Key Strategies, Practices, and Policy for Successful School Turnaround in Priority Schools

1. Key Strategies, Practices, and Policy for Successful School Turnaround in Priority Schools February 22, 2017 National Title I Conference, Long Beach, CA

2. Presenters Erica Champagne, DirectorOffice of Effective Practices in Turnaround Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education Amanda Trainor, Turnaround Assistance & Research CoordinatorOffice of Effective Practices in TurnaroundMassachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education Susan Bowles Therriault, Principal ResearcherAmerican Institutes for Research (AIR) Brett Lane, PresidentInstitute for Strategic Leadership Learning (INSTLL)

3. Objectives Provide an overview of the Massachusetts context Share what we have learned and how we disseminate and support Provide a summary of new impact and implementation research with partner research organization (AIR) Describe efforts to support improvement through the field guide (INSTLL)

4. Massachusetts Context • State law supported by School Improvement Grant (SIG) • State education agency (SEA) turnaround office focused on building district capacity • Agency research agenda tied to consistent, long-term progress monitoring of turnaround schools: • Are turnaround schools and districts improving student outcomes at a faster rate than other schools or districts? • What factors are correlated with successful turnaround? • What role does the statewide system of support play in improving outcomes?

5. Successful Turnaround in ActionTurnaround Practices Leadership, Shared Responsibility, and Professional Collaboration—The school has established a community of practice through leadership, shared responsibility, and professional collaboration. Intentional Practices for Improving Instruction—The school employs intentional practices for improving teacher-specific and student-responsive instruction. Student-Specific Instruction and Supports to All Students—The school is able to provide student-specific supports and interventions informed by data and the identification of student-specific needs. School Climate and Culture—The school has established a climate and culture that provide a safe, orderly, and respectful environment for students and a collegial, collaborative, and professional culture among teachers that supports the school’s focus on increasing student achievement.

6. Successful Turnaround in ActionTurnaround Practice 1. Leadership, Shared Responsibility, and Professional Collaboration Collaborative Teaming and Practices to Improve Instruction Principals have established and support distributive leadership teaming structures throughout the school: Teacher teams.Grade-level and vertical teams meet regularly (e.g., weekly). Leadership team.The school leadership team is representative of each grade, content area, and student areas of need. Commitment and Action to Improve All Aspects of the Schools Teams and the leaders and teachers in the teams exhibit a strong commitment to high expectations for all students and a willingness to work together to improve instruction: Instructional observation. Instruction is formally and informally observed, and meaningful feedback is provided. Adaptation.Leadership has the demonstrated ability to do whatever it takes to improve student achievement.

7. Successful Turnaround in ActionTurnaround Practice 2. Intentional Practices for Improving Instruction Instructional Coherence and Focus Vertically and horizontally aligned instructional strategies, language, and other learning tools are evident in shared lessons and in teachers’ instructional practices to enable students to access content. Extensive and Intentional Feedback and Support to Teachers The principal (or administrators or coaches) spend significant time in classrooms, observing teachers’ instruction and providing teachers with constructive and useful formal and informal feedback on instructional practices. Teacher-Driven Instructional Improvement Teachers (and teacher teams) use a variety of standards-based assessments to assess the effectiveness of instructional strategies and modify instruction accordingly.

8. Successful Turnaround in ActionTurnaround Practice 3. Student-Specific Instruction and Supports to All Students Tiered and Targeted Interventions for Students Students are provided with instruction and student-specific interventions in direct response to their academic areas of need, identified through formative assessments and analyses of student work. Data-Driven Targeting and Monitoring of Intervention The principal, coaches, and teachers actively monitor instructional effectiveness and the progress of students’ learningacross the school, in grades, in classrooms, and down to the student level. Autonomy and Flexibility Leadership and teachers have the autonomy and flexibility to quickly adapt and modify time (e.g., schedules), resources (e.g., people and interventionists), and interventions to directly and immediately meet student-specific needs.

9. Successful Turnaround in ActionTurnaround Practice 4. School Climate and Culture Shared Behavioral Expectations That Support Student Learning Administrators and teachers have clearly established and actively pursue a set of behavioral expectations and practices that support students’ learning and efforts to increase student achievement. Targeted and Effective Social-Emotional Supports The school has identified, established, and proactively provides effective social-emotional resources and supports for students in need of such supports and assistance. A Collegial, Respectful, and Trusting Professional Environment A climate of respectful collegial communication, relationships, and leadership has been established by leadership, teacher leaders, and teachers, allowing for a positive, productive, and collective effort to increase student achievement throughout the school.

