Ultimately, we are here to help students empower themselves through education. After graduating from Seneca Valley in 1996, I e arned my bachelor's degree from Clarion University of Pennsylvania. During the 2017-18 school year, I s erved as an assistant principal in Ryan Gloyer Middle School (Seneca Valley Middle School at the time) before being named principal of the building for the 2018-19 school year. Property Taxes. This content is provided by our sponsor. By Joe Truss, the principal of Visitacion Valley Middle School in San Francisco and a leadership coach. Just as long as they are quiet. That is not always possible for his schools students, Dierke said. The first pitfall is failing to scaffold for white privilege and white fragility. White Supremacy Culture is the silent killer flowing throughout classrooms and school hallways, like carbon monoxide gas. Visitacion Valley Middle School provides quality education that prepares students for a fulfilling life in a global society. after meditating, I can sit down for a whole class without standing up. Barry ODriscoll, the schools director of physical education for the past 14 years, said, In the first seven Many have experienced the trauma of knowing someone who has been involved in a shooting or has personally witnessed gun violence. In my dream, I imagine that educators can become comfortable talking about race and how it informs the work of educating children. The second pitfall I will offer is avoiding the tendency to externalize the work of dismantling White Supremacy Culture. In 2007, James Dierke, then the principal of the Visitacion Valley Middle School in a troubled neighborhood in San Francisco, was determined to improve both the quality of education and student behavior in his school. Once white fragility is defined and debriefed amongst a team, we can begin to talk about racism, anti-racism, and White Supremacy Culture. expanded to serve middle school children and grow with the kids it was already serving. Teacher Phil Yordy, left, works with freshman Derek Shallow, 15, right, during an after school mentoring program at Oregon High School in Oregon, Ill., in February. "Instead, the parents demonstrated their faith in Dierke's leadership by not withdrawing any children from the school.". and our Visitacion Valley Middle School Spark Program site. Visitacion Valley Middle School is a public school in San Francisco, California that is part of San Francisco Unified School District. Consequently, "all other cognitive functions such as learning, problem solving, or creative thinking stop," (Hammond, 2015) activating our fight, flight, or freeze response. Thus, we are building a collective purpose and a commitment to learning. But Quiet Time is a relatively inexpensive intervention Places. I look forward to our partnership this upcoming school year and collaborating with all of you to support our brilliant students. 1. Sometimes the whole school meets to meditate in assemblies. In fact, based on certain urban zip codes, education researchers can predict students attendance rate, behavior, test scores, and overall academic achievement. One of San Francisco's toughest schools transformed by the power of Visitacion Valley Middle School. Visitacion Valley Middle School Catering to our kids grades 6-8. Discussing WSC gave us more impetus to make changes, because we now knew what was happening if we refused: microaggressions, dehumanization, widening the opportunity gap, and producing disproportionate outcomes. But no one touched on the real problem stress.. We should be planning for the righteous rage of IBPOC (Indigenous Black People of Color), but 82 percent of our teaching force is white, so we will also plan for white fragility. Other schools have taken a few minutes off lunch and tutorials. One of San Francisco's toughest schools transformed by the power of meditation Week 25 newsletter in different languages. "He's like our own American Idol," Garcia said. San Francisco principal Jim Dierke knew something was up when he saw more cars than usual parked in front of his school Friday morning. Visitacion Valley Middle - School Directory Details (CA Dept of Education) Quiet Time Programs in San Francisco Bring Meditation to Urban Schools Principals Page / Principal Bio - Seneca Valley School District Prompts for reading a White Supremacy Culture article (Courtesy of Joe Truss). Maybe having half an hour just to focus on themselves so they get awareness and grounding, might have some impact., And it could help reduce costs later. Phones will be closed on school holidays, including the fall, winter and spring breaks. With after-school programs at both Visitacion Valley Middle School and El Dorado Elementary School, R.O.C.K. I saw this personally at VVMS, as situations got awkward, uncomfortable, and uncertain. Join us at this years SFUSD Virtual Enrollment Fair for Middle and High Schools, October 24-27, 