Poudre High School, Ft. Collins, CO
“One of my mother’s words of wisdom always was that our riches are in our relationships. This work certainly is about developing relatinships. High school is a huge place and it’s a difficult place. It’s the best of times and the worst of times for a kid. It’s so important that every single child that comes through the doors at Poudre High School feels good about being here. They deserve to feel respected, they deserve to be safe, they deserve to be given a good education. And they deserve to be well-prepared to enter the real world after Poudre High School…whatever it is that they might encounter. I feel that PassageWorks is truly a key piece on how to get there.” -Sandra Lundt, PHS Principal
With the support of the Colorado Partnership for Educational Renewal (CoPER), in 2004 the PassageWorks Institute (PWI) and Poudre High School (PHS) in Fort Collins, Colorado forged a unique partnership focused on integrating the PassageWorks transitions model into the school’s new weekly Advisory program. Serving 600 high school students in 2005-2006 and 1800 students in 2006-2007 and 2007-2008, this project helps young people develop a sense of belonging, meaning, and respect for others, thus creating an enhanced context for learning, resilience, and school safety. Over the course of the project, teachers have used our Journey Into High School, Senior Passages, Newcomer Transitions and Service Learning curriculum. Over 100 faculty and administrators participated in professional development workshops as well as ongoing individual and group mentoring. Several PHS faculty were supported by PWI consultants to become peer mentors to sustain the program on an ongoing basis. The independent evaluators for the project noted that teachers:
- Identified having more strategies to help students form relationships and handle issues constructively;
- Felt more comfortable with adapting lesson plans to take advantage of “teachable moments”; and
- Observed that their students were more comfortable expressing compassion and practicing tolerance in their classrooms.
Because of structural changes, for the 2008-2009 school year Poudre High School moved from a stand-alone advisory model to an integrated advisory model, in which teachers interact and build relationships with students during core content classes as well as advisory time.
"It has been wonderful to watch the collegiality of the 10th grade teacher cohort grow. After going through the trainings, they see one another in a totally different light and have shared deep parts of themselves." -Sandra Lundt, PHS Principal