our-children-our-future-creating-future-focused-schools-bill-daggett-ebook

Our Children, Our Future Creating Future Focused Schools Dr Bill Dagget, ICLE Founding Partner Empowering High Performing Teams That Prepare Future Ready Students With vision and the tools that support changes in practice, your leadership and instructional teams make continuous improvement that leads to remarkable student achievement Our experienced practitioner thought leaders will help you create a sustainable futurefocused vision The outcome? Future-ready students Your Vision Partner To drive lasting change, you need a partner who has been there We are former district and school leaders– experts in instructional systems, teaching, and learning Your vision is ours This Future-Focused Schools eBook series is designed to give you a wealth of expertise from Dr Bill Daggett, Founder and Chairman, ICLE based on his years of experience working in schools, with schools and on the behalf of schools, just like yours Contents Dr Bill Daggett ICLE Founder Partner Part Preparing Kids for their Future, not our Past What it Means to be Future-focused Five Foundational Characteristics of Rapidly Improving Schools Impact of Technology Rigor and Relevance Part But Kids are in Crisis The Need for SEL 10 Four Factors Lead to Explosive Growth 10 Part The Way to Future-Focused 12 Living in Quadrant D 12 Prioritize Social Emotional Learning 14 In Practice 15 Part A Final Word 16 ESSA Subgroups 16 Post Covid-19 16 Part | Preparing Kids for Their Future, not Our Past What it Means to be Future-focused The nation’s most rapidly improving schools have thrown aside fear and opened themselves up to having difficult conversations They dare to ask even the most painful questions They have developed the shared vision and team trust to work their way through understanding to solutions They continually work together to improve—with openness, honesty, and respect—and as a result, have been able to drive incredible change and innovation These schools are achieving the ultimate goal: preparing students to be independent and successful adults in the face of an ever-changing career landscape Dr Daggett’s perspective throughout this eBook is guided by three national studies that lead to five central themes • School district’s most successful innovative practices: The School Superintendents Association: The Nation’s Most Success Innovative Districts • Understanding impact on the schools: Council of Chief State Schools Officers: The Nation’s Most Rapidly Improving Schools • Understanding the impact on students: National Dropout Prevention: Research Universities Five Foundational Characteristics of Rapidly Improving Schools With a culture of innovation in place there are five central and foundational characteristics that we have observed in the most rapidly improving schools as documented across these studies They are future-focused, not forward-focused Rather than make decisions for a new school year made around staffing, budget, and curriculum already in place, innovative schools look to the future world where their students will live and work and start planning there They ask “what will our students need to know, need to do, need to be, to succeed in that future world?” With this answer they backward plan from the intended future outcome to identify what will happen now in school and in their classrooms In doing this fundamental shifts appear In a recent study, McKensie worked with 100 businesses to understand what skills their workers were going to need in the year 2030 and how they differ from today? They found schools embrace the growth model They start • A decline in basic cognitive skills If you can Google them by analyzing where each student is on day one Then, using their available time and resources • A decline in physical and manual skills, because of advancing technologies And interestingly these are the very two things schools have focused on most over the last decade effectively, they continually adjust their plan based • A large increase in social emotional skills They predicted a 24% increase because you can’t lean on Google to help develop them schools have studied their special education • A significant growth (55%) in the academics that underpin technological skills, in particular data analytics They put students first In the most successful on individual development, bringing each student as far up a learning arc as possible Many of these teachers’ expertise in supporting student success using individualized instruction and a growth model, to generalize those practices among all teachers for the benefit of every student They use rigorous and relevant instructional schools content takes a back seat to students practices When you spend less time focused Their educators understand that students on the tests and instead focus on growth for themselves are changing far more rapidly than every child the test scores improve To achieve the content Meeting students’ needs as their this growth for all students, instructional practice environment changes is priority number one at must be rigorous and relevant They get students these rapidly improving schools Their leaders to think deeply They assign learning tasks that understand that the traditional ways that are tied to the real world and student interests so schools and teachers are currently regulated, that students gain skills and insights valuable to certified, tenured and contracted around future careers If you are familiar with the Rigor/ content acquisition is fast losing relevance They Relevance Framework , rapidly improving schools know that to focus on students first they must ensure much of their instruction falls within put content last Quadrant D—high rigor, high relevance They use a growth model rather than a