy Culture also tricks us into thinking that if we change to fit a white model, we can be more valued but still never be white. Find COVID-19 testing, vaccine, and daily health screening information. At Visitacion Valley Middle School (VVMS), in the San Francisco Unified school district, our brave staff spent a majority of the 2018-19 school year unpacking White Supremacy Culture (WSC). As a result of these high-stress conditions, thousands of schools have predictable problems: low attendance, high violence, and low performance. The UK has already started experimenting with meditation: 400 secondary schools offer programmes like the Dot B mindfulness meditation programme, which tends to take place once a week in personal, social, health education (PSHE) class. It can result in white rage, broken relationships, grievances, and further harm to oppressed students. Having served the past two years as Assistant Principal, VVMS is a community that I love and care for.
PDF The QuieT Time Program - GlobalGiving Before the students learn to meditate, the Quiet Time programme requires all staff to be trained in TM. Visitacion Valley Middle School Unclaimed 1971 Visitacion Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94134 Contact info Website 3 /10 GreatSchools Rating 5 reviews Public school 375 Students Grades 6-8 Updates Compare 3 /10 GreatSchools Summary Rating 2/10 Test Scores below average 4/10 Academic Progress below average 1/10 Equity below average Thats what were gradually doing here., The payoff might be most evident in students like Angelica Mahinay, who says, Man, when I hear students getting an attitude, or theyre saying theyre going to fight, I say, Hey! Specifically, this pushed on us to think about and change how we work together: We worked to create norms that encourage people of color and women to contribute, we shifted the relationship between teachers and administration so that teachers had more input in budget and hiring decisions, and finally, we adjusted the pace of our professional-development plans to emphasize quality over quantity. Now we can get to the work of promoting anti-racism, liberation, and achievement at our school, by looking through the lens of White Supremacy Culture. To our teachers and staff, joyful learning means that each student is able to maximize his/her abilities and be successful in learning through different learning methods. Distance: 1.7 mi.
958 Ingerson Ave, San Francisco, CA, 94124 - RocketHomes Visitacion Valley Middle School prides itself in its active role in the community by welcoming parents, families, and community partners to participate on all levels of creating a culturally responsive 21st Century Middle School. $1,150,000 Last Sold Price.
Visitacion Valley Middle-San Francisco-California 2021/2022 The work to address racism in schools has been called cultural competency, diversity training, and equity. Our courageous educators got personal, thinking about how White Supremacy Culture shows up in their personal lives and between colleagues. If I can be vulnerable and honest, white educators can and must do the same. That was crazy, Angelica, the student body president, said. This has included making decisions about curriculum, school partnership, and hiring, without authentically involving teachers or students in the process. SOLD JUN 13, 2022. We publish a weekly newsletter to keep parents informed, hold workshops, and offer many opportunities for parent communication and involvement. Most definitely recommend this school to parents in the neighborhood with kids in Kinder-5th grade. We should be planning for the righteous rage of IBPOC (Indigenous Black People of Color), but 82 percent of our teaching force is white, so we will also plan for white fragility. Entire contents copyright 2023 Maharishi Foundation USA, a non-profit educational organization. Finally, this work is some of the most challenging, but rewarding work there is. Eighth grader Stacy* has been meditating since she joined the school three years ago.
Chaos at SF middle school is not an isolated case General education entry grade seats per application: https://sfusd.zoom.us/j/89260175755?pwd=R2VLdWJQOVdySElJa1c2UUhCTkw5QT09, Districtwide before and after school program information, Social-Emotional and Culture Climate Report, School Plan for Student Achievement (SPSA). We needed to go deeper than our previous conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion. An all-party parliamentary group has also recommended the Department for Education designate three schools to pioneer mindfulness teaching, and set up a 1m fund to allow more schools to benefit from support in the practice. Students seemed happy, says ODriscoll. Personal Commitment graphic organizer used in professional development (Courtesy of Joe Truss). At first glance, it might not appear the principal of the year would come out of Visitacion Valley. Students at Visitacion Valley School in San Francisco meditate, as part of a program in which students meditate for fifteen minutes twice a day. Mad Sal's Dockside Inn in Ale House Alley, and Mission Blue. As a leader, it is easy to hoard power, claim objectivity in decisionmaking, or believe that there is only one way to fix education. The Visitacion Valley Middle school vision is that our students will strength their passion for learning, develop the skills to become empowered community members, and gain the knowledge to be ready for high school with a clear path to college, career, and future success. Many have experienced the trauma of knowing someone who has been involved in a shooting or has personally witnessed gun violence. Besides dealing with problems outside school, Visitacion Valley faces challenges in school, too. $1,862. It has 358 students in grades 6-8 with a student-teacher ratio of 13 to 1. The announcement was made today during a surprise ceremony at Visitacion Valley. Lastly, this work connected well with our concurrent work of racial affinity groups, social-justice teaching, and revising our school mission statement.
