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One State’s Journey to Fewer Teacher Absences

Rhode Island: a state known for its gorgeous coastline, diminutive size and… teacher absences?
 
Since the Thomas B. Fordham Institute published its Teacher Absenteeism in Charter and Traditional Public Schools report in September, there has been plenty of talk about the state’s teacher absence rates. And there’s no debating that the numbers are high.

rhode island numbers What the Numbers Say

Rhode Island versus national numbersData from the Frontline Research & Learning Institute indicates that in Rhode Island, K-12 employees requiring a substitute had an average of 20.12 absences during the 2016-17 school year — significantly above the national average of 11.73 absences per employee.
 
Those high absence rates aren’t evenly distributed, with only 15 percent of Rhode Island educators having perfect attendance during the 2016-17 school year.
 
percentage of employees requiring a sub by number of days absent
 
To be clear, that number does include all reported employee absences, including those for administratively approved reasons such as professional development and field trips. But in Rhode Island, only 8 percent of absences are for professionally related reasons, compared to 17 percent nationally.
 
That begs the question — why are Rhode Island teachers absent so frequently compared to their counterparts in other states? It seems to depend on whom you ask.
 
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute suggests that high absences rates are due to teachers in traditional school districts taking advantage of “the generous leave policies and myriad job protections that are enshrined in state law and local collective bargaining agreements.” However, the author admits the limitations of the study via a disclaimer that “because this study is descriptive, it can highlight revealing patterns in rates of teacher chronic absenteeism, but it cannot establish a causal relationship between any specific policy or factor and absenteeism.”
 
Meanwhile, the National Education Association Rhode Island and the Rhode Island Federation of Teacher and Healthcare Professionals believe that the age of the workforce, maternity leave and other variables have much to do with the state’s high absence rates, and are quick to point out that the Fordham study did not take these into consideration.
 

rhode island What RIDE Is Doing

In any case, all those absences add up to a lot of lost instructional time and high substitute costs. The Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) has responded by targeting teacher absenteeism as an area of focus. The state’s Equity Plan from 2015 states that ineffective staff management is a root cause of inequitable access to teachers. They proposed a strategy to “collect and analyze educator attendance data” and reinforced this policy by creating a Teacher Attendance Task Force intended to gather information on how school districts document teacher attendance. This commitment to making an impact on teacher absence rates was further strengthened by including chronic teacher absenteeism as an indicator in the Rhode Island Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) State Plan.
 
Going forward, RIDE will include data on chronic teacher absenteeism, defined as being absent more than 10 percent of the school year. That’s far more generous than the U.S. Department of Education’s definition of 10 or more absences in a school year. The state also plans to analyze employee absenteeism data at the school level to “support meaningful differentiation of schools” and allow the data to be included in state, LEA and school report cards.
 
Megan Geoghegan, the Communications Officer at RIDE, says:

“We started to collect teacher absence data and will begin publicly reporting it as part of our school report cards under ESSA. In addition to being publicly reported, teacher absenteeism will be included as a metric in the school accountability system. We believe that including both teacher and student absence metrics in our accountability system underscores the critical importance of attendance, and provides transparent data for families in order to paint a more complete picture of school culture and climate. By collecting and acting upon this data, we hope to have a better understanding of why educators may be absent, and what supports we can put in place to mitigate chronic absence.”

 

lessons light bulb A Lesson for Everyone in Teacher Absences

So far, Rhode Island is the only state to include teacher absences as an indicator in its ESSA plan and commit to tracking teacher absences in order to strategically reduce their impact on instructional time. However, they’re unlikely to remain alone in that regard, as research continues to show how teacher absences negatively impact student achievement. Rhode Island is blazing a path toward improved student learning by tracking both teacher and student absences, and holding themselves accountable in gathering that data.
 

Build It Up, Buttercup: Keeping Your Applicant Pools Full

Filling the school applicant pool

Education has a problem.

To replace retiring teachers and keep up with increasing student enrollment, schools will need to hire about 300,000 new teachers every year. But less than 5 percent of high school seniors are interested in education as a major or profession. Clearly, there’s a massive gap between the number of teachers needed to fill our classrooms, and the number of people interested in becoming teachers — and many districts are already feeling the pinch.