2022! Meditation, which is taught as part of the program, or engage in other quiet activities like silent reading. Students, families, and school staff can email requests to sflink@sfusd.edu,call 415-340-1716(M-F, 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 3 p.m., closed from 12 to 1 p.m. every day), or complete an online request form. At VVMS, we were able to get past defensiveness and excuses and get to the heart of the matter. where I had the privilege to serve as a 7th and 8th grade English Language Arts and English Language Development (ELD) teacher at a public middle school. The success of some schools efforts ODriscoll was sceptical at first about mediating himself, but since giving it a try he can concentrate better and feels less stressed. Ive found that it makes peoplestudents and teachersmore joyful, Dierke said, To have that time to reflect and be still is important.. One other middle school and two high schools in the Bay Area adopted the program. View SFUSD's most recent athletics participation dataor past years' reports. Zestimate Home Value: $930,000. The 1,233 sq. One teacher, Mary Chirichella added, Some teachers had the courage to approach others to have tough conversations about microaggressions. 183 Tucker Ave, San Francisco, CA 94134 | MLS# 422698295 | Redfin Visitacion Valley still struggles with significant challenges. At Visitacion Valley Middle School (VVMS), in the San Francisco Unified school district, our brave staff spent a majority of the 2018-19 school year unpacking White Supremacy Culture. Meditation program mends troubled Visitacion Valley Middle School They worked harder, paid more attention, were easier to teach and the number of fights fell dramatically.. This week's important updates are available! This pushed some folks to identify who they could be safe with, be it for comfort or growth. 1. Ka warbixi maqnaanshaha. This is a 4-bed, 3-bath, 1,597 sqft property. This is such a pattern in urban schools that researchers consider it a predictable outcome. 8:15 a.m. - MWTh 3:00 p.m.; 8:15 a.m. - TuF 1:15 p.m. SFUSD's Student Family School Resource Linksupports students and families innavigating all of the SFUSD resources available to them. The once-boisterous hall became silent and remained so for the next 15 minutes. Coming soon. Specifically, we must look at how it shows up in our own lives, in our personal relationships, in between school staff, and in our histories. . Please read our welcome letter! For a more complete list, see the 15 WSC characteristics from Tema Okun and Kenneth Jones in the 2001 Dismantling Racism Workbook. This is because we are starting with the branches of the tree instead of the roots. We can have equity missions plastered on walls and front that we are about closing the opportunity gap, but we dont go deeper than diversity trainings. Even I, a black educator who has studied ethnic studies and critical race theory, still perpetuate tenets of White Supremacy Culture. White Supremacy Culture. Having served the past two years as Assistant Principal, VVMS is a community that I love and care for. It is time that we detox and make the invisible visible. [2] Under the management of the San Francisco Board of Education, the district serves more than 55,500 students in more than 160 institutions. We publish a weekly newsletter to keep parents informed, hold workshops, and offer many opportunities for parent communication and involvement. Visitacion Valley Middle School in San Francisco Unified school district (Courtesy of Joe Truss). He partnered with the Center for Wellness and Achievement in Education to develop a Quiet Time Program for his school. We must name, define, and plan for white fragility, the defensive response by whites when discussing racism. We have seen attempts at creating buy-in fail for initiatives like ethnic studies, mastery-based grading, or project-based learning. The entire schoolfaculty, staff, and studentsspend the first and last 15 minutes of every day in silence. View property details, photos, and neighborhood info. . For example, pushing students to work independently or write before processing verbally can lead to stress and isolation. Visitacion Valley Middle School prides itself in its active role in the community by welcoming parents, families, and community partners to participate on all levels of creating a culturally responsive 21st Century Middle School. Also, our school is rich in ethnicity and culture. Based on Rocket Mortgage data in comparison to public data records. Use the arrows to change between different dates on the calendar. For example, we looked at how our implicit bias when responding to student behavior leads to racially disproportionate discipline incidents and we organically identified restorative practices as a focus for the following year. Our GPA has trended up significantly since the start of Quiet Time., All of this indicates that we are winning