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Casco Bay High School
Casco Bay High School, nominated by EL Education, Great Schools Partnership and Next Generation Learning Challenges, is a high school in Portland, Maine that describes itself as a public district school serving learners from a primarily urban area.
Location Portland, Maine
Governance Public district school
Grades High
Students 395
Locale Urban
Assistant Principal Priya Natarajan
Demographics
Percentage of students*
16%
English Learners
42%
Free/Reduced Lunch
15%
Students with Disabilities
African American or Black —
American Indian/Alaska Native —
Asian —
Hawaiian or Pacific Islander —
Hispanic or Latino —
White —
2+ Races —
Why Casco Bay High School was nominated
Casco Bay has tied together project-based learning using an EL model with proficiency-based learning in an environment that is extremely student centered. Students are known as individuals and while there are common learning expectations for all students, teachers work to build upon each student's skills and capacities. Students learn agency along with deep content and skills, Casco Bay is a wonderful example of a school creating its own successful version of a very successful national school and learning template -- the EL Schools model. It is a district school, not a charter, in the Portland public schools and so is subject to all of the same regulations, policies, and contracts that all regular public schools are subject to. And yet the experience its students have at Casco Bay is very different than the "normal" experience most kids have in schools these days. Casco Bay, like all EL schools, is very deeply experiential and project-based -- most learning is connected to some form of authentic purpose. It has done exceptional work in thinking about and designing ways to gauge student growth across a number of dimensions not normally on the radar in public schools. It is doing all of this work with a student body that -- while it has opted into the school -- reflects much of the diversity, complexity, and challenges that many public schools must address right now. We have brought teams of educators to Casco Bay many times over the past five years and these educators routinely leave feeling inspired and with a whole new view of what schools can be. A video of Casco Bay's community grappling, in typically student-led ways, with a racist incident was featured in our recent virtual film festival, This Is Our Chance. See "Walking in Solidarity" on this page of the festival site: https://our-chance.com/week-1/.
Student experience design
Our aim is to cultivate a community of learners where the wonderful in each student is known and nurtured, where learning is catalyzed by student inquiry and academic adventure, and where every graduate is prepared for college, work, and citizenship. We hope each of our students, as EL Education says, ""Gets Smart to Do Good.""
Core Practices
| Core Practices | Length of Use |
|---|---|
|
Assessments For Deeper Learning |
5+ years
|
|
Multiple Opportunities To Demonstrate Mastery |
5+ years
|
|
Project-based Learning |
5+ years
|
|
Social Justice Focus |
5+ years
|
All Practices
Student Advisories
Anti-racist Practices
Community And Business Partnerships
Competency/mastery-based Education
Competency Framework
Early College High School
Extended Learning Opportunities
Grading Policies Focus On Mastery
Hiring For Equity And Inclusion Values
All Courses Designed For Inclusion
Interdisciplinary
Mental Health Services
Multi-age Classrooms
No Tracked Classes
Peer To Peer Support
Performance Based Assessment
Place-based Learning
Reallocation Of Resources For Those Most In Need
Restorative Practices
SEL Curriculum
SEL Integration School-wide
Student-led Conferences
Students Access Their Own Data
Student-led Goal Setting
Students Develop Projects
Universal Design For Learning
key reasons for innovating
Systemic inequities
Models Implemented
Grades K-12
EL Education
Date Updated: 4/1/2024
*Canopy profile data is self-reported or sourced from NCES data, then verified by school leaders.