proficiency model In a proficiency model, students are expected to arrive at the exact same place of proficiency, as measured by one test, at the end of the school year so that they can start the next grade from the right place Despite starting at a wide range of different levels of achievement, despite differences in how they learn and in their interests and despite that they will each have different, unpredictable circumstances arise during the school year, they are all expected to arrive to the same end point, at the same time Rapidly improving schools see the lunacy of the proficiency model and reject it They understand that measuring learning by the passage of time does not work now, if it ever did Rather, these 5 Executive coaching anchors professional learning These schools realize that it is not enough to bring together teachers and administrators for just two professional development days a year To successfully implement and sustain improvement in the four preceding points, they learned how other professions manage organizational change The most rapidly improving schools have incorporated an executive coaching model into their professional development They have adopted a mix of formal and informal professional learning programs that engage them throughout the year, with executive coaching as the anchor From classroom to boardroom, they supplement scheduled professional development opportunities with executive coaches to provide “just-in-time,” individually tailored support to staff at every level and members of their board of education Our schools are working to be future-focused but not because they are failing Kids are better educated than ever before but less prepared for the future than ever before It’s because we are faced with the challenge of preparing kids for a world we can’t comprehend, not just for an individual job, but for entire job clusters, entire industries The world outside of school is pushed by technology Drawing from experience working to turn around and is changing 4-5 x faster than schools are the lowest performing schools in over 300 school changing The biggest area of expected change is districts we see that in order for schools to be future in the American workplace In 2000, approximately focused they are also changed forever The new 12% of the jobs in the country were low wage, about normal for American schools requires us to look at 20% were upper work wage and the vast majority of things quite differently We need future-focused workers in America, more than 65%, were middle wage models that define what students need to know, workers Since the year 2000, consider how many and be like to be successful as a generation of people have lost a job because of an ATM or a kiosk future-ready students in the near and long term Then in 2018, the last date hard data was available, We need to understand the impact of technology, the actual number of lower wage jobs increased recognize the fundamental shift that occurs and How is that possible when technology eliminated so embrace the new skills that are emerging many of those jobs? Because technology created more jobs at the top and this higher wage level group had more help with childcare, house cleaning, lawn maintenance, etc This created and expanded a lower wage service sector The US Department of Labor data projects that by the year 2030, there will be an increase in lower wage jobs, they’re about 25% of the US Impact of Technology In our current Covid-19 crisis we see an everexpanding and changing role that technology will play in how we organize teaching and learning in the US There are three phases or shifts in technology Phase 1: Passive Technology workforce An increase in upper level jobs, close This is most familiar as we all live it If you have to 40% Leaving only about 25% in the middle But googled something in the last 24 hours you have American public education was always designed experienced passive technology Nothing happens to prepare people for the middle with Google until you ask it a question Phase 2: Generative IT In this phase, you find information and compare and contrast it Think of your GPS and how when you hit traffic it reroutes you This use of predictive analysis is how the GPS uses information that is monitored and gathered to redirect you Think about Facebook and how it tracks what you are doing The data it collects forms your profile that is then matched with others They track what they purchase and and sell that information back to advertisers who then What’s more, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics target you with relevant ads Predictive analytics predicts that 65% of today’s elementary children will hold jobs that haven’t yet been created yet We have Another, more dramatic example of this is in the been and remain in need of a critical time of change medical field Unlike how it used to be, doctors check ups using technology to capture answers to questions as their systems build a profile of you as treatments, etc The medical field has seen a Rigor and Relevance A Framework for Learning A New Set of Required Skills shift from providing medical care to managing/ Schools that are future-focused are preparing kids for facilitating patient care Now think about this as it an emerging set of skills rather than simply focusing on relates to education, the same kind of shift is needed the old curriculum They put that stake in the ground in education In the districts profiled in the earlier three to five years out and say what will our kids need national studies mentioned, they are already doing to know? There are ten central skills leading the way: part of large medical databases against which they can compare and contrast you with similar profiles as they use data analytics to guide medications, with