10. SEA Response to 2014 Report

11. Where We Are Seeing Progress To date, 57% of our turnaround schools have exited Level 4 status. Many schools and districts use the turnaround practices as an anchor resource. We are creating a common language and consistent expectations statewide. We are leveraging these lessons learned regarding evidence-based practices as we develop our ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) plan.

12. Research Partnership for Continuous Improvement Susan Bowles Therriault, Ed.D.Principal Researcher, AIR

13. Question for the Audience Think about struggling schools in your district or state . . . • What is the biggest challenge these schools face?

14. Research—Big Takeaways • SIG made a statistically significant difference in student outcomes in Massachusetts schools (based on a comparative interrupted time series): • Single-state context • All findings compare outcomes of students in SIG-funded schools compared to student outcomes of comparison schools over time: • Some Level 4 schools do not have SIG funding. • Comparison schools are matched within the same district. • Examination of implementation provides insight into how turnaround is achieved.

15. SIG Impact Study RESOURCE: http://www.air.org/sites/default/files/downloads/report/School-Redesign-Grants-Massachusetts-Impact-Study-September-2016.pdf

16. Impact Study Findings • Overall. Students in the SIG schools performed better on the English language arts (ELA) and math state assessment compared with students in comparison schools in Years 1, 2, and 3 of the grant. • Reducing the achievement gap. SIG was associated with a decrease in the achievement gap: • English language learner (ELL) students and non-ELL students in ELA and mathematics for all three years • Students who did and did not have free or reduced-price lunch status for all three years • Students with special education status and students without special education status in Years 2 and 3 in ELA and only in Year 2 in math

17. Equivalent to one additional year of schooling in both ELA and math Impact Study Findings ELA Achievement Score Effect Sizes Math Achievement Score Effect Sizes

18. SIG Implementation Study RESOURCE: http://www.air.org/sites/default/files/downloads/report/School-Redesign-Grants-Massachusetts-Implementation-Study-September-2016.pdf

19. Implementation Study—School Sample Selection and Method • Implementation method: mixed methods • Interviews, surveys • Monitoring data (interviews, focus groups, classroom observations, staff surveys) • Framed by the turnaround practices and indicators

20. Implementation Study Findings Identified by Massachusetts school turnaround leaders Areas of struggle for low implementers Autonomy Communication Culture Instructional Foci and Expectations Classroom Observation Feedback and Data Use Multitiered System of Support Nonacademic Student Supports Schoolwide Student Behavior Plan Expanded Learning Opportunities Family Engagement

21. Turnaround Practices and Indicators

23. Implementation Study Finding Autonomy 1.1 Use of Autonomy

24. Implementation Study Finding Instructional Foci and Expectations 1.2 High Expectations and Positive Regard 2.1 Instructional Expectations

25. Implementation Study Finding Classroom Observation Feedback and Data Use 2.4 Classroom Observation Data Use 1.5 Trusting Relationships

26. Implementation Study Finding Multitiered System of Support 2.3 Identifying and Addressing Student Academic Needs 2.7 Structures for Instructional Improvement 3.2 Teacher Training to Identify Student Needs 3.4 Multitiered System of Support

27. Implementation Study Finding Nonacademic Support 3.2 Teacher Training to Identify Student Needs 3.4 Multitiered System of Support 4.2 Adult–Student Relationships 4.4 Wraparound Services and External Partners

28. Implementation Study Finding Expanded Learning OpportunitiesSchoolwide Behavior PlanFamily Engagement 4.1 Schoolwide Behavior Plan 4.3 Expanded Learning 4.5 Family Engagement

29. Autonomy • Staffing • Fit • Quality • “The principal has flexibility to put people in the right jobs or bring people in to give the added supports to help students that are struggling.” • Schedule • Student learning • Adult collaboration, development, and connection • “Ensuring that professional time was built into the schedule—a significant amount of professional time (3–4 hours per week)—was a critical component of the turnaround work.” • Challenges • Budget • Turnover and disruption (beyond staff replacement requirements) • Exiting status

30. Multitiered System of Support • Focus on students • Adult collaboration, student centered • Processes, systems, and structures for support • “We have a student support team that meets every week, on Fridays, to go through the list and analyze which students are struggling from a behavioral standpoint. They look at referral data, they look at notes that have come out of cohorts meeting as to who is struggling. Based on that, they develop interventions, follow up, or even sometimes go observe that student in class and provide advice to the teachers.” • Consistent and coherent processes • All staff understand the processes for referring and supporting struggling students • Clear delineation between classroom and larger interventions • Challenges • Integration and connection with other services (e.g., special education, ELL supports) • Level of need among students

31. Question for the Audience Think about struggling schools in your district or state . . . What is the biggest challenge these schools face?

