Improvement in student learning outcomes depends on system-wide support for change in classroom instruction. Effective instructional practice, including strong standards-based instruction, data-based planning, differentiation and individualization, research-based pedagogical approaches, and classroom management, must be identified and supported at the school, district, and broader system levels.
Schools cultivate an environment of both high expectations and support for students’ academic accomplishment. While districts and schools strive to focus their organization’s attention on the in-school factors impacting student performance, they also attempt to address factors that are traditionally non-school-based so that every student comes to the task of learning ready for the challenge.
Diagnose and respond to student learning needs
Practice Description
Diagnose student learning needs and use identified needs to drive all instructional decisions.
Incorporate effective student supports and instructional decisions.
Use fluid, rapid assessment and adjustment of instructional grouping and delivery to adapt to student learning needs.
School-Based Example
Regularly examine individual student data in team meetings, PLCs, or other planning sessions as part of teachers’ regular work and expectations. Creatively use fluid instructional groupings rather than yearlong assignments that may not meet students’ (or teachers’) needs. For example, when students struggle with a certain concept, they could be assigned temporarily to a teacher whose data demonstrate that they teach it well or differently from the students’ current teacher(s), placed in a small group for reteaching, or given individualized instruction. Teachers are given time within the school day to conduct such analyses and develop plans to address identified needs. Teachers are also held accountable for doing so and for carrying out the plans they develop for students.
Our school has a Response to Intervention (RtI) system and a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) program that impact instruction for students.
Strategies and Suggestions
Develop an RtI system that includes tiers of academic and behavioral intervention that are fluid and accessible for all students in need. The system must have clearly articulated entry and exit criteria into and out of the different tiers of intervention and the support that each tier is expected to provide. Distribute this information to all teachers, students, and parents to empower them to take the necessary steps to move from one tier to another. All student placement decisions must be transparent, data-based, and objective to appropriately meet the learning needs of all students.
Train educators to use disaggregated student data from screening as standards-aligned formative and diagnostic assessments to determine student learning and adult teaching priorities, monitor student progress, and help sustain continuous school improvement needs.
Reflection Questions for Consideration
What do you currently know about RtI and MTSS?
What adjustments could be made so that the RtI and MTSS processes increase the impact of classroom instruction?
How do teachers diagnose each student’s learning needs? What tools, systems, and structures need to be established?
How could fluid grouping of students be implemented and supported?
How is the school proactive in preventing student failure?
Do classroom teachers take ownership of the learning of all students?
Do all students receive differentiated instruction in the regular classroom?
Do classroom teachers, instructional specialists, and special needs teachers collaborate to develop instruction for all students?
Are historically underrepresented students provided with opportunities to access academic and behavioral support as needed?
In order to adapt and form strategies for instruction, teachers assess student understanding in their classrooms more than once a week as a regular feature of classroom instruction.
Strategies and Suggestions
Build pedagogical capacity in the area of creating high-quality formative assessments and using data results to drive instruction.
Regularly examine individual student data in team meetings or PLCs as part of teachers’ regular work and expectations.
Give teachers time during the school day to conduct such analysis and to develop plans to address identified Also, hold teachers accountable for conducting the analysis and for carrying out the plans they develop for students.
Creatively use fluid instructional groupings. For example, temporarily assign students who struggle with a certain concept to a teacher whose data demonstrate greater success when using alternative teaching methods; place students in a small group for reteaching; or provide individualized instruction.
Make data highly visible and transparent to all members of the school community.
Give teachers regular opportunities to work with their peers in reviewing student work and discussing its implications for instructional design, academic rigor, and learner outcomes.
Facilitate discussions regarding the number of students who are improving their work.
Reflection Questions for Consideration
How often do teachers assess student understanding?
What is the current requirement for the frequency of formative assessments? Is it being monitored?
How is student learning measured in the school?
How do teachers collect and share information on student learning?
Does the school have a system to assess, collect, and use formative data to guide student learning?
Are school formative assessments aligned to state standards in content, complexity, and rigor?
Is the format of the formative assessment familiar to students?
Are the questions, tasks, and prompts free from cultural bias?
Does the assessment include appropriate scaffolds for multilingual and special needs students?
Is the assessment used to inform instruction? How?
How are students who are unable to meet mastery supported?
Student support services, including support for special education and English language learners, improve learning outcomes for all students.
Strategies and Suggestions
Create a system to monitor and identify improved learning outcomes through effective support services.