teachers what the medical field has done Their teachers are not simply providing instruction and delivering content to students They’re managing Complex problem solving Critical thinking Creativity People management Coordination with others Emotional intelligence Active listening Service orientation Negotiation Cognitive flexibility student learning Changing the role and providing instruction, delivering content and managing student learning becomes the requirement in post Covid-19 teaching and learning Phase 3: Artificial Intelligence (AI) With AI technology, we no longer just find and compare information Now it begins to make assumptions and learns and predicts As an example there is a project debater from IBM It gives you a topic and then researches the topic and provides an argument back for the time you have available It currently provides it as a verbal debate but is moving toward delivering it as a written debate It provides you with the best argument you can provide if you have twenty seconds, 45 seconds, minutes, etc to describe an issue or if in writing, one paragraph or ten pages It can read millions of articles, simultaneously on any topic and quickly provide you an argument for whatever side you want it to take, instantaneously How will that impact students writing papers? It’s a shift from just finding information to finding, analyzing and creating something from that information Not only will this impact every industry, from medical, retail, automotive, and finance to transportation, agriculture, food service, manufacturing and education but it will lead to a redistribution of jobs in America as we have described throughout this eBook Application Model To teach these skills, many future-focused schools around the country use the curriculum design and leadership models developed by ICLE The curriculum design model begins with the application model that has five levels of learning I simply have knowledge in a discipline I apply knowledge in my discipline area In math I can word problems I apply knowledge across disciplines What I learn in math I use in science I can apply my knowledge to real world predictable situations I apply knowledge to a real world unpredictable problem or situation Knowledge Taxonomy education programs, getting kids job ready The This is then married with the knowledge taxonomy, problem is the B jobs are being eliminated by the I call it the rigor taxonomy, also known as Bloom’s advancing technology Taxonomy to educators Career ready is D Future focused schools understand we have to be anchored in quadrant D Academic rigor, today, is a synthesis of the levels with real world application of that knowledge It’s the ten required skills Here’s our challenge In the world that most of us grew up in, in the pre-internet age, schools had to teach in quadrant level A and C because you couldn’t Google it You either had to have knowledge or you had to know where to go get knowledge In We bring them together into a framework of teaching and learning we call Rigor/Relevance Framework® the post-internet age however, we have to teach in quadrant B and D because you can Google A and C And, increasingly, you have to teach in quadrant D because B is being eliminated by fastgrowing technology The real challenge at the school is that we are regulated, certified, tenured, contracted and tested at A and C while quadrant D is most essential Looking at the Rigor/Relevance Framework in terms of the school preparing for life and work, in quadrant A is low level knowledge with no application That’s what state tests measure You need quadrant A to get to B C and D A is essential, but alone, it is not adequate C is higher level skills, it’s college preparation B is the application of basic knowledge and that is career and technical Part | But Kids are in Crisis The Need for SEL In addition to quadrant D, we have exploding numbers of kids in crisis The data is crystal clear Mental health and behavioral disorders are diagnosed in out of children ages 2-8, most commonly in non-Hispanic white boys • in 12 high school students have cut themselves • 16% of high school students have thought seriously about suicide • 18% of college students have thought seriously about suicide Since 2010, among teen girls: • Suicide rates increased 65% • Severe depression increased 58% • Feelings of hopelessness increased 12% According to the World Health Organization, 21% of girls ages 13 to 18 suffer a serious mental/behavioral health condition during the developmental years Four factors lead to Explosive Growth Technology In 2007, the first iPhone came out; in 2008, the Facebook app on the iPhone showed the iPhone could much more than originally thought In 2009 we saw the introduction of like/dislike/retweet While at the same time we see the incredible acceleration in the use of technology for kids There are several factors that contribute to the crisis • Lack of deferred gratification Our children’s constant use of technology has created an expectation of immediate feedback Deferred gratification, an important skill for good behavioral health, is not being adequately developed • Lack of deep relationships While our children are developing relationships, they are not deep, personal relationships needed for good behavioral health • Prevalence of online bullying Bullying via social media has become too common of an occurrence • Exposure to inappropriate material A simple internet search can lead to explicit content—including unexpected traumatic events and graphic images—that kids not yet have the emotional capability to deal with • Digital citizenship Understanding the impact of plagiarism, one’s reputation, and one’s digital footprint including internet searches, social media posts, and more 10 Medical Drug Use From 2000-2012, we’ve