As SAISD rolls out its SAISD High 5 initiative, schools across the district are standardizing five key areas of excellence: classroom board configuration, checks for understanding, structured Professional Learning Community (PLC) sessions, campus data trackers, and the use of strategic walkthroughs for consistent feedback.

Earlier this month, the High 5 initiative was introduced to principals, and the Sept. 18 Professional Development Day focused on preparing teachers for its implementation. Regular campus visits by district leadership are helping reinforce its core principles and support schools during this initial phase. In the coming weeks, principals and teachers will have opportunities to highlight how these standards are being brought to life in classrooms across the district.

As classrooms continue to work toward full implementation, campuses are already reaping rewards as they begin the process of this systemic approach.

At Woodlawn Hills Elementary, principal Tabitha Acevedo says the framework is augmenting procedures the International Baccalaureate campus already had in place.

“I think the implementation so far has been rather successful,” Acevedo said. “We definitely have approached the High 5 as a system, an instructional framework versus separate initiatives. It aligns with our focus this year and has given us more solid direction — it streamlined and simplified it. My teachers were able to see, ‘oh, this isn't different than what we were doing.’”

The system starts with board configuration, including the agenda and objective information shared with students on classroom whiteboards or walls. Teachers at all levels are documenting a week’s worth of learning at a time, with agenda segments including Do Now (Warm-up), I Can (Learning Objective), a Language Objective, and an Exit Ticket for each day.

“I have noticed my students becoming more independent during lessons,” said fifth grade teacher Adrianna Benavides. “They are beginning to use the information displayed in the classroom as a resource instead of always relying on me for the next step, which allows them to take more responsibility for their learning.”

Also built into the framework are standardized checks for understanding. Whether done via structured turn-and-talk sessions with classmates or individual whiteboard responses held up for the instructor to see, students are continuously helping their teachers easily hear or see where they are in knowledge acquisition.

At Woodlawn Hills, though practices were in place, the High 5 framework is allowing teachers new ways to use the tools for monitoring success.

“During checks for understanding, especially when using whiteboards, I have observed students looking at one another’s responses, expanding on their own thinking, and engaging in meaningful conversations through accountable talk,” said fourth grade teacher Nadia Sanchez.

Turn and talks are becoming more structured, with teachers offering sentence stems and roles for each discussion, which ties naturally into the characteristics of the IB learner profile.

“I believe the High 5 fits naturally with who we already are as an IB campus,” said fifth grade teacher Taryn Arevalos. “We want our students to think, communicate, reflect, and take more ownership of their learning. High 5 gives us another way to make those things part of what happens in the classroom every day, instead of them being something separate.”

While the classroom configuration and checks for understanding directly impact classroom students during Tier 1 or grade-level instruction, the High 5 offers plenty behind the scenes to support the student experience.

Campuses are moving toward campus-wide data trackers, which not only keep instruction on track, but help students to visualize their own progress.

“We already had decided as a campus last year, we needed to display classroom data, so the students would know where they were as a class,” Acevedo said. “We want the students to have a protocol to where they can speak to their families and walk them through their data and their goals.”

PLC sessions have become more structured, with teachers gathering weekly to analyze what understanding looks like for different TEKS and brainstorming methods to address the needs of students at different levels of mastery.

“The very structured agenda that we were given included the breakdown by minutes, which just provided the little extra clarity that I needed as an instruction leader so that I could roll it out with fidelity on this campus,” Acevedo said. “We had already developed our agenda and were using what was given to us at our leadership summit. However, I feel like this is just a little bit more detailed, and that was the exact detail I needed. So that's been great.”

None of it can work without the guidance and support of a strong administrative team, spending their time in classrooms and giving ideas and strategies to teachers. Walkthroughs are essential in the High 5, and Acevedo and her team have already conducted more than 100 of them since school started.

“That has been a high focus for my instructional leadership team,” Acevedo said. “We need to be in classrooms. Anything else can be done after school. And we've come up with a really structured system to making sure that we're seeing our teachers every week and every teacher is receiving feedback every week.”

Taking the time to implement the High 5 with fidelity does take a little setup time up front, the Woodlawn Hills team admits, but now that synergies are developing, the work is actually getting less time consuming in some ways.

“Taking the time to embrace High 5 has been a positive experience for both me and our campus,” Arevalo said. “I feel that we are better prepared to provide high-quality instruction, and we are seeing students take greater ownership of their learning. The structure and expectations transfer seamlessly across classrooms, creating consistency for students. Most importantly, it has been exciting and rewarding to watch everything come together and see the positive impact on our students.”