Home - Valley Middle School of STEM - District 196 Prompts for reading a White Supremacy Culture article (Courtesy of Joe Truss). 3 Baths. Out of view, city dignitaries and his students waited inside Visitacion Valley Middle School to surprise him with the news: He was the National Middle School Principal of the Year. Racial-equity leaders must be both intentional and responsive when doing this anti-racist work. All rights reserved. One teacher, Mary Chirichella added, Some teachers had the courage to approach others to have tough conversations about microaggressions.
Kevin Thaddeus Brown, Jr. - LinkedIn What Happened When My School Started to Dismantle White Supremacy James Dierke, principal of Visitacion Valley Middle School in San Francisco: Principal James Dierke "When I arrived at this school thirteen years ago it had the highest absentee rate, the highest suspension rate, the highest teacher turnover rate, the lowest academic achievement rate. Even in failure, there is growth, if you are using a critical lens to understand and improve. This post originally appeared in KQED's MindShiftblog. Nearly 90 percent of Visitacion Valleys students are classified by the district as socioeconomically disadvantaged and more than 40 percent are English Language Learners. It's important to note that these responses work to maintain current consciousness and white supremacy. Just meditate!. This took the form of discussions, watching short video clips, annotating readings, and doing some deep personal introspection. This work has gotten co-opted and watered down, leading to many people talking the talk, without much walk. Likewise, test scores have increased in recent years but still remain low compared to other SFUSD middle schools. Nearby Public Schools The nearest high school to Visitacion Valley Middle School is Burton (Phillip And Sala) Academic High School(0.6 miles away) The nearest middle school is Bayshore(0.6 miles away) The school faces declining enrollment, test scores that don't meet federal standards, teacher turnover, truancy and a high neighborhood crime rate. That kind of stuff makes it hard to focus on algebra, he said. Even I, a black educator who has studied ethnic studies and critical race theory, still perpetuate tenets of White Supremacy Culture. View more property details, sales history and Zestimate data on Zillow. Phones will be closed on school holidays, including the fall, winter and spring breaks.
643 Campbell Ave, San Francisco, CA 94134 | MLS# 40925832 | Redfin Its origins are in the 1990s when two Silicon Valley investors Jeff Rice and Laurent Valosek developed a programme to teach meditation in public schools, inspired by the tragic Columbine high school massacre. Although controlled studies are difficult to perform in an academic setting, collectively the results of the Bay Area studies are encouraging. For a more complete list, see the 15 WSC characteristics from Tema Okun and Kenneth Jones in the 2001 Dismantling Racism Workbook. Physical Education teacher Barry ODriscoll agreed that Quiet Time has helped improve the staffs quality of life. $1,041. Now, Students at Visitacion Valley School in South San Francisco observe 15 minutes of quiet time every morning. On a personal note, I was born and raised in the midwest, but I have called San Francisco home for the last 13 years. to meditation? My Only Regret Is That I Didnt Find This Practice Twenty Years Ago , Why I Learned Transcendental Meditation Three Years Ago And Why I Still Practice It , 6 Benefits Of Transcendental Meditation (And How You Can Get Started Today) , James Dierke, Principal of Visitacion Valley Middle School, urban students, drugs, gangs and violence, Newly published research on the effect of the Quiet Time/Transcendental Meditation program, MetLife/NASSP National Middle Level Principal of the Year. White Supremacy Culture.
322 Bayview Cir, San Francisco, CA, 94124 - RocketHomes Beginning with the 1983-84 school year, Valley Middle School organized into interdisciplinary teams referred to as the Village System.
379 Winding, San Francisco, CA 94112 | Estately | MLS# 423725010 This organizational structure reflects a "school-within-a-school" concept and is designed to help students make a successful transition from the self-contained elementary classroom to the fully departmentalized, comprehensive high school setting.