experienced a 383% increase in children born addicted to a substance, often due to legal medication the mother is on for pain or depression Home Missing adults Many children have little adult contact in the home Helicopter adults Other children are so overprotected by helicopter parents they not develop adequate emotional and social skills School Increasingly stressful environment Tests have caused school to be overly stressful for many students At the same time as the graphic below shows there is a dramatic decline in: • 12th graders who have drivers licenses, • the amount of kids who have tried alcohol before they graduated from high school, • the number of kids that have had a date before they’re graduating from high school • the number of kids who have part time jobs And while the number of kids consuming alcohol illegally being down is good there is still another consideration drivers licenses, drinking, dating, part time jobs, you make mistakes and you learn from them When you learn best? You learn by doing, experiencing If you think about the ten required skills we described above that are so critical, they are all learned by experiencing them What is happening is kids are having less and less face-to-face life experiences, less social-emotional learning in schools and are not less prepared with the skills they need to be future-ready but they are in crisis 11 Part | The Way to Future-Focused The takeaway is that the ten required skills come in quadrant D And that quadrant D, together with SEL, becomes the cornerstone in the most rapidly improving schools in the country Success builds from the development of a series of cognitive skills, social emotional skills and interpersonal skills High performing schools build leadership as a disposition, not a position Everyone can be a leader in our schools Living in Quadrant D Effective innovation drives a new rigorous learning experience Working with and analyzing the practices in our nation’s most rapidly improving schools we have found that these schools use innovative successful practices to connect their instructional programs to the world beyond school in a way that resonates with their students They live in quadrant D They are focused on preparing students for success in that world and have made a transformational shift How did they get there? These schools came to the realization that they had to adapt, or else their students simply weren’t going to have what’s needed for success after graduating They understood that districtor school-wide innovation was not an option, but an urgent need They identified what had to change And they put together leading edge, systemic plans to make that change happen with buy-in from everyone involved Effective innovation moves everyone in education—from administrators to students to the community—out of the twentieth-century paradigm of a focus on teaching to a focus on learning Innovation that empowers every last person in the system It changes what happens at the classroom and teaching level, the instructional leadership level and the organizational level Innovation that helps us break free from the regulatory rigidness that has been holding us back from real change for decades Innovate what we teach Those ten required skills are essential It’s critical to teach our students what they need to know Success tomorrow depends on students developing the specific skills, those ten required skills, needed to work with technology that transforms our world 12 Today’s employees take action with that data be in the future As technology advances at a rapid Doing so is collaborative and interdisciplinary pace there will be a marked shift but we cannot They need to analyze the findings; discuss the wait until that day to start preparing students If analysis with colleagues from other departments, we do, we are too late Another example, we can sometimes across the globe; consider the findings currently direct technology via voice (Alexa, Siri, relative to other information, research, constraints, Google) Now we will see technology that allows us or needs; and determine a path forward that to direct it via thought meets all company priorities and goals Students need to be prepared to this They need to work together and smartly share and use resources Culture trumps strategy If innovation is going to work, everyone on your campus or in your district must feel empowered Everyone This is only possible through a culture of empowerment From Complex problem solving Critical thinking there, successful innovation requires that schools Creativity People management Begin with the end in mind: The end goal gives be future focused clear purpose to all decisions you will make and actions you will take to innovate for impact It Coordination with others Emotional intelligence creates a vision What’s the end goal? Arming graduates with skills relevant to tomorrow’s career landscape Every facet of your district or school Active listening Service orientation must then be built to meet that end A future focus must permeate every corner of your world as an educator In other words, vision drives decisions, Negotiation Cognitive flexibility including all those around innovation The vision to fuel innovation must be future focused schools have not caught up to the world around Nine interrelated areas that must evolve to make room for future-focused innovation them There is a major disconnect between what we Goals: The end goal must be to guide students are teaching and what our students need to know toward success beyond school, not just in school Innovate how we teach The fact is that most of our and to be successful in their lives beyond school Take a key example Your students are always on their smartphones That is, until they walk into your Focus: The focus must move