Unfortunately, a true solution to filling the national teacher pipeline is beyond the efforts of a single organization. It’ll take widespread societal changes to how teaching is perceived and supported as a profession, and that’s a work in progress.

In the meantime, though, finding enough teacher candidates to fill open positions in our schools isn’t impossible; it just requires thoughtful strategies. Some of these strategies take a while to take full effect — like “Grow Your Own” programs, which focus on supporting current non-teaching staff in a journey to becoming credentialed teachers. Other districts focus on co-curricular career pathways (like Educators Rising) to help secondary school students prepare for a future in teaching. This goes beyond recruiting — districts will need to also take a more holistic approach to developing and retaining their current employees to keep the best teachers in their classrooms.

However, these initiatives take time to plan and implement, and many district recruiters need an influx of teaching candidates now.

What Can You Do Right Now?

The news is full of districts coming up with innovative ways to attract new educators. Some build housing, offer sizeable signing bonuses or help new teachers pay off student loans. But not every district has the resources for those kinds of incentives. Luckily, there are ways to ensure deeper applicant pools for every position.

Start recruiting and hiring early.

When is the best time to start recruiting teachers? Trick question — it’s always a good time to build your applicant pool. Instead of waiting for candidates to come to you, consider proactively recruiting applicants. Keep in mind that the best teachers do tend to be hired early in the spring, so it’s a good idea to move your hiring timeline up as much as possible. You’ll be the early bird who gets the worm, plus you’ll have less end-of-summer stress caused by unfilled positions as the school year approaches.

Create compelling recruitment materials.

What makes great teachers want to work in your school? Invest in a well-designed district website to attract new applicants and show off the many reasons why teachers should want to work with you. Recruitment is all about marketing your district, so make sure you have a compelling message to reach potential candidates.

Here’s some hand-picked content you may enjoy

Making Your Mark: How to Build Your District Brand 

Modernize (and customize) your recruiting practices.

Still recruiting through newspaper classifieds? Today’s job-seekers look for positions online, so consider advertising jobs on high-volume websites like K12Jobspot and Teachers-Teachers.

Recruiting online lets you reach more teachers, even those out of state. And although it’s often said that about 60 percent of teachers work within 20 miles of where they went to high school, this may be changing. Millennials — the youngest generation of teachers —are far more likely to relocate for a job, with 85 percent saying they are willing to move to a new city for work. They’re also the most likely to seek out new jobs online, making online recruiting a sound strategy for any district.

Building a strong applicant pool is like making a masterpiece out of LEGO: it will take some creativity and time, and you need to make sure you have all the right pieces. But it’s all worth it when you find the right teachers who, like LEGO, will “inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow.”

The Top 5 Reasons for the Teacher Shortage

 

 
America is approaching a crisis point regarding the number of available teachers. Low-income schools are seeing increasingly high turnover rates for their educators, and fewer young graduates are entering the teaching force in the first place.

Many districts are already making significant changes to the way they approach both teacher recruiting and teacher retention in an effort to stem the tide, especially for disadvantaged schools.

Recently, the Learning Policy Institute conducted a report to identify why present and would-be educators are abandoning the trade. The report yielded five major factors districts can focus on to weather the shortage and reverse the trend of declining teaching candidates.

5 Major Factors Influencing the Teacher Shortage

  1. Salaries and other compensation
  2. Preparation and costs to entry
  3. Hiring and personnel management
  4. Induction and support for new teachers
  5. Working conditions

 
The report provides further detail about the challenges districts may encounter in each of these areas, as well as 15 policy recommendations to help school districts address the teacher shortage.

All these factors point to one important lesson: it takes a holistic approach to overcome the teacher shortage.

The schools that give attention to all aspects of a teacher’s career—from recruitment, to training, to ongoing growth and compensation—will be the schools retaining their best teachers, attracting new talent and providing the best education for their students.

School Psychologists, Juggling & Systems-Level Change

school psychologist addresses student

There are two things about me that you may not know: (1) I can juggle; (2) I am a certified school psychologist. And I think that there is a connection between these seemingly random facts. Let me explain…

Juggling

First, the juggling: when I was in high school, I discovered that my very talented younger sister had learned to juggle. I immediately believed that if she could do it, well, of course so could I. So, I embarked on a tortured process of self-instruction (conducted in an era before YouTube) marked by numerous setbacks that at last culminated in the modest accomplishment of being able to keep 3 balls in the air for a reasonable span of time. (In my later work as a school consultant, I found that I could empathize with the plight of students struggling with complex reading or math demands by recalling my own frustrations in trying to acquire the far simpler skill of juggling!)

