Amador Valley High School - Pleasanton, CA

The Amador Valley High School is dedicated to ensuring that all students receive a high-quality education in order to be college- and career-ready upon graduation. To support this expectation for our students, Amador Valley staff has explored several research-based options to provide structured academic and social-emotional support for students within the school day. A committee of teachers and administrators explored many local top-performing schools to determine the appropriate support structure for Amador Valley. All schools we visited created different variations of a bell schedule based on the needs of their students, with one common characteristic in all five schedules: implementation of a support period embedded within the school day to allow all students to access assistance with academics and support for social-emotional concerns. During the 2017-2018 school year, Amador Valley is piloting a modified block bell schedule which includes two forty-minute support periods per week. Thus, students have time built into their schedule to seek out both academic and social-emotional supports.