beyond incorporation of technology in the classroom to how technology is school After all, if they were to use them while used authentically in the world beyond school taking a test, they’d “cheat” by looking up answers Outcomes: In the Rigor/Relevance Framework®, all or texting friends to compare information In other words, they’d work together and smartly share and use resources Is this cheating? Or is this rigorous and relevant learning? What would your district response be? Now consider what your answer would outcomes must reach Quadrants B and D; focusing on Quadrants A and C outcomes will not help students be career ready Instructional Focus: The focus of instruction must 13 be achieving Quadrants B and D.The most future- is to ask all staff, from teachers to superintendents, to focused schools use The Learning Criteria to vet things they didn’t experience as students, learn in all instruction for Quadrants B and D alignment, teacher education programs, or practice on the job A but they so in an innovative way: they are using one- or two-day professional development program the Learning Criteria backward, starting first with will not provide the skills they need The nation’s most an emphasis on interpersonal skills and finding rapidly improving schools have taught us that ongoing, that student engagement, stretch learning, and on-the-job coaching at all levels is critical if you are to foundation learning happen organically successfully transform your schools Data-Driven: School improvement begins and ends with data Quantifiable data around instructional programs and student performance needs to be collected and monitored frequently, used to inform the decision-making process, and Goal Professional Learning Focus adjusted as needed Emerging Skills and Knowledge: Educators must teach skills necessary for establishing successful careers and thriving in tomorrow’s workplace, Outcomes Instructional Practice Leadership including reading, writing, data analytics, innovation and creativity, and wise social media skills Instructional Programs: For schools to align with the careers of tomorrow, how we deliver instruction must change to include academies, problembased learning and interdisciplinary lessons This frees teachers to what they best—build Instructional Focus Instructional Programs Emerging Knowledge and Skills Data-Driver relationships and connect with students to nurture interpersonal skills low-cost and high-impact technology tools that Prioritize Social Emotional Learning leverage gamification and augmented reality to Just as there are developmental and preventative increase learner engagement and relevance A practices to maintain a healthy physiological Instructional Practice: Educators should look to blended approach is needed, which includes a combination of emerging technology practices and traditional instruction It is not an either/or approach It is a blending of both stressful situations, there are also developmental and preventative practices for mental/behavioral health However, in our schools, we need to prioritize Professional Learning: With systemic innovation comes the identification of these practices and integrate big change Successful innovation is only possible when them into teaching and learning, rather than simply people feel supported through professional learning addressing at the intervention and treatment levels Therefore, instructional coaching for teachers and executive coaching for leaders is essential To innovate 14 lifestyle, such as diet, exercise, sleep, and avoiding To combat this growing challenge, school boards and administrators have had to use increasingly scarce Interdisciplinary Teams = Integrated Learning financial resources to hire social workers, counselors, In our model, the goal is to get to quadrant D You psychologists, and other staff to support our teachers can’t get there one discipline at a time, so the and building administrators Those expenditures have, nation’s most rapidly improving schools are moving in many districts, come at the expense of shifting to away from simply department chair people for fewer teachers and larger class sizes The impact of discipline to interdisciplinary departments Here these shifts are obvious to anyone who has taught you will see a teacher from each area (math, ELA, These challenges have led to a growing national call for Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in our schools In the past more time was spent on SEL skills but because of academic pressure resulting from assessment driving instruction earlier and earlier, something had to give and it was the developmental skills for SEL While most schools spend their time on intervention and treatment science, social studies, phys ed, etc working as a team The team will work with a set group of kids, in sequential periods and have a common planning period Now, what happens in first period relates to second period, second period relates to third and so on Education is integrated across disciplines through interdisciplinary departments resulting from crisis, the nation’s most rapidly improving Electives Start Early schools are spending more time on development and In the most future-focused schools, electives start prevention skills in ninth grade Highest performing schools are front ending electives to give the kids the electives in ninth In Practice With a laser focus on the ten required skills, social emotional learning, what’s needed to have your school teaching and learning in quadrant D, supported by leadership and monitored to see how kids are doing, you begin to see real structural changes in the highest performing schools Let’s look at some examples of what effective innovation looks like grade to find out what they like and adapt their curriculum pathway accordingly