CENTENNIAL SCHOOL DISTRICT R-1

COLORADO INTEGRATION PROJECT

SPRING PROGRESS REPORT – YEAR 2

APRIL 1, 2012

Executive Summary

As we near the end of year two of implementation of the Common Core State Standards and SB 191, we remain on-track with the majority of our goals and outcomes to date. As we approach the end of our pilot year with the evaluation pilot, we are making the shift from familiarizing ourselves with the tools and protocols toward using our pilot data to inform our work for the coming school year. To that end, our biggest challenge in this area continues to be in designing and building policies, practices and systems to make our work sustainable.

Meanwhile, our work around the Literacy and Math Deign Collaboratives continues to grow, while informing our efforts to build curricula and assessments that embed quality teaching and learning practices across content areas and grade levels. While we anticipate some changes in staffing patterns due to turnover and teacher attrition, we feel confident that the training and distributed leadership structures that have been put in place will guard against any major disruptions to our work.

Finally, our work around integration and scaling has reached new levels of success as we continue to pursue opportunities to partner with our BOCES and institutions of higher education, while developing local systems and leadership capacity through the work of our integration liaison. While we are awaiting final details and decisions around this aspect of the work to be made in the coming weeks, the added collaboration and support appears to be promising for our district and our region.

Progress on Outcomes and Milestones

SEE ATTACHED STATUS REPORT

Implementation Successes

One of our notable successes during the past six months has been in our effort to scale out our integration work within our BOCES. On February 1st, 2013, Centennial hosted our first BOCES wide training for teachers in LDC and MDC as part of the ongoing Race to the Top of the Valley (RTT Valley) initiative. Participants included teachers of 6-12 ELA, Social Studies, Science, World Languages and Math from 8 surrounding school districts as well as 5 participants from our neighboring South Central BOCES. In total, we had more than 50 new teachers trained in LDC and more than 20 trained in MDC. The training also prompted discussion within our BOCES and SAC leadership structures around how to embed LDC and MDC components into the RTT Valley initiative.

Implementation Challenges and Risks

The Februray1st training represented our first attempts as an integration district at “scaling up” our integration work to a multi-district/BOCES level and was as success in terms of exposing new teachers to the work. The challenge since has been in sustaining the work and support through existing channels, while building out new structures to provide oversight, support and follow-through for the teachers who attended the convening. The turnout for follow-up ePD sessions with our TOT and Colorado consultant has been markedly low, while the ability of our partner districts to commit time and resources for scheduling in-person follow up trainings has been exceedingly difficult as we approach the end of the school year, thus limiting our capacity to develop and sustain the work throughout the summer. Moving forward, our focus will be on continuing to work with our BOCES leadership to build capacity for ongoing professional development in LDC MDC, while building our own teachers’ capacity to share their work using technology via ePD modules, blogs, video sharing and PLCs.

Internally, we also continue to face challenges around areas of systems-building and change, and balancing the workload associated with that change as we continue to adjust to the demands of the CCSS and SB 191. Particularly, these challenges have focused on areas where we have identified systemic “gaps” that pose significant challenges to our work. For example, a recent assessment inventory conducted as part of our work on Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) revealed a number of grade levels and content areas that currently do not have valid assessments to measure student progress or growth. As a result, a number of teachers have expressed concern over the district’s readiness to attach growth measures to evaluation beginning in the fall of 2013. In an effort address this challenge, the district is in the process of planning resource and staff allocation (though budgeting, improvement planning, etc.) to enhance our focus on assessment and data use going in to next school year. We have also made assessment building and data review a key component of our integration liaison work as we move forward with Integration II.

Organizational Capacity

As mentioned in the executive summary of this report, our organizational capacity is likely to be slightly impacted as we transition from one school year to the next. Changes in staffing patterns, teacher turnover and attrition will create a need for training new staff on the use of LDC and MDC, as well as the educator effectiveness rubric. Anticipating this need in advance, however, we have taken steps to include these trainings in the work of our TOTs, while creating new opportunities for support and job-embedded PD and coaching.