Use student learning data and instructional strategy data within the school leadership team to design fluid instructional groupings that respond to student needs.
Provide staff with training in identifying the need for and how to engage in effective differentiated instruction that addresses student needs.
Use data reviews to identify whether particular subgroups of students are under- or over-identified. Create a plan with steps for concerns around misidentification.
Create systems in which special education, student support, and regular education teachers collaborate around the instructional needs of students.
Reflection Questions for Consideration
Who is included in the special education designation? Should additional groups be represented?
How do you measure who has improved learning outcomes due to the impact of student support services?
What types of early warning systems identify students who may be falling behind?
Who is accountable for establishing those early warning systems?
Are there particular subgroups of students that staff feel are under- or over-identified?
Does the concern around misidentification arise out of a need for better staff training in differentiated instruction?
Is stronger collaboration needed between special education and regular education teachers to support student learning?
Is there an effective program (such as RtI or MTSS) in place for early assessment and intervention of student learning needs?
What steps are in place to address the misidentification concerns?
The special education teacher, the classroom teacher, and the support team work together to develop learning plans for students who have been identified as having a specific learning disability.
Strategies and Suggestions
Provide teachers with professional development focused on using data to plan differentiated instruction and providing interventions to make the curriculum more accessible to all students at risk of not meeting benchmark assessment targets.
Re-envision the co-teaching professional development plan and structure it for students needing intensive pull-out services and those benefiting from push-in services. Ensure that a clear schedule for co-planning is in place for special education teachers and core teachers and clarify expectations for co-teaching.
Reflection Questions for Consideration
How do teachers know who is primarily responsible for teaching students who have been specifically identified as learning disabled?
What adjustments could be made to encourage special education teachers, classroom teachers, and support teams to work together to develop learning plans?
Is sufficient planning time given for special education and general education teachers to work together?
What guidance is given to staff regarding goals and structures for planning time?
What professional development opportunities exist for all teachers around support for special needs students and learning strategies?
The English language learner (ELL) teacher, the classroom teacher, and the support team work together to develop learning plans for ELL students.
Strategies and Suggestions
Build a professional development plan to address English language instructional strategies to support ELL students.
Provide teachers with professional development focused on using data to plan differentiated instruction and providing interventions to make the curriculum more accessible to all students at risk of not meeting benchmark assessment targets.
All teachers use multiple strategies to gain every student’s attention and ensure that every student understands directions and content. Teachers create an environment where all students feel intellectually and socially safe for learning.
Reflection Questions for Consideration
How do teachers know who is primarily responsible for teaching students who have been identified as ELL students?
What adjustments could be made to encourage ELL teachers, classroom teachers, and support teams to work together to develop learning plans?
Is sufficient planning time given for ELL teachers and general education teachers to work together?
What guidance is given to staff regarding goals and structures for planning time?
School leaders provide a great deal of support to PLCs to help teachers develop effective instruction to address root causes.
Strategies and Suggestions
Strengthen PLCs by adding structures, protocols, data, and expectations to maximize the use of collaborative time. Collaborative feedback practices enable teachers to reflect on teaching practices, and these feedback practices create school cultures that value improvements in teaching practices.
Collaborative teams review formative assessment data to make instructional adjustments and address student skill gaps in a timely manner.
Give teachers regular opportunities to work with peers in reviewing student work and discussing its implications for instructional design, academic rigor, and learner outcomes.
Facilitate discussions regarding the number of students whose performance levels are improving and those whose levels are not Interventions are short-term rather than long-term strategies.
Facilitate discussions regarding the number of students mastering the essential skills.
Discuss individual students who are not improving and are therefore recommended for further intervention.
Provide professional development to teachers on what transforms a school into a PLC (and the difference between a PLC and “having PLC meetings”).
Include equitable practices around the use, nature, and language of formative assessments.
Ensure that PLCs identify and address data that uncover or reinforce the existence of inequities.
Reflection Questions for Consideration
How active are PLCs?
What is the structure of the PLCs? Who attends PLC meetings?
What adjustments could be made to PLCs to help teachers develop effective instruction?
Why do you suppose some survey respondents participate in PLCs and others do not?
To what extent do school leaders support the need for PLCs?
Are all PLC members capable of explaining its purpose and established goals? If not, what steps are staff taking to make this possible?
What are the protocols in place to help teachers identify root causes for poor student performance?
