School Closure Lesson Plan (Advisory)

Objective: Students will learn the impacts that closing schools has on students in urban school
districts and use text evidence and statistical data to create a claim for or against the school
board’s decision.
Do Now: Students will complete the two-question student reflection sheet.

 Write a paragraph below to thoroughly explain your feelings and thoughts

 If there was one thing you could share with the school board that could help keep the
school open, what would that be?
Intro to New Material: Students will be provided with the official letter from BCPSS about the
proposed school closure as well as the article released from The Baltimore Sun newspaper
explaining the Board’s decision to close our school. Students will also be provided with
information received from the informational meeting on 11/20/17.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/bs-md-ci-recommended-school-
closures-20171127-story.html
Guided Practice: Students will engage in a PPT presentation that will provide background
information about our school and the reasons why we are proposed to close. Students will also
read two articles that provide statistical data about the impact that closing schools have on inner-
city students and communities. Students will look at data that align with national trends on
reassignments. Students will then work in their table groups to create three claims with text
evidence they can use to present to the school board.
Students groups will return to whole group and share the claims that they and their teams
created.

Article 1:
https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/08/24/closing-failing-schools-doesnt-help-most-
students.html

Article 2:
http://neatoday.org/2015/12/15/closing-schools-privatization/
Independent Practice: Students will have independent time to write about the information they
learned today. They will use the information presented in the PPT, the articles we read together,
the claims they created in their groups, and their thoughts, opinions, and feelings to begin to draft
their letters to the school board. They can use this as an opportunity to “free write” to start to put
their ideas on paper.
Closing: Students will place their drafts/free writing sheets in their portfolios until our next
advisory period. They will be given a quick questionnaire to complete that will ask them to make
an official stance and briefly explain why.