32. Field Guide Brett Lane, President, INSTLL

33. Turnaround Practices Field GuideRationale and Need • HOW do schools engage in rapid turnaround? • What are the key mechanisms, ingredients, actions, and ways of working that lead to dramatic improvement and sustained turnaround? • And WHAT do the turnaround practices really look like in PRACTICE? • Exemplars – Artifacts – Practices in Context • Why develop a field guide? • The turnaround practices provided the foundation. • But we needed more detail about the “how” of successful turnaround so that all districts and schools could better understand what it really takes (and what turnaround truly looks like).

34. Turnaround Practices Field GuideRationale and Need Based on information collected, we identified and described: • A set of cross-practice themes • A set of strategic turnaround actions characterizing the first 100 days of successful turnaround • Four case studies of how schools implemented the turnaround practices, drilling down into two or more practices and providing exemplars and artifacts Focusing on schools that had exited, we: • Surveyed principals of exited schoolsand visited four schools. • Collected detail and artifacts on one or two of the school-specific practices that played a significant role in turnaround efforts.

35. Cross-Practice Themes Theme 1: Turnaround leaders have a strong sense of urgency, a high degree of instructional expertise, and relational leadership skills. Theme 2: The school is characterized by an improvement mindset that permeates all behaviors, decisions, discourse, and actions. Theme 3: The school has developed and is using highly consistent, aligned, and rigorous instructional practices—instructional coherence.

36. Cross-Practice Themes Theme 3: The school has developed and is using highly consistent, aligned, and rigorous instructional practices. • An initial level of instructional expertise exists among leaders and key teachers as to what high-quality instruction looks like and means in practice and in student work. • Teachers in each grade level have co-developed common units and lesson plans and are teaching the same lesson to their students within the same week, if not the same day. • Tight alignment and consistency of instructional practices reduce instructional variability across the school, making it easier to develop, implement, and test new instructional strategiesand to then scale up effective strategies.

37. Cross-Practice Themes Theme 3: The school has developed and is using highly consistent, aligned, and rigorous instructional practices. Toachieve a high degree of instructional coherence and rigor: • What leadership and teaming structures need to be in place, vertically and horizontally? • How often do administrators and coaches need to formally and informally observe teachers? • How often do teachers need to be engaged in peer observations and walkthroughs? • What type of feedback is most useful to teachers? • How can teachers best examine student work to assess the impact of instruction and interventions?

38. Strategic Turnaround ActionsThe First 100 Days 38

39. Strategic Turnaround ActionsThe First 100 Days I did not anticipate the volume of behavior issues that we would have. I came in, and I said, "We’re about academics." False. The whole first year was about rebounding from the misconceptions I had about the needs our school would have. During the year, we realized we had todo more. —Principal

40. Strategic Turnaround ActionsThe First 100 Days Strategic Actions What This Looks Like in Practice All new teachers receive training on specific techniques, strategies, and ways of working with students. The principal and administrators visit classes every day to observe and provide support to teachers, focusing on consistency within and across grades. Every Monday, grade-level team leaders meet to review an online data dashboard that allows the team to review student-specific behaviors and the impact of supports. Joy CalendarWe focus a lot on joy . . . celebrating the work that we do together. The easiest way to turn around the culture of the room is to get kids feeling positive, feeling invested, feeling excited about what they’re doing. Adult–Student RelationshipsThere's no yelling at all. We are really aware of tone and especially our population, we've got a lot of students that have trauma in their history, and we know that yelling activates trauma. We talk a lot about not even just yelling, but like monitoring your facial expressions and keeping your tone really neutral when you give consequences.

41. Case Studies & Turnaround Practices Video Series • Video series featuring seven turnaround schools • Two 2016 videos are aligned to the Field Guide Case Studies Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education

42. Where You Can Find Resources All turnaround practices resources can be found on the Massachusetts Executive Office of Education website: http://www.mass.gov/edu/government/departments-and-boards/ese/programs/accountability/support-for-level-3-4-and-5-districts-and-schools/school-and-district-turnaround/turnaround-in-massachusetts/turnaround-and-emerging-practices-reports.html A digitized version of these resources is under development.

43. Questions • Any questions? • Contact information: • Erica Champagne (MA DESE) echampagne@doe.mass.edu • Amanda Trainor (MA DESE) atrainor@doe.mass.edu • Susan Bowles Therriault (AIR) stherriault@air.org • Brett Lane (INSTLL)brett.lane88@gmail.com