If they like art and music, let them take that If they love sports, give them a few periods of phys ed around a sport they really like It gets them engaged and high performing schools build the academics into it As an example, how sports is applied math and science How can you now teach it that way? Today’s high performing schools that and start it at grade nine Everyone is looping In today’s highest performing schools, you will see a new kind of looping - where the third grade teacher goes to fourth grade with the class Where you keep the kids and the teachers together for extended periods of time to improve communication and offset summer loss Rather than lose weeks at the start of the school year for everyone to get to know each other and acclimate you now have classes that can hit the ground running day This also supports the social emotional development of students and becomes a key way to address the issues discussed earlier 15 Part | A final word on ESSA Subgroups The current ESSA federal legislation requires us to make sure that all of our subgroups are given the opportunity to perform at the same level as the general population Our latest research shows that the subgroup issue becomes an even bigger problem for our suburban and more affluent school districts then it does in our rural and urban districts where we have been focused In rural and urban school districts, subgroup students, students on free and reduced lunch, minority and special ed students, they represent a large percentage of the student population in our most, hardest hit school districts Here the subgroup data doesn’t look too different then the total student population because they make up most of the total student population In more affluent communities that may have less than 10% of their students on free or reduced lunch and where only 5% of their student population are minorities, they are dramatically underperforming the overall population that is doing really well Schools need to figure out how to close the gap for this new subgroup in our suburban districts Here teachers may not be armed with the same skillset and even in some cases the same values and attitudes as teachers who have been teaching in our higher poverty based rural and urban school districts The ten critical skills described earlier, the role of central administration, and organizational leadership, all becomes more pronounced in our suburban districts The need to become effective at addressing these issues is even more essential as they need to close this broadening gap What happens after Covid-19 Every single aspect of what is discussed throughout this eBook becomes even more necessary as we will work to recover covid-19 A new economy, a new workplace, explosive growth in essential jobs all of this accelerates the importance and deepens the significance of ensuring more districts shift to the mindset, culture, practices and leadership approach needed to become future-focused 16 Ren-entry and Beyond: Implications and Considerations for K-12 School Districts COVID-19 is more than a short-term disruption It has also highlighted pre-existing shortcomings and challenges of our education systems, in ways that will only compound in future years if they are not addressed now As a result, even during the immediate and unplanned disruption of this year, successful leaders and teachers must focus on the future – on the ways that education for ALL children will need to change to not only be prepared for future disruptions, but to unleash more self-sustained learning for educators and students no matter the context This means working backwards from a vision of future learning to the systems that will support it Leaders should be working now to put in place the operational, instructional leadership, and teaching practices that will proactively build those resilient systems in their schools and districts for sustainable impact The following topic areas are intended to frame thinking, discussions, and planning around the range of priorities and conditions that leadership teams must address in the midst of and eventual wake of the coronavirus crisis We understand that these areas are intertwined, but by disaggregating them here we can sharpen focus on each of the variables that will influence the system as a whole Districts must develop and implement a plan of action to address a breadth of instructional needs: how instructional tools like curriculum and assessments will be focused and prioritized; how instructional practices will shift to accommodate both learning loss and continued uncertainty; how professional development can both happen more remotely and successfully arm faculty and families with the skills and strategies to deal with all of these and other changes; and professional collaboration (i.e Data Teams) that can reinforce and accelerate necessary shifts in instructional practice The plan also must address the possibility of a second interruption of in-person instruction next year This year, education leaders were cut significant slack by families, communities, media and political leaders for not being prepared for this unexpected and fast-moving crisis If a second interruption occurs next year, stakeholders may be far less patient with school leaders 17 Future-Focus Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, many districts were focusing on a wide variety of shifts, as advancing cases, of course, the devil is in the details: How you support teachers? What decisions you make about advancement, and how? What you with kindergartners is this scenario? Also, what we for technologies change the skills and knowledge that students transitioning between schools (elementary to students need to be prepared for in the workplace middle or middle to high), where collaboration