On a structural level, we are in the stages of planning some significant shifts to our secondary teaching schedule by moving from a 7-period model to a rotating block schedule. Based on feedback from teachers working with LDC and MDC, this shift will provide enhanced opportunities for our teachers to both plan and teach better quality lessons that are aligned to the demands of the Common Core. In an effort to provide ongoing support for this transition, and to systematize collaboration amongst staff, the district and teachers union have also negotiated to add an additional day to teachers’ contracts, which will be used to provide 4 early-release PLC days during the next school year. We feel that these changes, which came about in large part through our integration work, will enhance the quality of instruction, support and feedback we are able to provide, while giving teachers more opportunities to collaborate on improving student outcomes.

Financial Report

SEE ATTACHED BUDGET

Project Budget Narrative

Centennial is within the parameters of our planned budget for the 2012-2013 school year. Our biggest expenditures are on travel costs and stipends related to work around LDC and MDC. Moving forward, we anticipate that we will need to rely more on our reserve/carryover budget for covering costs related to our scaling of the grant work.

Sustainability Plans

As previously mentioned, Centennial has a plan in place to mitigate the impact of our transition from this year to next in terms of hiring and training new staff in LDC and MDC. Meanwhile, our work with our BOCES around integration has focused on sustaining our regional collaborative efforts around LDC, MDC and SB 191, and building capacity for ongoing support for teachers to have undergone initial training in each. Our superintendent has shared that plans are underway to add LDC and MDC –specific PLCs to next year’s calendar of RTT Valley collaborative PD days. Additionally, our TOT/Integration Liaison has developed a plan to support both our internal and external efforts and building sustainability by continuing to support teachers and working with our local institution of higher education – Adams State University.

Tools and Resources

LDC/MDC AND CURRICULUM

CDE Sample Curriculum Blank Templates – Used by teachers for designing concept based units aligned to the CAS

CDE Sample Curriculum Sample Units – Used by teachers to support in the development and implementation of concept based units

EDUCATOR EFFECTIVENESS

CLF SB 191 Implementation Tool Kit – Used for ideas, strategies and technical guidance around SB 191.

CDE Assessment Review Tool – Used to validate district or teacher created assessments

CDE Assessment Inventory –Used to gauge our capacity and readiness for SLO work and to identify gaps

CDE Student Learning Outcomes Excel Tool – Used to determine SLOs and weights for multiple measures

SCALING AND COMMUNICATION

Centennial School District Integration Project Website – Used for communication with parents, community and other school districts about our work

Foundation Relationship

The Colorado Legacy Foundation (CLF) has been and continues to be a key support as we continue to roll out our integration work. In addition to providing us with guidance, human resources, and logistics support during our first BOCES wide training on February 1, CLF has provided assistance and support in project planning, resource identification, developing tools and templates for engaging community and parents, and technical assistance with LDC, MDC and SB 191. Regular communication through project manager’s meetings and individual phone conferences have been essential for keeping us abreast of project development and timelines, while allowing us to share ideas, stories and lessons learned with other integration districts. To that end, any opportunities to continue collaboration and communication around grant outcomes and lessons learned are both welcomed and appreciated.

Success Stories

Our work around implementation of the Common Core State Standards and LDC/MDC has opened a number of opportunities for teacher leadership as we continue to build capacity around LDC/MDC and take them to scale. Among the staff at Centennial that has fully embraced the Common Core and has been essential in building momentum for integration throughout our region is Kimba Rael, Centennial’s 9-12 Language Arts teacher.

Since beginning the work as an LDC participant in 2011, Kimba has since expanded her role to become a LDC PLC leader for our district, a regional LDC trainer, and is currently taking on a new role as Centennial’s Integration Liaison. In addition, she has embarked on a number of action research projects, most recently as part of the Elevating & Celebrating Effective Teaching/Teachers (ECET2) Conference, where she worked in collaboration with other teacher leaders from across the nation to design a 1-year project to support implementation of LDC and capture best practices along the way. Earlier this year, Kimba was chosen from amongst Colorado educators as a participant in the Sample Curriculum Project to design sample, concept-based curricula for use in Colorado school districts. More recently, she has also been selected to participate in item review for the 2013 TCAP Content Validity and Item Review, where she will assist in ensuring that test items are aligned to the Colorado Academic Standards.

As demonstrated by her engagement as a teacher-leader throughout the duration of our integration work, Kimba’s leadership has been instrumental in building and maintaining capacity around the CCSS in our district and our region. Her hard work and dedication has contributed to the training and support of many new teachers in LDC/MDC in southern Colorado and is a true testament to the power behind engaged teacher leadership in this project.

Submitted by Curtis Lee Garcia, Project Manager