School Psychology

My decision to enter the field of school psychology 29 years ago was a bit more roundabout. I was at loose ends after graduate school, wondering how to monetize my masters in English literature. My uncle was a guidance counselor who clearly enjoyed his job, so, I decided to enroll in a school counseling program at a local college. We counselors-in-training shared some of our courses with students from the college’s school psychology program — and I couldn’t help noticing that the school psychologists appeared to be having a lot more fun than we were! Within a semester, I had switched my major to school psychology.

Once in the psychology program, I had the misimpression that the primary role of school psychologists was to evaluate children for special-education services. But my first school psychology job in an urban school district quickly exploded that notion. The needs of my elementary school were great, and staff were very receptive to new ideas and initiatives. From day one, I was sharing ideas with teachers about how to provide effective classroom academic and behavioral support, counseling students, collaborating with building administrators to strengthen the school-wide behavioral climate, and connecting with outside agencies to bring services into my school. I was forced to juggle a range of duties — from providing direct service to students and teachers, to helping to reshape the larger building-wide system of student supports — and found the work exhilarating.

While I now work full-time privately as a trainer and consultant to schools, I still think of myself primarily as a school psychologist. And my experience of wearing many hats when serving as psychologist was not at all unique. As this year’s School Psychology Awareness Week approaches (November 13-17), there are over 30,000 school psychologists across the nation providing essential and varied services to promote student success. The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP, 2014) defines the knowledge base and skillset of the typical school psychologist as including data collection and analysis; academic, mental health, and behavioral interventions; special education services; assessment; consultation; and much more.

The school psychologist is the educator equivalent of the Swiss army knife, a professional able to strategically apply a diverse range of tools to help solve a multitude of school challenges.

School psychologists are educator equivalents of the Swiss army knife, able to solve a multitude of school challenges. bit.ly/2AhrF6Z

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School Psychologists & Systems-Level Change

The school psychologist is particularly well-suited to assist schools to achieve system-wide change — one example is RTI/MTSS. This 3-Tier model of academic and behavioral support depends upon ‘RTI/MTSS ambassadors’ who can move seamlessly across the Tiers and collaborate effectively with administrators, classroom teachers, parents and other RTI/MTSS stakeholders. When properly deployed, the school psychologist becomes a catalyst to focus, harness and direct the RTI/MTSS efforts of the entire school community.

This School Psychology Awareness Week

My own ability to keep 3 balls airborne for any length of time is modest. However, if allowed to fully apply more of their professional skills, school psychologists have a real (figurative) talent for juggling. Schools that seek the maximum benefit from RTI/MTSS implementation can make proper use of School Psychology Awareness Week by reflecting on how they can make the fullest use of these talented professionals.

References
NASP: National Association of School Psychologists. (2014). Who are school psychologists? Bethesda, MD: Author. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/JIm/Downloads/who_are_school_psychologists_flyer.pdf

Does your organization have a scalable workflow that supports high-quality data capture and analysis for struggling learners? Take a look at how Frontline RTI & MTSS Program Management software can help you identify and support each student.

Q&A: Supporting Teachers in Professional Learning

Teacher engagement in professional learning is a topic we’ve talked about a fair amount at Frontline Education.

How can school systems increase that engagement? And what does it look like to put teachers in control of their own professional development (PD)?

Providing relevant, just-in-time PD opportunities is part of the answer — and online professional development course libraries for teachers can provide a wealth of on-demand learning. But the district’s role doesn’t stop there. Studies have shown that ongoing district support is vital if such a program will be successful.

In a recent webinar, we examined how districts can provide that support. That webinar led to some great Q&A about what school district support in professional learning should really look like.

One statistic cited in the webinar from the 2013 Teaching and Learning International Survey notes that in the United States, 95.2% of teachers surveyed engaged in professional development when they were given district support, but without that support, the number dropped to 1.7%. Do those statistics relate only to online training? Or does it refer to other types of professional learning as well?

That’s an important point — this statistic refers to any form of professional development, not just online training.
The perception is that engagement with live workshops is inherently higher, when in fact it’s not. Live workshops tend to have more support built around them. They’re planned and facilitated by the district. They’re often on-site. And if they take place during the school day, substitutes are provided.

