How can Hawai‘i-Based

How can SchoolRise

SchoolRise Consultants
help our school?
help our school? Kathryn Au
Chief Executive Officer SchoolRise
Tara Takatsuka
Executive Director, SchoolRise Hawai‘i
Improving Student Achievement
SchoolRise helps your school build a schoolwide Sharyn Hirata
through the Standards-Based
professional learning community in which Special Projects Coordinator Change Process
teachers work together to construct a staircase Kitty Aihara
or coherent curriculum. Achievement rises as
teachers set high expectations and students Claire Asam
receive coordinated instruction across the Jackie Carroll
grades. Ruth Ann Cullen

Services include: Randee Golden-Scalise

• Needs assessment Alice Kawakami
o Infrastructure Gail Lee
o Classroom practices Judy Scheu
o Student outcomes Elsie Tanaka
• Professional development Annette Yamaki
o Standards-based education
o Formative assessment to
inform instruction
o Instructional strategies
 Comprehension
 Writing
 QAR
• Leadership development
• Academic & financial planning
520 Lunalilo Home Road, #230
• Title I & Special Education Honolulu, HI 96825
• Preparation of accountability reports (808) 429-9464
email tara.takatsuka@schoolriseusa.com
www.SchoolRiseUSA.com
What Hawai ‘i educators
say about the SchoolRise
approach
I can see improvement in the
teachers’ attitudes toward standards
and raising achievement. I’m proud
of what the teachers have already
been able to accomplish. We’re on
the same page now.
- Principal
We learned without a doubt that our
writing curriculum needed
improvement! Using the Standards-
Based Change Process has led us to
begin to develop a common,
coherent, and challenging curriculum
based on the Hawai‘i Content and
Performance Standards. Continuing
to use the process will enhance the
quality of teaching and ultimately,
positively impact student
achievement.
- Principal
Because we’ve been in the process
for five years now, the students are
coming up with more skills as
writers. The Standards-Based
Change Process has really given us
an easy To Do List to follow. We
have something we can follow that
we know works.
- Literacy Resource Teacher
The
TTheSchoolRise
The SChoeStory
SchoolRise Story
The SchoolRise story begins in 1978 when Kathy
Au and Taffy Raphael met as graduate students at
the fabled Center for the Study of Reading at the
University of Illinois. They remained close
colleagues although Kathy returned home to work
in Hawai‘i, while Taffy became a university
professor in Utah and Michigan. By 2000, both had
become award-winning literacy researchers and
members of the Reading Hall of Fame.
In 1997, while a professor at the University of
Hawai‘i, Kathy began consulting with Kipapa
Elementary School. The Standards-Based Change
(SBC) Process, the approach at the heart of
SchoolRise, grew from Kathy’s work there. In
1999 Holomua Elementary School started work
with the SBC Process. With the success of these
The mission of SchoolRise is to help schools
schools, the Process spread to other schools
implement a system for improving student
throughout Hawai‘i. Research showed that Title I
achievement through standards. SchoolRise has
schools using the SBC Process had higher grade 5
the goal of making the SBC Process available to all
reading scores than other Title I schools.
interested schools.
In 2002, Taffy returned home to become a
In 2006 SchoolRise Hawai‘i began operations as
professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago. As
the first division of SchoolRise, LLC under the
the newly appointed head of Partnership READ,
leadership of Executive Director Sharyn Hirata.
she faced the challenge of improving literacy
SchoolRise became an approved, array of services
achievement in 10 Chicago public schools.
provider for the Hawai‘i State Department of
Knowing of success of the SBC Process in Hawai‘i,
Education that same year.
she brought the approach to Chicago. By 2005, 8
of 11 Chicago schools in the SBC Process showed From its base in public elementary schools,
improved reading test scores. SchoolRise Hawai‘i has expanded its services to
public middle and high schools, as well as charter
Networking between Hawai‘i and Chicago schools
and independent schools.
took place informally at first. In 2005, to formalize
the connections across schools in the two In 2008 Tara Takatsuka became Executive
locations, Kathy and Taffy established SchoolRise. Director of SchoolRise Hawai‘i.