Access is the concept that every student has a right to an equal and equitable education regardless of the context into which they are born. Effective implementation of access strives to ensure that all students are on equal ground to set them up for future success in their professional and personal lives. However, no matter how hard we work as educators, it would be impossible to teach our students everything they need to know to be successful after they leave our classrooms. In many cases, we need to turn to outside resources to increase the breadth and depth of opportunities to help set our student up for success.

 

I strive to provide access to many outside people, programs, resources, and connections that can open doors for students and allow them to navigate and access these opportunities to help them develop the toolkits necessary to succeed in my classroom and beyond. Access opportunities—both large and small—have to potential to inspire learning and growth and to motivate our students to engage with content in meaningful ways. Three of the most significant access opportunities—which were not readily available or regionally obvious—I have set up for my students—using outside resources—have been a campus tour to the University of California, Los Angeles, a field trip to the California Science Center to see the Body Worlds traveling exhibit, and a Donor's Choose donation project to obtain a classroom set of the novel Silent Spring. Each of these opportunities opened doors for students and helped them develop their toolkits that could be leveraged for success in my classroom and beyond. Please click on the images below to learn more about the planning and implementation of each of these access opportunities; to see how my students and their families were able to navigate each of these experiences; and to see how each opportunity exposed my students to people, programs, resources, and connections that can be leveraged for success in their desired life paths.