Do the protocols enable staff to identify and plan for the use of instructional strategies necessary for improvement?
School leaders provide a great deal of formative feedback to support the collaborative analysis of student work.
Strategies and Suggestions
Adopt common schoolwide rubrics for constructed Work to ensure staff has strong inter-rater reliability when scoring.
Develop a schoolwide system for regularly collecting and analyzing common formative data (including student work samples).
The leadership team and instructional coaches support teacher teams in developing and designing common formative and summative assessments.
Common assessment results drive collaborative teacher team meetings to identify students who need extra support.
Reflection Questions for Consideration
To what extent are teachers getting together to apply their combined knowledge and experience to the challenges of teaching and learning by reviewing student work?
What system or cycle is in place to ensure collaborative analysis of this work? How are the results of the analysis monitored for student success?
Provide rigorous evidence- based instruction
Practice Description
Set high academic standards and ensure access to rigorous standards-based curricula.
Provide support to ensure that evidence is used in instructional planning and facilitation of student learning.
As gaps are identified in the curriculum or the delivery of instruction, develop plans to strengthen these key components.
School-Based Example
Conduct a curriculum analysis and map lesson plans against standards to ensure that the plans adequately represent the standards. Determine whether adjustments and support are needed to ensure that all students have access to the curricula. In each instructional mode utilized—whether whole-class work, small-group work, independent work, technology-based work, or homework—teachers routinely utilize the best instructional practices for that mode, and school leaders support their development of those practices.
A formal plan for a common standards-based approach to student grading is developed, actively used, and shown to improve student learning.
Strategies and Suggestions
Develop a formal, standards-based report card for grades K–6.
Have teachers intentionally track students’ progress and achievements using common standards. This system includes a way to report students showing progress toward mastery of a standard.
Use levels of performance such as Basic, Proficient, and Advanced to empower students to know how they are doing and in which areas they need work for continuous Allow time for teachers, students, and parents to celebrate student growth relative to schoolwide goals, grade-level goals, subject-specific goals, and the students’ personal goals.
Develop a schoolwide system for regularly collecting and analyzing common formative data around grading.
Reflection Questions for Consideration
What is the current approach to student grading? Are there formal guidelines?
What systems are in place that enable students to move toward mastery of skills or standards and, ultimately, toward ownership of their learning?
Are teachers and leaders aware of and do they clearly understand what mastery of a standard looks like and what students’ proficiency levels are? How is this information communicated to students, parents, and, during collaboration times, other educators?
Maximizing access to advanced courses and/or coursework for all students is considered a great deal when assigning courses for students.
Strategies and Suggestions
Leadership communicates and purposefully messages high expectations for every student.
Create multiple entry points of access to gifted and talented programs and advanced courses.
Use data to identify inequities in the assignment of classes. Review the history and criteria of who participates in these classes.
Examine fiscal resources, time allocation, and schedules to ascertain if the school provides all students with the opportunity to access higher-level courses.
Work with the guidance department to create multiple paths allowing underserved students access to advanced coursework.
Reflection Questions for Consideration
How are students made aware of advanced coursework?
How do students elect to participate in advanced coursework?
Under what conditions are students enrolled in advanced coursework?
To what degree is data reviewed to identify the students who are accessing advanced courses? Is course data reflective of all students?
What are the prerequisite skills for success in advanced courses? How can those skills be included in classes so that more students can be prepared for access to and success in advanced courses?
Is there evidence of disproportionality of assignments to gifted and talented programs and advanced courses?
Are historically underrepresented students provided with opportunities to access academic and behavioral support as needed?
Does the school offer summer or after-school opportunities to meet prerequisite coursework to access advanced courses?
Do school leaders insist that all classes prepare students for a challenging curriculum?
There is cognitive and content alignment among all three key areas for instruction: standards, curriculum, and assessment. (Cognitive alignment is defined as having consistent levels of intellectual rigor across areas. Content alignment is defined as having consistent subject matter across areas on which to assess student learning.)
Note: For relevant strategies and suggestions and reflection questions, see 3.2.60 below.
School leaders create effective job-embedded opportunities to identify and address gaps in alignment between standards, curriculum, and assessment.
Strategies and Suggestions
Develop a common expectation for unit and lesson planning to address grade-level standards.
Administer common formative assessments on a schedule agreed upon by all grade- level members.
Adjustments to instruction and reteaching are determined regularly by the data collected from common formative assessments.
