Services We can Provide
IMPRESS (Innovative, Mastery-based, Project-oriented, Rigorous, Equitable, School Solution
After spending significant time in schools serving students from economically disadvantaged homes, it became clear to us that classrooms and teachers need to reimagine academic and social emotional learning. In fact, many of the students “act out” because they don’t understand the academic content. Students today continue to move from one discipline to the next, forcing the information to be disconnected from real life situations. Students are taught as if a “one size fits all” approach is effective when empirical evidence says individualized, differentiated, small group instruction is most effective. In reality, differentiated instruction (DI) with support for social emotional learning (SEL) should be occurring more frequently than the 30 minutes of Tier or Intervention time some children get. This needs-assessment birthed our school wide learning solution: IMPRESS (Innovative, Mastery-based, Project-oriented, Rigorous, Equitable, School Solution).
Grounded in research, IMPRESS aims to support the academic and nonacademic needs of K-8 students through a unified solution that includes an empirically-supported core instructional academic curriculum in tandem with embedded, intentional supports for SEL. The academic component of IMPRESS presents an equitable and rigorous differentiated curriculum, as well as daily interdisciplinary themed lessons that allow students to, within their zone of proximal development, apply literacy and math skills learned in daily lessons within science, social studies and the arts-related projects. The SEL components provide for daily SEL lessons in the classroom along with school-based mentoring which provides an additional layer of support for learners. IMPRESS seeks to accelerate learning for all students and support educators in their classrooms. Working as a unified, innovative model, IMPRESS offers a program that presents an equitable, whole school learning solution that provides for instruction targeting accelerated learning outcomes and support for social-emotional learning to improve teaching and learning within our partnership schools.
Other Services
Afterschool health, wellness, fitness programming
Professional development for teachers
Mentoring
Tutoring services
Restorative Justice practices