PROVIDENCE’S EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM

An educational plan is developed for all students entering Providence School within three days of enrollment. The purpose of the Educational Plan is to insure that we are meeting the educational needs of each student. 

The school day at Providence is divided into three ninety minute blocks.  Unless the student’s Educational Plan requires a unique program the following statements characterize the typical educational program at Providence School:

A unique standards based curriculum specially created for community and court school students, called Character Based Literacy (CBL) was fully implemented in December of 2005.  The staff received training, implemented modified school schedules, received Board approval for the novels, and changed daily instructional delivery models.  All teachers in the Providence School program now teach ninety minutes of CBL to each of their language-arts classes everyday.  CBL is taught at grade level using multiple strategies to engage and assist struggling readers.  CBL is aligned with CAHSEE and CST released items.

At the same time CBL was implemented the staff also introduced a math curriculum that provides instructional strategies that are specifically designed to meet the needs of court school students.  The program, Numeracy Project, was developed by California County Offices of Education (Ventura included).  The curriculum is aligned with CAHSEE standards blueprint and provides lessons on three levels, developmental, core and enrichment.  The Providence staff enthusiastically implemented the curriculum and is collecting data to analyze its effectiveness.

Students at Providence school also receive standards based instruction Science, Social Science and Physical Education.  An afternoon and Saturday Fine-Arts program will be available to students by February 2008. 

Success Maker, a computer assisted instructional program was selected as the intervention program for students not performing at grade level.  All students who have not passed the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) are required to use the Success Maker program.  Our goal is that every student who needs remediation will receive 40 minutes at least three times per week(15 minutes in reading and math, and 10 minutes in spelling) using Success Maker.  Success Maker tracks student growth and the data is available to the student, teacher, parents, and administration.

Students closer to graduating who are in need of specific courses or students who are deficient in credits are enrolled in Cyber High.  Cyber High is an accredited, standards-based program which was developed from the highly successful Pass Program designed for migrant education students.  Our Cyber High credit recovery program is also available on Saturdays for motivated students.

In addition to our Educational Program, Providence School works with the Regional Occupational Program (ROP) to bring diversified occupational training and a computer literacy course to our students.