School ESLRs Serve as Valuable Guidelines

LAHS vision posters, posted in classrooms across the campus, advertise the school’s ESLRs. The ESLRs serve the school well as vision statements but could be more emphasized so students can exhibit them.

Powerful businesses around the world use impeccable vision statements and explicit company goals to thrive each year.

Just like any big name company, the school assembles and revises a vision statement and a set of Expected Schoolwide Learning Results (ESLRs) to maximize its benefit on its chief product: the student. Because ESLR posters are displayed in every classroom and introduced at the beginning of the year, students should be more familiarized with them.

Then, they could recognize some of the goals that the faculty strives to incorporate into learning.

Many students are unfamiliar with the ESLRs, even if they may fulfill some of the goals. Freshman Brandon Cochran only briefly remembers the ESLRs from an introduction to his first high school courses at the beginning of the year and does not see much of a point in knowing them specifically.

“I don’t even remember them,” Brandon said. “I don’t really [try to meet the ESLRs] except in math because we basically just have to.”

Sophomore Neha Rathaur did not know specifically what the ESLRs were even though she had been exhibiting them in group projects and presentations.

“The goals are both applicable to school and [the] outside world, you could say,” Neha said. “[Being more familiar with the ESLRs] would help me better both myself and how I approach and react to things.”

Teachers specifically address some of the school’s ESLR goals.

History teacher Michael Messner has contributed to the ESLRs as part of school staff. Faculty continuously improve the “framework” of the guidelines. Teachers at the school are involved in “cross-training” where they exchange ideas about teaching to meet certain ESLRs.

In certain years, teachers have focused more on learning to integrate one specific ESLR in their curricula. For example, over the past year, teachers emphasized the “collaborative learners” ESLR.

According to Messner, effective teaching will usually end up integrating a variety of these “omnipresent” goals.

“[For groupwork,] I try to … create a role for everybody and make it so that there are channels for communication within the group and sometimes back at me,” Messner said.

He also said that history applies to school goals of community participation and citizenship.

“Community participant—to me that’s the basis of citizenship,” Messner said. “Most of what I do is geared with the idea of citizenship because you can’t be a good citizen without knowing the history of the United States.”

The ESLRs serve as a constant reminder that the school is preparing them for a lifelong process of successful learning. Students ought to recognize that teachers are working diligently to prepare students for later education and respect the ESLRs in this regard.

“If you look at [the ESLRs], the world in college and beyond is going to expect you to be self-directed,” Messner said. “In the business world … they expect you to communicate clearly. The time that you learn them is ideal in the high school level.”