Building and Sustaining a Multi-Tiered System of Supports : The Wichita Plan

1. Building and Sustaining a Multi-Tiered System of Supports: The Wichita Plan Teton Leadership Summit June 2011

2. Wichita’s Theory of Action Wichita Public Schools is organized around teaching and learning with • A belief and commitment that all students will reach rigorous standards • A focus on classroom instruction • A culture that emphasizes continuous learning • Continuing professional development for all staff • Alignment in standards, curriculum, assessment, and professional development

3. Michael Fullan • Unless you align • school, • district, • state, and • national agendas, • innovation within schools cannot be sustained.

4. MTSS is the Work!

5. MTSS Steering Team There is no such thing as a dysfunctional organization, because every organization is perfectly aligned to achieve the results it currently gets. --Jeff Lawrence September 2, 2009

6. The Strategic Plan MTSS is the WORK! • Vision • Strategic Plan • Support and Direction from the District

7. MTSS District Leadership Team • Began in Fall 2009 • 22 Member Team • Work based on The Strategic Plan • Work measured by the MTSS Innovation Configuration Matrix

8. Are we a system of schools…… or a school system?

9. PRINCIPLES(Beliefs, Work, Objectives, Action Plans) Fullan Paschal: “The Change Sandwich” INNOVATIONS(that fit within the principles)

10. MTSS Steering TeamSeptember 29 Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children. -Sitting Bull

11. Inviting Collaborative Partners • Stevan Kukic: Strategic Reform • James Baker: Academic Structuring and Implementation • Robert Pipik: Performance Management • Randy Sprick: Positive Behavior Supports • George Batsche: Leadership and RtI

12. Defining District Non-Negotiables • The culture of PLC is embraced, expected, and supported at the school and district level as operationalized by the MTSS innovation configuration matrix. • District level standard protocols, in the areas of academic and behavior assessment, curriculum, intervention, instruction, and operations are established, implemented and supported with fidelity. • The focus of Professional Development is expecting and supporting fidelity of implementation. • Results-driven leadership is expected and supported.

13. The Plan Evolves • Defined Six Cohorts of Feeder Schools • 3 Cohorts: Behavior Focus • 3 Cohorts: Academic Focus • Flipping Focus

14. Other System Considerations • Reorganization • Comprehensive Assessment System • Systems of Support for All • Implementation with Fidelity • System of Data-Driven Decision Making

15. Reorganization • Functioning in a • Data-driven accountability system • Time of reduced financial resources • Dimension of one delivery system that’s sole focus is student learning

16. Comprehensive Assessment System: What is different?

20. Assessment Protocols

21. Systems of Support for All

23. Implementation with Fidelity

24. Implementation with Fidelity

25. Implementation with Fidelity

26. System of Data-Driven Decision Making • Performance Management System • Facility Stat • School Stat

28. At no time in history has there been a more powerful need for a new vision of the purpose of education…No institution has a more crucial role to play in the historic changes coming than school because no institution has greater potential to impact how society changes over the long term. How we educate our children shapes the future, because they in turn will be the ones who create that future. The growing gap between what they need to be able to understand (such as alternative cultures and social-technological-ecological systems) and to do (such as work collaboratively to solve complex interdependent problems) and what we have traditionally taught is the primary reason so many young people find school less and less relevant for their lives. And they are right. Peter Senge

29. MTSS is the Work!

30. We treat urgency like a performance-enhancing drug,as if calling for speed will hasten change, despite the evidence that authentic transformation requires more time than we ever imagined.Peter Block

31. Innovation Configuration Matrix Leadership and Empowerment Assessment Curriculum Instruction Data-based Decision Making Integration and Sustainability Overall

32. Making sense of the Innovation ConfigurationMatrix

33. Innovation Configuration Matrix • Staff Survey on Survey Monkey (2600+) • District Leadership Team Activity (17)

34. District Leadership Team Activity – Team Analysis

35. Team Sharing

36. ICM Survey Results

37. Where are we now? Professional Development Implementation of the Plan Focus Areas for Spring 2011 Anchoring BOE Objectives Identifying Grade Level Benchmarks Wichita Problem-Solving Model Wichita “Brand” Monitoring and Accountability

38. District Leadership – What is your role?

39. Characteristics of an Effective School District FOCUS DATA LEADERSHIP RESOURCES REDUCE DISTRACTORS COMMUNITY COMMUNICATION ESPRIT DE CORPS

40. In his state of education address in 1987, Secretary of Education William Bennett attached the nickname “the blob” to administrators and the administrative system in public schools. The blob, he argued, is made up of people in the education system who work outside of classrooms, soaking up resources and resisting reform without contributing to student achievement (Walker, 1987). According to Bennett, the term blob is an acronym for “bloated educational bureaucracy.”

41. The primary research question in this work was: “What is the strength of relationship between district-level administrative actions and average student achievement?” The computed correlation between district leadership and student achievement was .24 and was statistically significant at the .05 level. This finding stands in sharp contrast to the notion that district administration is a part of an amorphous blob that soaks up valuable resources without adding value to a district’s effectiveness. To the contrary, these findings suggest that when district leaders are carrying out their leadership responsibilities effectively, student achievement across the district is positively affected. What does this mean for our work?

42. The second research question was: “What are the specific district leadership behaviors that are associated with student achievement?” Five district-level leadership “responsibilities” or “initiatives” with a statistically significant (p <.05) correlation with average student academic achievement were found. They are as follows: Ensuring collaborative goal setting Establishing nonnegotiable goals for achievement and instruction Creating board alignment with and support district goals Monitoring achievement and instruction goals Allocating resources to support the goals for achievement and instruction. What does this mean for our work?

43. MTSS is the Work!