Mendez High School: Educators Leading the Shift to 21st Century Learning

by Mauro Bautista, Principal

Mendez HS PD Mendez High School opened in the fall of 2009 in honor of Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez. The Mendez family fought against educational discrimination in the state of California. The Mendez v. Westminster court case became the preceding case to the famous Brown v. Board of Education. Access to technology in the early years was very sparse and was limited to a handful of students participating in a pilot program that focused on supplemental software designed to fill in achievement gaps in the ELA and Math departments. We quickly realized through this pilot that the tools were leading our efforts which was very limiting and frustrating for the majority of our staff. The Mendez staff from the beginning had advocated for students to have more access to digital devices for learning but what we were lacking was an instructional focus and outcomes for using the digital tools and resources.

In an effort to continue our own understanding on how to best leverage digital resources the Mendez Instructional Leadership Team (ILT) volunteered to pilot the Instructional Technology Initiative Technology planning course modules (Click here to learn more about the ITI Technology Planning Course). This granted our team the opportunity to reflect on current instructional practices and challenged us to delve into new learnings such as the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) standards and the Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition (SAMR) reflective tool used for gaging levels of instructional task redesign toward redefinition. The most valuable lesson learned was the importance of leading through instruction and leveraging digital resources in order to empower our students through the educational process.

The modules from the technology planning course not only taught us new information, they also provided dedicated work time for our team to dialogue and discuss the topics that were presented. This in turn allowed us to implement our learnings and create a working technology plan to guide our work. Now that we had a vision for our staff and students, our team felt empowered to strategize around efforts to acquire additional digital devices. We applied for the Educational Technology Grant in the fall of 2015. Applying what we had learned at the institute and tapping into our newly formed tech plan, we successfully obtained a grant to help us get more technology so that we could continue to further the efforts of our instructional plan.

In the fall of 2015, our Partnership for Los Angeles Schools (PLAS) leadership facilitated period-by-period professional development to encourage the implementation of technology into our curricular practices. Through our concerted efforts, we were able to make use of our Shared-Use carts, the Educational Technology Grant, and additional budgets to purchase chromebook carts in order to move closer to a 1:1 ratio where every student has access to a digital device. In order to ensure that our staff is successful in this effort to implement a rigorous 21st century curriculum, we hired an out-of-the-classroom instructional coach who assists staff throughout the lesson planning and redesign process. We have also made sure to keep a strong connection with our ITD tech support. It was brought to our attention that all schools sites get a visit ITD tech support once every two weeks. Our teachers generate a list of needs and concerns regarding technology and our ITD tech support visits and assist the teachers with the various needs.

In an effort to continue our professional growth, we applied to become a Practitioner School with the Instructional Technology Initiative. Having been accepted, we are now eagerly looking forward to learning how to leverage the power of a learning management system (LMS) to promote learner agency, personalized learning experiences and prepare college and career ready graduates. We look forward to having an Instructional Technology Facilitator (ITF) as a thought partner in our ILT and helping our teachers in the planning and reflecting process throughout the year as we strive to become an exemplar school for the District and continue to share so that all can learn from our journey and experience!
Mauro Bautista, Principal