School Name
Flushing International High School
Grades
9-12
Year founded
2004
Principal
Lara Evangelista
Location
Flushing, Queens
Enrollment
440
AP Kevin Hesseltine provides support for a students working on projects.
Who we are
Flushing International serves recent immigrant students who are new learners of English, in country less than 4 years, and score at beginner levels in English over 40 countries, 20 languages. The school is in its 4th year of school-wide mastery implementation.
Hallmarks of FIHS' approach to mastery
Vertical alignment of outcomes in different departments, clear connection between outcomes and performance-based assessment system.
Students show off their grade reports.
What makes your school's approach to mastery unique?
Dealing with a very diverse population, coming from all dif grading systems, have to incorporate students’ language development not just content and work habits.
What can other schools learn from you?
We can share our experiences with growing a mastery system from the ground up. Our shift was a grass-roots movement that sarted with one enthusiastic science teacher: Jordan Wolf (who is now a card-carrying member of Mastery Collaborative. Thanks, Jordan!) Then the math team jumped on it quickly.
To get it off the ground, everyone did the lifting. We decided together on a rollout plan. We did a lot of groundwork one year, and then we started using the grading platform JumpRope. Once we decided on Jumprope we gave teachers and teams time. We didn't go live with students and families till everyone was on and felt comfortable.
How do you give feedback to students on progress and mastery?
Through Jumprope and ongoing classroom discussion, project reflections, self and peer reflections
Resources