Develop and implement a calendar of instruction that includes core content instruction, reteaching, and enrichment lessons to deepen the student’s understanding and application of the essential standards.
Reflection Questions for Consideration
Is the curriculum mapped to state or other content standards?
How do you determine if there is cognitive and/or content alignment among standards, curriculum, and assessments?
When gaps in cognitive and/or content alignment are identified, what steps are taken to close those gaps?
Who creates the aligned curriculum? District teams? School teams? Individual teachers?
Where does the aligned curriculum reside? In district curriculum guides? School curriculum guides? Other? Online or hard copy or both?
When and how often is the aligned curriculum re-examined and revised? By whom?
How is the aligned curriculum organized? Into subjects? Grade levels? Courses?
How is student learning data consulted in the alignment process?
School leaders support teachers a great deal in the development of routine use of instructional practices.
Strategies and Suggestions
Build ongoing and intensive job-embedded professional learning that provides effective and relevant tools and knowledge and continuously pushes teachers to reflect on their instructional practices.
Help teachers vary their repertoires for explaining content, new concepts, and new information. To ensure that students understand concepts, teachers should use multiple methods such as models, representation, flash tools, diagrams, videos, text, mental imagery, exploration, research, art, music, and tactile experiences.
Develop and expect teachers to regularly engage in the use of effective instructional practices, such as explicit instruction, cooperative learning, hands-on learning activities, scaffolding, varied group instruction, checking for understanding, and providing students with criteria for success.
Reflection Questions for Consideration
How are school leaders supporting teachers in the development of instructional modes and practices?
What professional learning opportunities have been identified and used to support varied instructional practices?
How do school leaders monitor and support classroom instruction to ensure varied modes of instruction?
School leaders routinely support teachers in the development of enhanced student learning by assisting teachers with engagement strategies that promote student-generated questions and student-to-student interactions.
Strategies and Suggestions
Provide professional development for teachers on questioning and discussion techniques that produce thoughtful dialogue and on methods for increasing the use of academic language.
Use strategies such as cooperative learning groups to have teachers support students in teaching one another, learning from one another, and assuming responsibility for one another’s learning.
During classroom observations, ensure that teachers ask open-ended questions so that all students can respond and discuss answers.
Use supports, such as student discussion prompts, to have teachers engage in teaching students questioning techniques.
Develop strategies, as well as clear rules and norms, to help students engage in collaborative learning, offer and receive feedback from peers and teachers, engage in questioning and examining claims, and provide encouragement and recognition of effort and progress.
Reflection Questions for Consideration
Do students have time to discuss new and developing learning? How does this compare to teacher talk time?
To what extent are strategies developed to support student discussion in the classroom?
What tools and strategies are provided to teachers to support student use of academic language?
What student engagement strategies have proven successful in the context of your school?
School leaders support teachers a great deal in the development of posing high-level questions that elicit creative responses and problem solving.
Strategies and Suggestions
Provide training for teachers, coaches, and administrators on questioning strategies to address critical thinking skills and depth of knowledge.
Provide training for teachers on how students can ask and respond to questions that help them demonstrate learning (e.g., integrate knowledge, analyze, evaluate, and draw conclusions) for the purpose of monitoring student progress and adjusting instruction.
Support teachers in designing questions and responses to students in a manner that results in thought-provoking dialogue.
Support teachers in creating lessons that enable students to express their thinking and that make it visible.
When appropriate, encourage teachers to ask students probing questions, which promote critical thinking and sustained dialogue, thereby deepening students’ understanding of the content area and stretching the students’ linguistic abilities. Questions to be posed to students can include the following:
Why did you say that?
What evidence do you have?
How do you know that?
What might someone else say?
How did you solve that?
What would have happened if we changed X?
Reflection Questions for Consideration
Are there opportunities for teachers to complete a self-assessment survey to help determine whether questions posed to students are high-level, rigorous questions?
Are high-level questions planned prior to lesson delivery? What systems are in place to support this?
School leaders provide guidelines and resources for differentiated instruction and coordinate professional learning and accountability with staff to ensure that all teachers implement it across classrooms.
Strategies and Suggestions
Provide ongoing professional learning on the RtI framework, on effective practices for all certificated staff, including administrators, and on differentiated instruction to meet the needs of all students.
Provide teachers with professional development focused on using data to plan differentiated instruction and providing interventions to make the curriculum more accessible to all students at risk of not meeting benchmark assessment targets.