the battle against the predictor power of demographics. One does not have to be a white supremacist to hold these beliefs, because we have all been conditioned through exposure to media, parenting, schooling, and our interactions with power structures. Also, we might hear phrases like, That comment triggered me, it was a microaggression, I think we can do better for our Latinx students, or This is not consistent with our commitment to anti-racism. I imagine we might even see white folks redirecting their white colleagues and carrying their weight of racial conversations. The results of 17 studies conducted to date in the Bay Area, varying in duration from three months to one year, showed benefits across parameters including reduced stress, increased emotional intelligence, reduced suspensions, In order to build this ideal structure, we must start at the base and engineer for equity. Visitacion Valley also got attention from actor Russell Brand, who visited the school just before Christmas on a trip sponsored by the David Lynch Foundation. White Supremacy Culture. 1971 Visitacion Avenue, San Francisco, CA, 94134, We look forward to welcoming everyone back to school starting. 420 Harkness Ave, San Francisco, CA 94134 | Zillow I can be really hyperactive, he said. But to start, we must go inward. Some 20 parents gathered outside of Visitacion Valley Elementary School on Thursday morning to protest what they said was a failure by the school principal to take action on pervasive bullying. Why shouldnt all our students have access SFUSD: Visitacion Valley Middle School Teachers. Visitacion Valley Elementary School parents call for removal of Visitacion Valley Middle in California - U.S. News Education MLS # 423724059 Anecdotally, favorable feedback poured in from both students and staff members. For over 10 years, Visitacion Valley Middle School has been utilizing Transcendental Meditation to help students address stress and improve focus. 4 Beds. The work of exploring White Supremacy Culture gave our staff a new framework to define our North Star, being an anti-racist school. It is time that we detox and make the invisible visible. Visitacion Valley Middle School Now we can get to the work of promoting anti-racism, liberation, and achievement at our school, by looking through the lens of White Supremacy Culture. With respect to race, the foundational issue is White Supremacy Culture, and we must attack the problem head on. Students at Visitacion Valley School in South San Francisco observe 15 minutes of quiet time every morning. One of San Francisco's toughest schools transformed by the power of meditation A pioneering programme has reduced stress and improved grades at Visitacion Valley middle school - with lessons other schools can learn from. Public, 6-8 Serves this home. 7 /10. Students, families, and school staff can email requests to sflink@sfusd.edu,call 415-340-1716(M-F, 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 3 p.m., closed from 12 to 1 p.m. every day), or complete an online request form. These beliefs lead to actions that are dehumanizing to all races of people; however, they have a more drastic effect on indigenous, black, and people of color (IBPOC). Personal Commitment graphic organizer used in professional development (Courtesy of Joe Truss). If I can be vulnerable and honest, white educators can and must do the same. Principal and Interest. In the first year of Quiet Time suspensions at Visitacion Valley which has 500 students aged 11-13 were reduced by 45% (pdf). Monday - Thursday 3:15 p.m.; Program offered free of charge from end of school day until 6 p.m.; Saturday Field Trips and Summer Programs, Rosetta Stone (foreign language instruction), STEAM (science; technology; engineering; arts; mathematics). Having served the past two years as Assistant Principal, VVMS is a community that I love and care for. Students are encouraged to use the time to meditate, but Dierke says students can simply clear their mind, think about schoolwork, or even sleep. years of my tenure, the school was dominated by stress and fighting. But in the last few years, he said, we have had very few fights.. Although controlled studies are difficult to perform in an academic setting, collectively the results of the Bay Area studies are encouraging. His school, along with other urban middle schools in low income neighborhoods, is in the midst of a battlea battle against the predictive power of demographics. Otherwise, white fragility will shut the anti-racist party down; its an equity consciousness buzz kill, for real. 375. I like to think of myself as a recovering perpetrator of WSC. Now our previous work on Culturally Responsive Teaching, use of rubrics, and adding student voice had a theoretical underpinning. This has the power to unite folks at the foundational level, setting the stage for deeper commitments to learning new strategies, practices, and routines.