Phelan Elementary tells Snowline board its SEAL and 'building thinking' approach is lifting student engagement
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Summary
Phelan Elementary principal and teachers told the Snowline Joint Unified board they are combining SEAL language instruction, Building Thinking Classrooms and a new literacy playbook to raise student engagement and accelerate learning, especially for English learners; staff said RTI scheduling has shrunk intervention group sizes.
Phelan Elementary educators told the Snowline Joint Unified School District Board of Trustees that a coordinated package of instructional strategies is producing stronger engagement and early gains in reading and language development. Principal Tony Buckley said the school is moving out of the district's prior red-zone on the dashboard and called 2025's work a "breakthrough year." "We've been working those four initiatives together — Building Thinking Classrooms, SEAL, PLCs and the literacy playbook — and the alignment is making a difference," Buckley said.
Elsa Valenzuela, a second-grade teacher, described SEAL (Sobrato Early Academic Language) as a cross-curricular set of routines that scaffolds academic language for English learners and benefits all students. "SEAL is kind of how to integrate all of these," Valenzuela said. She described language-function walls, sentence frames, chants and vertical alignment as tools that let students access grade-level standards and participate in deeper conversations.
Teachers and trustees also discussed how Building Thinking Classrooms, an inquiry-based framework that emphasizes students' collaborative problem solving, supports acceleration across the spectrum of learners. Staff said Thinking Classrooms makes student thinking visible at whiteboards so teachers can observe reasoning rather than only check answers.
On interventions, Buckley and teachers described a deliberate RTI (Response to Intervention) schedule that creates smaller, targeted groups: "We've created a half-hour block every Thursday where 10 to 12 teachers form an RTI team to close learning gaps," one teacher said. Board members asked whether the approach stretches advanced students; staff said open-ended team problem solving gives higher-performing learners opportunities to go deeper and to explain methods to peers.
Administrators said the district will roll out a districtwide literacy playbook after the winter break that bundles academic language, collaborative conversations, phonemic awareness and thinking maps so schools use consistent strategies across classrooms. The presentation concluded with trustees thanking the students and staff; the board moved on to other business.