between and society They were monitoring successful teachers is already challenged? What role will individual innovative practices found in our nation’s most schools have in these decisions, and how will policy be rapidly improving schools With the enormous challenges districts now face, some will address set by the Superintendent’s Office and the Board? • It is crucial to recognize that teachers cannot cover immediate challenges and take their eye off the all the missed standards without expanding the time more fundamental changes that are coming into kids will be in school in the future But given budget focus While there is urgency in meeting the basic needs of students, families, and staff, we must also maintain a laser-like focus on the necessary and contracts, that is not going to happen, so districts must make the difficult decision to recalibrate, identify and decide on the most important learning (power) standards that are a prerequisite for future learning changes that were revealing themselves prior to These power standards can exist within content areas COVID-19 We need to use the crisis as the tipping and across content areas, as well as those standards point to make needed shifts in our education which can be accomplished through an integrated system and not retreat to what was becoming an curriculum The first marking period of next year must outdated model Instructional Program Depending on the state, students will have missed 8-12 weeks of instruction—or perhaps more focus on those priority standards—and so too should long-term learning • Next fall, based on their home instruction, some students will have met these prerequisite standards; others (especially sub-group kids) will not This will require teachers to have very differentiated instruction This presents immense challenges, and requires in their classrooms For students lacking mastery, they rethinking of fundamental structures of schools will need to develop Quad A skills in these respective and instruction How can district leaders ensure an standards For those with the basic mastery of the appropriate foundation and scaffolding for what standards, teachers can help develop Quad D skills is to come in the curriculum? Do you pass students on to the next grade? Do you make many of them repeat the grade despite what research tells us— Therefore, teachers will need to shift their practice from covering content and delivering instruction to managing the learning process for students This leads to a major professional development need for teachers that retaining a student is the greatest indicator their dropping out of school? Assessment • For both instructional purposes and SEL/relationship Districts must identify, administer and use the data reasons, many districts will consider moving teacher and students together for the next school year Many are planning to this for one marking period Some are making plans to loop the teacher for the whole 18 from reliable assessments to determine the status of each student’s skills and competencies in the high priority standards required for future learning And year, and others are planning to have teachers team- those assessments must more than simply record teach with the next grade teacher for part of the first where a student happens to be on their return; they marking period Others are committed (at the secondary must point toward ongoing actions – structural and level) to move to interdisciplinary instruction In all these instructional – that can help to prioritize teacher time and accelerate learning While most districts When students return for school year 20-21, most have talked about the need for reliable formative will have been away from traditional schooling for assessments, not all have put them in place, but 5-6 months Remedial classes for those that have they must now be effectively applied as part of the fallen behind cannot be the singular “go-to” for re-entry plan districts responsible for making up half a year’s worth of learning while teaching all of the current Achievement Gap year’s worth, simultaneously “Gap” students were behind other students when we It is certainly not a job for the faint of heart Given that left school in March Whatever the root causes of the all students experienced some form of trauma during gap, the extended break has only exacerbated and the COVID-19 pandemic, the equation to help the likely expanded that gap Consider how students at most vulnerable students becomes more complex and home with families that had Internet access, multiple multifaceted Students that struggled with a typical devices, parental time for support and the means to curriculum and forming positive relationships at school supplement uneven remote curricula could still meet before the break will require intentional plans to or even exceed state standards compared to families meet mental health needs, social emotional learning that did not have the same opportunities Inequities development and time for rebuilding relational trust that show up and are sometimes accentuated at with adults in school For those students suffering school became the daily uneven footing for those the most acute forms of trauma the need to address who didn’t have the resources or time to supplant a the 3rd “R” (relationships) to assist students will be brick and mortar school experience heightened in dealing with this critical challenge 19 While all students will benefit from a return to the patterns, and the need to become an integral ebb and flow of school with the educators who family-school liaison for all families and children care for them, those who suffered the most have in our schools Teachers, administrators and other the most to gain with love, support and relationship staff must have this become part of their job