School Days:
Gilroy Unified School District
iSchool and SLED Make an Impact
By Melanie Corona, Public Information Officer, Gilroy Unified School District
70
GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
I
n March 2019, a group of students and staff members
from Gilroy and Christopher High Schools and
Brownell and Solorsano Middle Schools had a chance to
participate in the innovative Students Leading Education
(SLED) program.
iSchool Initiative is a program developed by Travis Allen
that offers solutions to what he thought was a problem in
public education. His YouTube video—which contends that
students learn best when they identify an opportunity with an
answer that can’t be “googled”—has translated to schools and
school districts nationwide.
Gilroy Unified School District Superintendent Deborah
Flores first saw Allen give a keynote address at a leadership
conference and decided to introduce him to the District’s
staff and students. She brought him in as a keynote speaker
at the August 2018 GUSD Management Retreat and invited
principals, one staff member, and
one parent at all 15 school sites
as well as a handful of students
from each of the middle and high
schools in the District.
The Superintendent’s Cabinet
invited iSchool back to GUSD
in March 2019 with the Escape
the Bus program. Essentially it’s
an “escape room” on wheels.
Groups of staff members and stu-
dents at the seven secondary sites
were invited to enter the escape
room and complete challenges
using technology in order to
escape in under 30 minutes. The
end result was impactful team-
building and problem-solving opportunities that were some-
times successful and sometimes not.
Following the Escape the Bus experience, staff and students
were invited to participate in the SLED program. The iSchool
team taught participants how to present to groups, to convince
them of their conviction in a problem or scenario, and best
practices for other presentation tools and methods. They
talked at length about different challenges at school sites and
ways these opportunities could be addressed. The program
culminated with presentations by student teams and staff teams
and the commitment to address the problems for the next year.
Opportunities included revamping the garden at Brownell
Middle School to provide food resources to the homeless,
filming a homework video library to provide assistance to
students who may be struggling in class, and developing a video
announcement system to combat aging loudspeakers that make
daily announcements hard to hear. Students also proposed
ways to address the constant pressure to perform academically
and the need to learn how to cope with that stress, as well as
providing SAT prep courses to all high school students onsite
and free of charge.
A total of 75 students and ten staff members completed
the SLED program and are now part of SLED clubs on their
campuses. Updates will be provided throughout their year-long
process and the consensus is that the learning that will take
place throughout the process will carry them forward as learners
and world citizens.
In the words of one SLED participant, “I’d recommend this
program because it taught me to accept the challenge of think-
ing for myself and not look to someone else for the answer.”
Learn more online at ischoolinitiative.com/sled.
june/july 2019
gmhtoday.com