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School Boards Driving Turnaround

Culture Shift

School Boards Driving Turnaround

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Many schools are not preparing students for success in the 21st century. Far too many students are dropping out, and many of those who do graduate lack the key skills to succeed in college or the advanced economy. Successfully initiating, implementing, and sustaining the transformation of the lowest-performing public schools is a pressing challenge for policy leaders and practitioners nationwide. Public schools governed by elected local school boards are one of the cornerstones of our nation’s democracy, and local school boards sit at the junction of policy and effective implementation of targeted turnaround efforts. Yet ongoing efforts to improve public education focus primarily on the role of teachers, principals, and superintendents and, to a lesser extent, on state and federal policymakers. Missing from the work is a substantive role for local school boards.

In line with the Center on School Turnaround’s charge to support states’ efforts, we sought to highlight districts engaged in focused turnaround efforts where their respective boards played a key role in catalyzing, shaping, and supporting targeted improvement efforts. Our goal in developing these case studies was to present information-rich cases that can inform state and district efforts to optimize the board’s role in school turnaround. These case studies may be used independently, but they are designed to be part of a year-long training program for local school boards.

Purpose of the Project

All Local Education Agencies (LEAs) continuously manage two central processes: (1) the process by which the LEA itself improves; and (2) the way the LEA directs and supports the improvement of each of its schools. Many LEAs tackle a third task: facilitating turnaround in their lowest performing schools. Local school boards carry a huge responsibility in setting the policies that underlie LEA and school improvement processes and the LEA’s management of school turnaround. The Center on School Turnaround (CST) created this training to help a local school board build its own capacity to set effective policy on improvement and turnaround processes.

Objectives for the Project

The objectives for school boards using the CST School Board Training are to:

Phase I

  • Assess the school board’s areas of strength, inconsistency, and opportunity relative to its oversight of district improvement, school improvement, and turnaround.
  • Learn from the experience of other school boards by reading and discussing a report about school boards and two case studies.
  • Understand the CST’s Four Domains for Rapid Improvement and how this frameworks might provide a conceptual structure for district and school improvement processes.
  • Itemize possible “next steps” the board may take in response to the information and understandings acquired through the training.

Phase II

  • Option: Develop an action plan for strengthening the school board’s effectiveness in: (a) setting policies related to continuous district improvement, school improvement, and turnaround; (b) overseeing the implementation of these policies. Implement the action plan and monitor the progress for several months.

Getting Started

The first step is to confirm a State Partner’s (RCC, SEA, and/or school board association) relationship with the Center on School Turnaround. Then CST will provide a webinar and instructions for the State Partner to equip the Partner with necessary information and access to the online system to conduct the project with the school boards the Partner recruits for the project. The project may start at any time for a school board and begins simply with the naming of the Facilitator and the Facilitator’s enrollment with CST.

For a State Partner to get started, email one of the following:

Facilitator’s Portal

Facilitators of participating school boards may access the online web system by clicking HERE.

Required Reading

Moving Beyond the Killer-B’s: The Role of School Boards in School Accountability and Transformation

Successfully initiating and sustaining meaningful improvements in the lowest-performing public schools is a pressing challenge for policy leaders and practitioners nationwide. Local school boards sit at the intersection of policy and implementation of reform initiatives. Yet, ongoing efforts to improve public education focus primarily on the role of teachers, principals, and superintendents, as well as state and federal policymakers. Missing from this debate is a robust discussion or examination of the role of local school boards.

Four Domains for School Boards (see section below to download)

To support educators in creating such systems, the Center on School Turnaround at WestEd (CST) has developed a framework to assist states, districts, and schools in leading and managing rapid improvement efforts. The framework shares, in practical language, the critical practices of successful school turnaround in four domains, or areas of focus, that research and experience suggest are central to rapid and significant improvement: turnaround leadership, talent development, instructional transformation, and culture shift.

Case Studies

New Haven Public Schools & Wichita Public Schools

Testimonials

“We were very eager in Colorado to engage local boards of education in order to support their local efforts in improving schools. We are thrilled that three Colorado districts and boards are able to partner with the Center on School Turnaround for this reflective and productive training. We look forward to learning along with our districts in this process.”

— Peter Sherman, Executive Director, District and School Performance, Colorado Department of Education

“The Montezuma-Cortez RE-1 school board is leading a district engaged in whole system improvement efforts as well as targeted turnaround with several elementary schools. The board has requested deeper training on successful turnaround strategies, including the board role in supporting turnaround, as well as a deeper dive into local accountability systems and local turnaround efforts. The board is excited to be participating in the Center on School Turnaround Board Training and to have access to case studies and exemplars from other successful turnaround districts and boards.”

