Hinkley High School

Hinkley High School has been in the process of transforming from a large comprehensive high school of about 1700 students to 4 smaller schools of about 425 students each. We chose this path in response to a large body of research that shows that grouping smaller groups of students with a smaller number of adults in a school has positive impacts on student achievement as well as social benefits. 

Our building remodel was designed to accommodate this model by dividing the building into 4 pods. The positive impact of such schools has been well documented and includes benefits such as increased attendance and graduation rates, decreased drop-out rates, decreases in violence and other negative student behaviors, increased course completion, increased extracurricular participation, increased feelings among students of a sense of belonging and connectedness at school, increased equity across race/ethnicity/class lines, increased satisfaction among parents, community and teachers, and increases in college acceptance, entrance and grades. 

The first step we took was to institute 9th grade acadamies for all freshmen. This consists of a group of 100 - 120 freshmen who have the same academic teachers. These teachers have common planning time and meet at least once a week to collaborate on how to best meet the needs of their students. Our next step, which was instituted last year, was to include 10th graders in academies as well. We are presently in the process of determining how to incorporate the small learning community model into the 11th and 12th grade classrooms. Some ideas put forth at this time include groupings based on common themes or learning styles, career academies, or small elective pods for in-depth exploration. 

The Hinkley Transformation Committee (HTC) would welcome student, parent and community input about our transformation efforts so far and ideas about how to refine our project for the future.