Meeting Students and Educators Where They’re At
El Dorado Union High School District serves the western half of El Dorado County in Northern California, comprising four comprehensive public high schools, one charter high school, and one continuation school. They began partnering with Wayfinder to address several needs in the district: resources to implement multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS), a developmentally appropriate human skills development curriculum for teens, and a comprehensive tool they can grow into as they finalize and begin implementing their Portrait of a Graduate.
The district serves approximately 6500 students from economically diverse backgrounds across grades 9-12. Some students come to school from affluent suburban backgrounds. Others arrive from rural locations, some without cellphone service. School commute times vary widely, with some students traveling an hour and a half each way every day. However, despite their differences in daily experiences, El Dorado Union students have expressed a shared desire for schools to teach them “real things” they need right now, including skills for self-regulation, managing stress and anxiety, and navigating social media.
When Senior Director of Student Services and Innovation Chuck Palmer spoke with the Wayfinder team, he shared that Wayfinder’s collaboration with El Dorado Union is off to a great start. It’s helping students build the skills they’ve been seeking and empowering educators to support whole-student learning.
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As a district administrator who visits school sites with school board members and interviews students across demographics, Chuck admitted that he was skeptical at the start of the partnership. El Dorado Union had tried to address some of its needs with other programs before, but teachers and counselors found them overly burdensome and difficult to integrate into their daily practices. Fortunately, this has not been the case with Wayfinder.
Using Wayfinder to Turn District Goals into Daily Practice
Wayfinder implementation has not been “just another thing” piled onto educators’ plates in El Dorado Union High School District. Per Chuck, who oversees counselors districtwide, Wayfinder has provided effective, proactive student support, not just reactive interventions after issues arise. It also integrates well with the district’s existing academic practices and college and career readiness initiatives.
Notably, and in sharp contrast to past programming, Wayfinder has been easy to use for both counselors and teachers. Educators have appreciated having access to flexible, low-lift, and academically relevant content that they can bring directly into classrooms, counseling sessions, and intervention planning.
Although still in the early years of their implementation journey, El Dorado Union has done an incredible job of weaving Wayfinder into the fabric of their districtwide practices:
- MTSS: Wayfinder’s lessons and activities are integrated into all tiers of intervention and support.
- Tier 1 (Universal Support): Teachers deliver Wayfinder lessons and activities during advisory periods and Flex Time—a designated period during which students are either assigned to a class or can choose where to go.
- Tier 2 (Small Group Intervention): Counselors facilitate Wayfinder content with small groups during Flex Time.
- Tier 3 (Individual Intervention): Wayfinder is used to support restorative justice, disciplinary action, and addressing specific, pressing needs like substance misuse.
- Building a districtwide Portrait of a Graduate: Having identified the skills and dispositions necessary for its graduates to demonstrate, the district is now working to build a functional framework, taking inspiration from Wayfinder’s Core Skills and the mindsets and behaviors they foster.
- Data-driven instruction and intervention: Using the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) to identify students’ needs, El Dorado Union educators are pulling from Wayfinder to support student health and holistic well-being.
“Teachers find it easy to navigate a tremendously user-friendly product.” —Chuck Palmer
Deepening Integration, Boosting Districtwide Impact
Enjoying their early successes, El Dorado Union is already planning a Wayfinder expansion. As teachers and counselors deepen their facilitation capabilities, district initiatives and professional development will soon bolster efforts to make Wayfinder an even more deeply integrated part of students’ daily experience. Here’s what they’re doing:
- Pushing Portrait of a Graduate development forward: The district is wrapping up the superintendent-led portion of their Portrait of a Graduate planning work. Having identified the skills they want to see in their Portrait, district leaders are determining best practices for measuring those skills and aligning them with Wayfinder content and assessments. They plan to invest in the Portrait of a Graduate tool so that they can track skill growth and measure the success of their Portrait implementation within the Wayfinder platform.
“Across the county, we know the skills we want our graduates to demonstrate. We talk about it among education leaders, and we know these are the skills this community is asking for. Going forward, we need to be aligned. If we’re all speaking the same language and using the same platform, it’s more beneficial for the kids, and we see it when they reach the high school level. We’d love to see this go county-wide.” —Chuck Palmer
- Learning from feedback and identifying Wayfinder champions: District leaders like Chuck are tracking one of the high schools that piloted Wayfinder and speaking with teachers who proved invested and capable. They’re interviewing both the educators and students at this school to understand what success with Wayfinder looks like and how they can empower the rest of their educators to match the standards set by teachers who excelled in the pilot.
- Planning for professional learning: As Wayfinder continues to expand, the district will offer opportunities for educators to build investment and capacity for whole-student learning.
- Encouraging teacher autonomy: After the initial rollout, the district is helping teachers to find the Wayfinder content that best matches their content areas and the needs they see arising in their classrooms.
Helping Others Find Their Way
As El Dorado Union High School District moves forward with both its Wayfinder implementation, Chuck remains optimistic. He’s hoping to further integrate Wayfinder into academic classes, especially once the district’s Portrait of a Graduate is completed, aligned with, and supported by Wayfinder’s research-backed content and assessments. When asked for any final feedback on Wayfinder as a product, Chuck had this to offer education professionals in positions like his:
“I’ve been doing this for a long time. I have never really touted a product. My message to superintendents is: You don’t want to pass this up.” —Chuck Palmer
And Chuck’s not the only one with encouraging words to offer. As one of the students interviewed about Wayfinder put it: “What took you guys so long to teach us the stuff we’re actually going to use in our futures? Wayfinder is awesome.”