— Lori Haukeness, Superintendent, Montezuma-Cortez School District, Colorado

The Engagement Playbook: A Toolkit for Engaging Stakeholders Around the Four Domains of Rapid School Improvement

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As researchers, decision-makers, and practitioners focus on continuous improvement in education, local-level change is gaining importance. Yet, many local school improvement efforts fail to be fully implemented. Even those that are fully implemented often fail to sustain improvements because the schools are embedded in systems that face multiple challenges. Can decision-makers and everyone who is responsible for implementing school improvement efforts come together to build a better, more sustainable approach to local improvement? This toolkit attempts to support such coming together by combining a powerful framework for school turnaround with a focus on the human side of change. The toolkit is built on the intersections between Leading by Convening, a blueprint for authentic engagement in school improvement developed by 50 national organizations and adopted by the National Center for Systemic Improvement, and the Four Domains for Rapid School Improvement, a framework developed by the national Center on School Turnaround (CST).

Building the capacity of individuals working in schools, districts, and states to support reform efforts is critical. Also critical to sustainable and systemic school improvement efforts is ensuring that individuals across all levels of the system are engaged in reform. This document focuses on capacity and efforts to engage stakeholders across the system to support rapid improvement. In doing so, this toolkit is intended to support states, districts, and schools in their efforts to improve schools. This toolkit incorporates the Leading by Convening approach as a way to build capacity and engage stakeholders in the implementation of the Center on School Turnaround’s Four Domains for Rapid School Improvement. Readers of this toolkit may use it to build capacity across the domains.

New Mexico’s Public Education Department Turnaround Event Presentation Materials

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Julie Corbett, Founder and President of CST Partner Corbett Education Consulting, LLC, presents at the New Mexico Public Education Department (NMPED) Principals Pursuing Excellence (PPE) Boot Camp. PPE is NMPED’s turnaround leadership development program targeted to school principals throughout the state. Julie brings her expertise in school and district education reform and turnaround to two PPE sessions.

Using Needs Assessments for School and District Improvement

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This document is a tactical guide that describes the core components for developing and administering needs assessments for improvement. The guide includes information on ESSA requirements, planning a needs assessment, designing a needs assessment, how a needs assessment is part of the improvement process, and key decision points.

Worksheets are included to aid users in designing and developing needs assessments for schools and/or districts. A companion document includes the worksheets in a format that can be completed.

The State Role in School Turnaround: Emerging Best Practices

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With chapters written by leading researchers and practitioners actively engaged in the work, this Edited Volume examines the role of the state education agency in school turnaround efforts. An emphasis is placed on practical application of research and best practice related to the State Education Agency’s (SEA’s) critical leadership role in driving and supporting successful school turnaround efforts.

The Edited Volume is organized around the Center on School Turnaround’s four objectives, with sections devoted to each:

  • Create a Pro-Turnaround Statutory and Regulatory Environment
  • Administer and Manage Turnaround Efforts Effectively
  • Provide Targeted and Timely Technical Assistance to Local Educational Agencies and Schools
  • Advocate and Lead to Build Support for Local Turnaround Efforts

Chapters include: a) brief literature review, b) examples from SEAs (and/or concrete examples of proposed SEA practices), and c) action principles for the SEA.

The Missing Link: How States Work with Districts to Support School Turnaround

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Over the last several years federal initiatives have called on states to improve the nation’s lowest performing schools. States’ efforts to turn around these low-performing schools have met with mixed success. Districts may be the missing link between federal and state desires to improve schools and actual, demonstrable changes that improve learning for students. This descriptive, mixed-methods analysis uses survey data from state-level turnaround leaders in all 50 states and interviews with eight intentionally selected state leaders to launch a discussion about how states support districts in school-turnaround efforts.

The CST leadership and evaluators wanted to know more about how SEAs were currently supporting districts in improving their capacity to assist with school turnaround efforts and how that support could be improved. We suspected that systematic district support might be the missing link between federal and state desires to improve schools and actual, demonstrable changes that improve learning outcomes for students. Therefore, this analysis posed the following questions:

  • How do states support districts in turning around low-performing schools?
  • How, if at all, do states work differently with rural versus urban districts on school turnaround, and is this differentiation important?
  • How have federal policies influenced the schools and districts with which states work on school turnaround?

While some of the logistics for school turnaround efforts will be changing in various ways under ESSA, many of the details, insights, and strategies provided by SEAs through these surveys and interviews are still relevant to helping SEAs think about how to provide high-quality support to districts on school turnaround.