Determine whether professional development has been effective or whether teachers need additional training by monitoring how teachers use student achievement data, especially in the area of using data to plan differentiated instruction for English learners, students with disabilities, and students at risk.
Reflection Questions for Consideration
To what extent have school leaders provided guidelines and resources for differentiated instruction?
To what extent is professional learning coordinated?
How are expectations for differentiated instruction monitored to ensure implementation across all classrooms?
Remove barriers and provide opportunities
Practice Description
Systematically identify barriers to student learning and ways to enhance learning opportunities for students who demonstrate early mastery.
Partner with community-based organizations, such as health and wellness organizations, youth organizations, and other service providers, to support students in overcoming obstacles and developing personal competencies that propel success in school and life.
School-Based Example
Track student progress and help students regain lost ground through academic supports (e.g., tutoring, co-curricular activities, tiered interventions), extended learning opportunities (e.g., summer bridge programs, after-school and supplemental educational services, Saturday academies, enrichment programs), credit-recovery programs, and virtual courses.
Give students demonstrating sufficient prior mastery access to higher level assignments and courses. Network with nearby community organizations to identify available supports—or to generate new supports—for students. Consider having medical and dental services available on-site on a regular basis. Provide on-site laundry service for families in need. Provide food for students during extended learning sessions and other periods when students are at school outside regular school hours.
A plan for reducing the occurrence of student attendance problems is extremely effective.
Strategies and Suggestions
Draw from evidence-based strategies to address chronic absence, as nearly 8 million students are chronically absent nationwide. In the era of COVID-19, when students and families face even greater challenges, there is a need for higher levels of support from schools. Over the past decade, a growing body of knowledge has emerged about what works to improve attendance for groups of students with disproportionately high rates of chronic absence:
Start with a team. At the school level, use an attendance team, an MTSS team, or a Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support team. Be sure to get the right people with the right skills, resources, and authority to implement the strategies. Teams can meet in person or virtually.
Analyze the data before selecting strategies. What is the prior year’s rate of chronic absence? The higher the rate of chronic absence, the more investment there should be in Tier I strategies, as this lessens the need for the more costly and intensive Tier II and Tier III strategies.
Consider the reasons for absences. What are the reasons for individual students and for groups of students? Check with families and students to understand from their perspective what makes daily school attendance challenging. Assess the supports that are already in place, how well they are working, and where the gaps are.
Explore possible interventions with the team. Consider alternatives that are aligned with the reasons.
Select evidence-based interventions based on capacity. There may be more strategies than staff can implement Determine what to do first by sorting strategies into four quadrants: high impact (affecting many students), low impact (affecting a few students), high effort (requiring a lot of coordination, people power, resources, time), or low effort (requiring less coordination, people power, resources, time).
Determine the steps needed to implement each strategy. Once strategies are chosen, create a plan to implement the interventions throughout the year. Incorporate the strategies into the school improvement plan.
Reflection Questions for Consideration
What was the chronic absenteeism rate in the previous school year? How many students missed more than 18 days? How many missed between 25 and 36 days of school? How many missed more than 36 days of school?
How does the average daily attendance rate compare with the chronic absenteeism rate?
How are positive messaging and accessible social and emotional checkpoints encouraging student engagement while in school and out of school?
How have you assessed families’ and students’ perspectives to understand their attendance challenges?
A plan for reducing student suspension problems is extremely effective.
Strategies and Suggestions
Adopt and implement clear and consistent expectations for students. Ensure all school community groups are adequately supported to understand Implement measures to ensure that students, staff, and teachers comply with the expectations.
Adopt a set of cultural norms and practices that enable teachers to interact with students positively.
Analyze the impact the schoolwide behavior plan is having on lowering office referrals and improving student productivity.
As part of the RtI process, establish a positive behavior support system and implement it consistently schoolwide.
Assist staff in identifying and reducing teacher actions that decrease student motivation.
Communicate regularly with the student body to reinforce the desired school culture and publicly celebrate individual and collective student growth.
Work with students, parents, and staff to keep all communication channels open to provide information and to build an ongoing awareness of any school climate or safety issues affecting the campus.
Develop a code of conduct with community input and ensure that it is communicated widely.
Reflection Questions for Consideration
Are expectations for student behavior communicated? How do you know students are aware of the expectations?
Are historical data on demographics, location, time, and reporting adults collected? To what extent are historical data analyzed to gain insight into root causes for suspensions?
