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You can register and get more info at the MBLC Site: bit.ly/MBLCsite or check out our Google Calendar of Events: bit.ly/MBLC_Eventcalendar. You can also view the Year at a Glance.
Please note that the only December event is a Youth Advisory meeting for students from MBLC schools. See below for more details. Happy Holidays!
For events open to Friends of MBLC, look for this symbol: 💟
BIPOC Affinity Group
November 19, 2024 & January 7, 2025
3:30 p.m - 5:00 p.m PST
BIPOC affinity groups can provide participants support to address the specific challenges that educators of color face and can also contribute to retaining educators of color across MBLC schools. One of the outcomes of this group is to increase the involvement of staff of color in the CRS MBL work taking place at MBLC schools and in the MBLC overall. Space is still available! Please reach out to your GSP coach to register.
Impact Fellows Meeting
November 21, 2024 & January 30, 2025
3:30 p.m - 5:00 p.m PST
The MBLC fellows are a group of educators from across the Mastery-Based Learning Collaborative who work to achieve educational equity in schools through leading and facilitating learning in their own schools and districts, and through the facilitation of sharing and learning among MBLC schools.
MBLC Youth Advisory Council
December 10, 2024
11:15- 12:15 pm PST
Youth Advisor meetings will convene up to 24 students who attend MBLC schools to provide opportunities for them to learn more about the MBL/CRSE efforts happening at their schools and to share their experiences. Students will be able to make connections not only with fellow students in their own schools, but also across the state.
There is still space available on this council, so please complete a registration form for any interested students at your schools! NOTE: THIS COUNCIL IS ONLY OPEN TO STUDENTS AT CURRENT MBLC SCHOOLS.
Register Here
MBLC Monthly Meeting 💟
January 14, 2025
3:30 p.m - 5:00 p.m PST
For all Cohort 1 & 2 MBLC school teams and interested staff. Friends of the MBLC, you are welcome to join the presentation (first 40 minutes of the meeting). Break-out rooms are for MBLC member schools only, so please jump off when we transition to the break-out room portion of the meeting.
The MBLC Meetings are a series of online events that meet throughout the year. In these meetings we will share webinar presentations on essential components of Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Mastery-Based Learning. Each webinar will be followed by breakout room sessions during which MBLC educators will be able to connect with others from across the collaborative to discuss the ideas shared in the webinar, and to share dilemmas, questions, successes and resources.
In January, we will focus on setting up and sustaining effective systems to do whole school change work. We strongly encourage teams to attend together.
Register your team today!
Stay tuned for information about the following exciting events:
- Winter intervisitation (to be held possibly in January 2025)
- Coach visits to Cohort 1 schools (January and February 2025)
- Winter Gathering, February 25, 2025
- New York City Trip to Competency Collaborative Schools, March 2025
MBLC Event archive: Our growing event archive on the MBLC Community Site is a treasure trove of recordings and resources from past events.
Read this, watch that!
Here are some MBLC highlights from our coaches. Enjoy and let us know what's on your wish list for the next newsletter.
Fall Gathering Photos
We had a fantastic Fall Gathering at Green River College in Auburn on October 22! Please check out some of the photos from the event. Thank you to all who attended and participated!
CRSE Highlights
In October, 2024, the MBLC coaches all traveled to Cohort 2 schools, where we saw so much great work. We were especially interested to see how schools are working to implement the three pillars of culturally responsive-sustaining education:
 1. Student Learning
Literacy, numeracy, tech, social, political skills. Focus on love of learning and on what’s important to the learner.
2. Cultural Competence
Understanding our own and others’ racial, cultural, and social identities; working effectively with people who we experience as unlike ourselves.
3. Critical Consciousness
"If school is about preparing students for active citizenship, what better citizenship tool than the ability to critically analyze the society?"
Here are a few highlights that we observed in our visits:
- At Black Hills High School, educators are working to ensure that students build a sense of belonging and increase their cultural competence by providing a variety of clubs designed to give every student a space that is welcoming, affirming, and inspiring. The halls of the high school are filled with student-designed posters and displays inviting peers to try out these clubs, with the result that every hallway in the school is a celebration of the student community. The list of clubs available to students includes: The BIPOC club; The Feminist Club; Girls Outreach (a support group); The Gay/Straight Alliance; The Pizza Klatch; and the Unified Club (inclusion for students in our Life Skills special education program). Here is the club display case created by the GSA at Black Hills High School:
- At Tumwater High School, math teacher Erin Vancil was teaching a lesson on banking in a financial literacy class. The first part of the lesson gave students chances to learn how a checking account works, including reading a bank statement, identifying charges, and understanding fees. The second part of the lesson encouraged students to examine the idea of banking through a more critical lens, thinking about the impact on people’s lives when they cannot or do not have a checking account, and the reasons why this might be the case. The class then watched part of the documentary “Spent”, which interviewed typical Americans that found themselves “unbanked” due to sudden changes in their family situation (e.g. medical debt or having to care for a sick parent with cancer.) This lesson pushed students beyond the boundaries of a simple lesson on checking accounts, giving them chances to consider larger social issues connected with bank accounts. Erin has generously shared her slides here.
- At Minter Creek Elementary School, educators are working on cultural competence by engaging 5th graders in focus groups about belonging, giving them chances to share with school leaders where and when they feel a sense of belonging at school, where they feel it less, and what they think the school could do to help students feel welcomed. After reflecting on how the focus groups went, the school has decided that at their next focus group, they will design multiple ways for students to give feedback, so that if a student does not feel comfortable speaking in the group, they will also have the option of completing an anonymous survey at the end of the focus group.
- At Heights Open Doors Campus, the teachers have developed a project planner that includes several opportunities for reflection. Along with a pre-assessment and post assessment, and chances for students to reflect on their progress and learning, the reflection builds cultural competence by also giving them a chance to consider how the project relates to their identity.
Are you doing exciting CRSE work in your school or classroom? Let us know so we can celebrate it!
Featured MBLC School Profiles
Innovation Heights Academy
 Edgemont Junior High School
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