Your Classroom Academy (YCA) is designed to enhance and support the implementation of key school initiatives, providing educators with practical strategies and resources while empowering administrators to drive sustainable growth. Below is a detailed crosswalk demonstrating how YCA strengthens other school programs.

Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS)

Tier 1: YCA equips teachers with strategies for rigorous, engaging, and differentiated instruction to meet diverse student needs in the general education setting. Examples include inquiry-based strategies to increase critical thinking in students, scaffolding techniques, and tools to build relationships in the classroom.

Tier 2 and Tier 3: Teachers gain tools for targeted small-group interventions and individualized supports, with a focus on progress monitoring.

Administrator Role: Walkthrough tools and reflection data help leaders assess instructional effectiveness and identify areas for support.

Advancement via Individual Determination (AVID)

Schoolwide Approach: As a complement to any existing AVID program, YCA provides schoolwide access to research-based strategies, ensuring every teacher, and therefore every student, experiences necessary skill building. By providing the roadmap to implement these best practices, every educator has the chance to expose their students to the skills and strategies being experienced by those in the AVID Elective classroom.

Administrator Role: YCA resources ensure alignment with AVID’s instructional focus, providing ongoing support for site teams looking for ways to better support a schoolwide implementation.

Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS)

Classroom Management: YCA emphasizes instructional strategies that keep students engaged, thus minimizing off-task behavior. These proactive strategies support teachers in setting high classroom expectations, and fostering positive relationships that keep students focused on learning.

Administrator Role: Data dashboards provide insights into classroom management trends and coaching needs.

Professional Learning Communities (PLCs)

Collaboration: YCA provides an intentional, structured approach that PLCs can utilize to align classroom strategies, reflections and implementations. The weekly reflection surveys encourage teachers to refine their practices and share insights during their PLC meetings.

Focus on Data: The implementation matrix for each strategy, plus the reflection surveys provide progress-monitoring tools that give PLCs actionable data to analyze and improve instruction.

Administrator Role: The weekly strategies and resources can be added to to PLC agendas, ensuring alignment with school and district goals.

Teacher Induction Programs

Structured Support: YCA provides first- and second-year teachers with foundational instructional strategies to build confidence and competence. Teachers receive ongoing support, reflection opportunities, and resources to help them succeed in their early years, reducing the risk of teacher turnover.

Administrator Role: Principals can use YCA’s walkthrough tools to monitor new teachers’ growth and target additional coaching as needed.

Response to Intervention (RTI)

Data-Driven Instruction: YCA helps teachers select the best strategy to use as an intervention with students after identifying areas of need. The weekly strategies provide ideas for scaffolding and differentiation to keep students engaged, or provide targeted support.

Administrator Role: YCA’s reflection and data dashboards provide insights into intervention effectiveness and areas for improvement.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

Engaging All Learners: YCA focuses on strategies that allow for multiple means of engagement, representation, and expression in lessons. We know that the best lessons provide opportunities for students to write, read, listen, and speak about content. Teachers learn to incorporate tools like graphic organizers, anchor charts, and visual supports that promote critical thinking.

Administrator Role: Walkthrough tools help administrators recognize and support the implementation of strategies that support all learners.

21st Century Learning Skills

Critical Thinking & Creativity: YCA emphasizes designing lessons that develop collaboration, communication, creativity and critical thinking skills. Optional technology extensions are provided for certain lessons, but the focus is always on the intent of the lesson and building student’s skills.

Administrator Role: Leaders can leverage YCA to ensure classrooms are fostering innovation and preparing students for a global workforce.

Instructional Coaching

Teacher Development: YCA provides foundational strategies for teachers, reducing the time instructional coaches spend reteaching the basics and allowing them to focus on refinement and advanced practices.

Feedback Tools: Implementation matrixes and reflection surveys offer targeted insights to guide coaching conversations. Data dashboards provide additional layers of feedback for site administrators and instructional coaches. Additional tools are available for coaches in the Schoolwide Plus+ Plan.

Administrator Role: Administrators can use walkthrough tools, data, and teacher reflections to align coaching goals with campus priorities.

College and Career Readiness

Future-Ready Skills: YCA focuses on building skills in students that translate directly into college and career readiness, specifically collaboration, critical thinking and content expertise. These skills develop student’s independence and creates young adults ready for their future - no matter what it holds.

Pathway Alignment: Teachers in both college-prep and CTE pathways can use inquiry-based lessons to connect content to critical thinking skills and real-world application.

Administrator Role: Walkthrough tools help ensure college and career readiness skills are being explicitly taught and reinforced.

Equity-Focused Initiatives

Addressing Opportunity Gaps: YCA focuses on strategies that close achievement gaps by addressing educator mindsets that limit opportunities for students, and believing in accelerated learning instead of focusing on remediation. Our research-based strategies ensure every student has access to content.

Administrator Role: Reflection tools help identify areas where additional professional learning may be needed to meet equity goals.

Literacy Across Content Areas

Disciplinary Literacy: YCA focuses on strategies for integrating literacy into every classroom on campus by including opportunities for reading, writing, speaking and listening in various ways. Scaffolds are provided to ensure every student has access to the content and the ability to speak to it. Teachers receive tools for teaching close reading, academic conversations, and evidence-based writing.

Administrator Role: Leaders can track the integration of literacy strategies schoolwide through walkthrough data and teacher reflections.