Which updates to the school’s student suspension plan address emerging disciplinary issues? Does the plan outline ways to positively reinforce expectations?
Do all staff members have a clear understanding of not only the consequences of misbehavior, but also the restorative next steps to uphold when the student returns to school or class? How is this information disseminated and reinforced?
A plan for reducing the occurrence of bullying is extremely effective.
Strategies and Suggestions
Define what bullying is and how bullying is handled in all of its forms.
Be specific about the tools and strategies teachers use to address bullying.
Establish a “bully committee” to examine various anti-bullying curricula. Choose a program to implement schoolwide to systematically teach kids how to prevent and deal with bullying.
Establish a conflict resolution program for all school leaders, support staff, and students.
As part of the RtI process, establish a system of positive behavior supports and be consistent in schoolwide implementation.
The committee members drive the process of taking inventory of current staff and student responses to bullying by identifying and addressing key focus areas.
Develop action plans that include ongoing systematic monitoring of program implementation.
Reflection Questions for Consideration
What is the current plan to address bullying? What adjustments can be made to improve the current plan?
Is the current plan connected to other successful strategies that encourage student success?
How is the school collecting information on students’ and staff’s feelings about their sense of safety in the school? Do these data show areas of strength as well as areas for improvement?
To what degree do school leaders and teachers accurately define and identify bullying in class or on campus? How is support provided to sharpen the identification of bullying and create safety for all students?
A plan for reducing the occurrence of each of the dropout rates is extremely effective.
A process for reviewing the school’s approach for maximizing access and inclusiveness of underrepresented groups is developed, actively used, and shown to improve student learning.
Strategies and Suggestions
Provide parents and students with critical information about graduation requirements and college options as students enter 9th grade and throughout high school.
Provide professional learning opportunities to ensure all teachers have the technical knowledge to provide basic information about college admittance and career and technical pathways.
Identify early barriers to graduation. Create a system to collect and track course completion from each cohort of students starting their freshman year. Develop this system to outline the number of courses needed each year to be on track for graduation and identify barriers to course completion.
Create early intervention plans for students identified as not on course for Those interventions include mentor support, social–emotional support, and alternate academic pathways for course completion.
Provide career and technical education for students. Provide students with information and community opportunities to explore possible career paths.
Collect and analyze historical student data to identify reasons for dropout rates.
Reflection Questions for Consideration
How is the dropout rate calculated? Does the calculation surface an area that is determined to be most detrimental to the overall rate?
What is the current plan to decrease the dropout rate? Is it effective?
To what extent is the school surveying students about their career interests after high school graduation?
To what extent is the school identifying barriers to graduation? Which data are collected to identify students’ reasons for not completing high school coursework? Are these reasons connected to the economic or social–emotional needs of the students’ families? What actions are taken in response to the data?
What community partnerships are established to re-engage students?
Programs that offer additional instruction to struggling students, such as extended school days or summer school, are developed, actively used, and shown to improve student learning.
Strategies and Suggestions
Ensure proper implementation of enrichment opportunities that connect with the school’s mission, vision, values, and goals.
Work to educate partners about the school’s focus before engagement in order to ensure alignment of messaging and content.
Ensure that the extended learning curriculum supports and complements current school-day instruction.
Monitor student improvement using achievement data disaggregated by attendance or other measures.
Reflection Questions for Consideration
How is the school leveraging funds to provide additional academic support, extended learning opportunities, credit-recovery programs, and virtual courses? Are there interested parties to financially support these programs?
Which programs are provided to add instructional time for students?
Are access and opportunity provided equitably?
How is student participation tracked?
Which data are collected to determine whether the additional time is improving student learning?
How are the data analyzed? How often? By whom? Are adjustments considered based on the data?
Programs that offer targeted intervention periods during the school day for struggling students are developed, actively used, and shown to improve student learning.
Strategies and Suggestions
The leadership team develops a formal RtI system for students’ entry into and exit from intervention classes.
Tiers of intervention within the system are fluid and accessible for all students in need.
Conduct an inventory of existing core academic and behavior interventions to determine areas of strength and Use inventory results to drive decisions to either acquire or abandon existing interventions and behavior supports.
Develop decision-making protocols and rules that include entry and exit criteria to support collaborative teacher teams when making student placement decisions.
Incorporate timelines for frequent progress monitoring to measure intervention effectiveness and student response to intervention. Measure the fidelity of intervention implementation to address any instructional issues that may interfere with student progress and growth.
