EL Education at Silverton Public Schools
The Silverton Public School follows an EL Education academic model and aims to connect students to the world beyond school through meaningful fieldwork, collaboration with experts, and service learning. In addition to learning from text and classroom-based experiences, students use the natural and social environments of their communities as sites for purposeful fieldwork and service connected to their academic work. They collaborate with professional experts and community members with firsthand knowledge of events and issues to ensure accuracy, integrity, and quality in their work.
Expeditions and state curriculum standards are used to provide a framework for study by focusing learning on a specific compelling topic; for example, the water cycle, history of U.S. education, Africa, the 20th Century, or the food cycle. Given the small and isolated nature of the Silverton community, the fieldwork aspect of our EL learning model has become an important part of learning.
Focused trips are planned by teachers that bring the real world into their expedition topic studies, and take place throughout the Four Corners Region and occasionally. In 2023-2024, the middle school completed a year-long expedition on War and the Role of the Military, studying the historical aspects of war as well as the importance and roles that War Memorials serve. Their culminating fieldwork was a road trip to Louisiana and Oklahoma where they witnessed a live reenactment of a Civil War Battlefield, and visited various War Memorials. These types of experiences bring a depth to their studies that cannot be accomplished in any classroom setting.
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Silverton Public School is committed to embracing diversity of all forms as an asset for learning both in the classroom and the school community. Structures are established that ensure high levels of achievement for all students and narrow the opportunity gap for historically underserved groups. We are committed to inclusion and believe in all students’ capacity to succeed.
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The EL Design Principles Form Our Core Philosophy
EL Education’s Five Key Elements of School Life
Three Dimensions of Student Achievement
Our definition of student achievement combines mastery of knowledge and skills, character, and high-quality work. We believe that academic success is built from strong character qualities of collaboration, preservice, responsibility, and compassion, and that character is shaped through engaging and challenging academic work.
Character
Work to become effective learners:
Develop the mindsets and skills for success in college, career, and life (e.g., initiative, responsibility, perseverance, collaboration)
Work to become ethical people: treat others well and stand up for what is right (e.g., empathy, integrity, respect, compassion)
Contribute to a netter world: put their learning to use to improve communities (e.g., citizenship, service)
Mastery of Knowledge & Skills
Demonstrate proficiency and deeper understanding: show mastery in a body of knowledge and skills within each discipline (reading, math, science, etc.)
Apply their learning: transfer knowledge and skills to novel, meaningful tasks
Think critically: analyze evaluate, and synthesize complex ideas and consider multiple perspectives
High Quality Work
Create complex work: demonstrate higher-order thinking, multiple perspectives and transfer of understanding
Demonstrate craftsmanship: create work that is accurate and beautiful in conception and execution
Create authentic work: demonstrate original thinking and voice, connect to real-world issues and formats, and when possible, create work that is meaningful to the community beyond the school
Teachers ensure that students understand the purpose and outcomes of different types of assessments so that students clearly see the connection between learning targets and assessments.
Student achievement is communicated in traditional ways (e.g. report cards) and also in ways that allow students to take the lead in speaking about their own learning. Students can articulate what they have learned and speak to their own strengths, struggles, goals, processes of learning, and preparation for college and career success.
Current School Year
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