At New Highland Academy in Oakland, where Mills Teacher Scholars is wrapping up its first year of support, teacher scholars are working in vertical teams. Fifth grade teacher Aija Simmons, third grade teacher Channon Jackson, and first grade teacher, Joanna Davis are all studying their focal students’ reading comprehension.

While each of these teacher scholars has a unique focus on comprehension—Aija focusing on building students’ awareness of their comprehension and strategies used, Channon on supporting students to articulate the main idea of a passage, and Joanna, building students’ awareness of word-level comprehension—they work together at the monthly Mills Teacher Scholars meetings to make sense of the student learning data that they bring to those sessions.

In the Scholars group we have teachers in K-12 vertical teams and teachers consistently comment on the value of this kind of grouping. For reasons of planning lessons and developing common assessments, teachers usually work in grade level collaborative groups. But being able to come together in vertical groups allows teachers to see the trajectory of their students’ learning throughout the years, and gives a longer view of the student’s experience and learning for teachers who have the opportunity to collaborate in these groups.