Review the most current and appropriate assessment data and associated cut scores for the students to identify those who are two or more levels below their grade and in need of intensive intervention.
Consider targeted interventions that enable all students to access advanced coursework.
Provide teachers with professional development focused on using data to plan differentiated instruction and providing interventions to make the curriculum more accessible to all students at risk of not meeting benchmark assessment targets.
Assess the technology needs of proposed intervention or academic support programs for use during or after school to provide to targeted groups of students and to recommend technology reallocation or purchases, if needed, to fully implement the programs.
Reflection Questions for Consideration
What possible barriers exist to student learning, and how is each level of the system working to remove those academic and nonacademic barriers in turnaround schools?
What interventions are used to help students who are falling behind?
How might those interventions be adjusted or changed?
Who is included in the team to adjust or change those interventions?
Are access and opportunity provided equitably?
Which data are collected to determine if the targeted interventions are improving student learning?
How are the data analyzed? How often? By whom? Are adjustments considered based on the data?
A process for reviewing our school’s approach for maximizing access and inclusiveness of underrepresented groups is developed, actively used, and shown to improve student learning.
Strategies and Suggestions
Develop, implement, and monitor plans, policies, structures, and systems that support equity and address lagging or problematic issues. For example:
Maintain and use a data collection system focused on the program’s progress in prioritizing equity.
Include representatives from all community groups in the interpretation and analysis of data used to inform decision-making processes.
Support teachers and leaders in addressing implicit biases that may influence how they interpret and use data for action planning.
Work with program leadership to design resource allocations that prioritize equity in programs.
Reflection Questions for Consideration
Has a plan been developed to review students’ access and inclusiveness? Is it actively used?
Is there a process for reviewing student access?
What are the goals of maximizing student access? Who is underrepresented? What systems have been put in place to address this underrepresentation?
Has the process for evaluating access been shown to improve student learning?
How are expectations for a culture of inclusivity monitored?
A process to coordinate with community organizations to provide learning opportunities outside the school is developed, actively used, and shown to improve student learning.
Strategies and Suggestions
Invest in and mobilize local organizations to support academic achievement and the development of social skills.
Train community liaison(s) on interpreting achievement data, analyzing student needs, and communicating with community organizations to secure partnerships responsive to student needs.
Clearly define the roles and responsibilities of the community liaison or equivalent designee.
Reflection Questions for Consideration
Which community organizations are currently supporting the school?
Which community organizations would you like to connect with?
How do you communicate the needs of the school to community organizations?
How are the schools involving community members in offering internships, career exploration, and service-learning opportunities?
Who is accountable for helping make these connections for the students?
How do teachers give students authentic experiences to connect their interests with real-world applications?
Ensuring student access to high-level courses or enrichment is important to school leaders.
Strategies and Suggestions
Complete a data analysis on who is accessing high-level courses.
Define which prerequisite skills and courses are necessary to access the advanced courses. Backward-map alternative access points that would enable additional students to participate in advanced courses. For example, find opportunities for students to complete algebra and other freshman-level courses before entering high school or offer summer courses and after-school courses not only for remediation, but also for acceleration.
Ensure that your vision aligns with delivering rigorous coursework and high expectations for all students. Define how that vision is evidenced in classroom instruction and coursework considerations.
Reconsider school schedules and reallocate funding to provide additional courses and multiple opportunities for students to take advanced coursework.
Incorporate best practices that meet the needs of diverse learners and promote challenging learning.
Confront systematic biases found through data analysis that limit access of students from marginalized communities to high-level courses.
Reflection Questions for Consideration
What types of high-level assessments and courses has the school offered in the past? Are they working well to challenge gifted or advanced students? What are schools doing differently to challenge gifted or advanced students?
How do teachers challenge students to exceed their current level of schooling? What types of programs does the school offer?
Do parents have critical information about graduation requirements and college options?
Are data collected and analyzed to determine if there are issues of equity and access?
Are supports available to provide students with a pathway to take high-level courses or enrichment if they choose to participate and demonstrate readiness?
The numbering system corresponds to the Four Domains framework and the numbering of items in the CALL surveys. in the example 1.2.30, the first number represents the domain (ex. Domain 1), the second number represents the practice (ex. Practice 2), and the third number represents the item number from the CALL survey that is most relevant to this practice item (ex. item 30).
