Redwood Shores principal highlights multilingual student growth, targeted interventions

Redwood Shores Elementary School's principal presented a year-end school spotlight to the Belmont-Redwood Shores School District Board of Trustees, calling attention to student growth, the school's multilingual population and targeted interventions that staff say have produced measurable gains for some students.

The principal said the school is home to at least 28 languages and that 38 percent of students are multilingual, with 14 percent currently classified as English learners. "All our RSES students will increase academic achievement in communication, math reasoning and English language arts listening as measured by classroom and state assessments," the principal said, describing an academic goal that emphasizes structured academic discourse.

Why it matters: Trustees asked about academic supports and social-emotional services at Redwood Shores during the board meeting. The principal described how the school uses data-driven, tiered interventions, a reading specialist and counselor check-ins to support students, and said the school plans to track and increase the percentage of students actively speaking in class as a measure of instructional equity.

Most important facts: The principal said the school curated a diverse classroom library and that staff used site council and LCFF-funded allocations to provide teacher budgets for intervention and enrichment. The principal described a case in which a third grader new to the district made roughly one year's reading growth in seven months after targeted supports, including a reading specialist, teacher-led spelling groups, and after-school homework clubs. "Fast forward to now, we can't really get her to stop talking," the principal said of that student, noting the removal of an iPad translator as the student's English proficiency improved.

The principal also presented detailed in-school support numbers: a reading specialist currently working with about 40 students; 31 students participating in tiered social-emotional individual check-ins; and 21 students in counseling groups. She said 48 students were the subject of site-level student consultation days and that 30 of those received follow-up student success team meetings; 24 of the 30 met grade-level standards after interventions and seven were referred for formal assessment for IEP or 504 plans.

On multilingual learners and academic discourse, the principal said outcomes vary, and that the school is piloting an observational walk-through tool to measure how many students have opportunities to speak during lessons. "If it is 98 percent of students and the one student who's not talking is a student with disabilities, I don't call that equitable," she said, explaining how the school intends to use observational data to target supports and protocols such as turn-and-talk and planned discussion protocols.

Trustee questions focused on details of the "problem-of-the-month" math activity, the distinction between tier 1 and tier 2 social-emotional check-ins, and staffing stressors. The principal said the school's counselor uses screening tools and teacher referrals to categorize students into no risk, some risk, or high risk and then sets a check-in cadence (monthly, biweekly, weekly) tied to that risk level. She and trustees also discussed ongoing staffing pressures for specialists and paraprofessionals.

Ending: The principal closed by reiterating a schoolwide aim to increase student voice and equitable participation: teachers will deliberately plan more structured opportunities for academic talk, and the principal said that monitoring will be part of next year's school goal-setting and professional learning.