building It is true that a rising tide raises all boats, responsibilities This starts with a strategic plan for so schools should consider reuniting students with cultivating positive learning relationships between their teachers from last school year and distill students and staff in concrete and deliberate ways learning standards to their most essential form that are woven into daily school life for future learning Support and the execution of would be the final piece of bridge building that will It is More than SLE—It is an Explosion in Trauma and Mental Health Issues not only get students back in the swing of school Over the past couple of years, schools have been differentiation from re-teaching to enrichment but have them learning the moment they cross the threshold into their classrooms Remote Learning is More than Online and Digital increasingly moving to create SEL plans Some districts have approached this as a secondary priority that their schools needed to address Other districts saw it as a core responsibility equal—if not more important—to academic Online/digital delivery is just the point of the preparedness The districts that treated it as a spear of remote learning We need to help districts core responsibility are now having more success at develop a plan for the potential second interruption dealing with the dramatic increase in the trauma next year from in-person to remote instruction The and mental issues that children are experiencing home becomes the primary center of instruction due to the dynamics of the COVID-19 crisis All when this occurs and many of these homes are not districts need to have a much deeper commitment organized or trained to assume this role Districts to the SEL/mental health/trauma dynamic they need to help create the environment and supports now find themselves in for remote learning to effectively occur Districts also need to plan curriculum elements (scope and sequence, project and independent learning) in ways that are more student centered, which will serve instructional goals whether instruction is in person or remote Whole Child/Whole Family 20 Health and Community Partnerships To provide the most insightful advice and resources available and to take meaningful proactive measures in the event of a second outbreak next year and beyond, districts need to strategically engage the community-at-large for the ultimate benefit of students and families The goal is to While we have always known that families are expand or create services that support students’ central to effective learning, COVID-19 has made academic achievement, address their physical their importance even more vital We need to shift and mental health, and offer broader and more our thinking from Whole Child to Whole Family This convenient ways for families to interact with the has a major impact on the strategies we use, the school We also recommend that districts convene required professional development, the staffing an advisory board of medical experts and health leaders These may include the Department of Health and physicians to help establish a plan for safety practices for staff and students as face-toface environments are resumed They also need to know how to monitor future outbreaks and related safety concerns Budget Challenge—Doing More with Less Prioritizing Professional Development All of the challenges above leave districts with a wide array of development/staff support needs than ever before: to address the plans for student gradeadvancement and monitoring; the prioritization of key standards and related performance tasks within an integrated curriculum; and delivering differentiated instruction to meet the needs of all students, to name At the same time that districts will receive a a few Yet with the intense need for in-person time wide variety of budget demands to deal with with students, the traditional PD programs will not be instruction, mental health and other related issues, possible We also know that with the budget shortfalls they will also face declining revenue in most states that districts face there will be a tendency to not want The budgeting process, which for years has been a to fund PD Therefore, more innovative approaches “forward-focused approach” in most districts, will must be found to deliver the increasingly needed PD/ not work in this new environment Rather, a “future- support from boardroom to classroom, and central focused approach” needs to be taken, and new to this will be a combination of online and executive processes and systems will be required, reflecting coaching options the prioritization of high impact relationship building, academic focus, and intervention Trailblazers are wanted and needed now more than as needed ever It doesn’t mean you’ve got it all figured out But it does mean that you’re open to doing difficult and Contract Challenges extraordinary things by rising to the moment in times All of the above will require new and innovative when circumstances might predict otherwise The approaches by administrators, boards and teacher time is NOW, the FUTURE is for you to define unions/associations Recovering and learning from this crisis, and how it will change education systems long term, is a shared challenge for every layer of the school system, and engaging union partners early and creatively will be crucial to design effective solutions to the complex issues Plan for Possible Second Interruption Parents, taxpayers, media and politicians may be more critical of school leaders if they are not fully prepared for a second interruption Superintendents need to have a comprehensive plan to deal with all the items mentioned above and then effectively manage its implementation should a second interruption occur 21 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