Online professional development often doesn’t tend to receive the same support. Unfortunately, there is often a Field of Dreams-esque attitude to offering a library of online courses: “If you build it, they will come.” We purchase an online library. We tell our teachers it’s out there, we give them access to it — and we wait for them to show up at that field of dreams. When they don’t show up, unlike the ghost of Babe Ruth, we’re disappointed. But the fact is, with any form of professional development, some kind of support is needed in order to see legitimate engagement.

Survey results: with district support, engagement in PD was 95.2%. Without support, 1.7%. http://bit.ly/2yXGeP3

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What does this kind of support look like? Should it include monetary compensation?

Although this study didn’t address the specific question of monetary compensation, that could certainly be considered organizational support. Teachers generally have an expectation that professional development will be paid time, or that they’ll be compensated for that time in some way — that if they go to an approved workshop, they’ll be reimbursed for the workshop and paid for their time.

Financial incentives can be tricky. Sometimes a school system will provide online trainings with the expectation that teachers will take the courses because they’re provided at no cost to the teacher. But simply offering a “free” workshop or online class may lower its perceived value, and typically such an approach means the courses go unused. However, when teachers or substitutes are required to take certain classes, they generally do.

So is requiring training the only way that districts can support teachers in professional development?

Definitely not. Recognition can be a powerful tool — finding ways to show that our teachers and staff are engaged in professional learning, and that we appreciate that, can be a good incentive.

Career pathing systems are another method that can lead to engagement more like what you see in corporate settings, because there are tangible incentives. For example, demonstrating a certain skill level through engagement or evaluations might lead to being selected as an instructional coach or a department lead, which might provide access to additional resources or grants.

Some school systems also use micro-credentials to incentivize professional learning and open career opportunities for teachers who demonstrate certain competencies.

Pay, recognition, career pathing, micro-credentials & goal-alignment: how districts can support engagement in PD. http://bit.ly/2yXGeP3

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It seems that, for the most part, teachers take the training that they want to take. How do we make the most of that motivation?

We need to ask, “Is there a divide between what learning opportunities we as administrators think teachers should take, and what teachers want to take? And if so, why?” That’s an important question to answer. Do teachers believe they don’t need improvement in the areas we think they do? Is it that the district initiative that was selected this year doesn’t resonate with them? Could it be that teachers agree with the topic area, but the format of the learning opportunity doesn’t appeal to them?

Examining the professional development that teachers “want to take” can be informative. Combined with a clear picture of your teachers’ strengths, needs and goals, it can shed light on whether we’ve set the right professional learning requirements, whether additional alignment is needed between personal and organizational goals and what additional communication or feedback is needed to get everyone on the same page.

Of course, providing such support is no silver bullet — we shouldn’t expect a 50x increase in teacher engagement as a result of increased recognition, paid time for PD or career growth incentives. Yet the fact remains: the difference in engagement, and by logical extension, impact, of professional development offered with increased district support, is enormous.

Looking for a better way to provide relevant, personalized professional learning and offer teachers voice and choice in their own professional growth? Learn more about Frontline Professional Growth.

Podcast: Deep Dive into the Special Education Teacher Shortage

 

 
The word is out — special education in the U.S. is experiencing a severe teacher shortage, and recent data about the shortage speaks loudly:

  • Forty-eight states plus the District of Columbia have identified shortages of teachers in special education and related services.[1]
  • Half of all schools and 90% of high-poverty schools are struggling to find qualified special education teachers.[2]
  • The shortage in special education is now so severe that some districts are actively recruiting teachers from countries outside the U.S., including the Philippines.[3]
  • 12.3% of special education teachers leave the profession — that’s nearly double the rate of general education teachers.[4]
  • 82% of special education teachers and SISPs report that there are not enough professionals to meet the needs of students with disabilities.[5]

The question is no longer, “Is there a shortage?” but, “What can we do to turn the tide?”

In this podcast, we explore root causes of the shortage at the district and school levels — starting with pre-service teacher education and continuing through teacher recruitment, onboarding, retention and professional growth.

Dr. Tom Reap and Cydney Miller listen and respond to recent quotes from administrators serving on the front line of K-12 special education. Cydney, a former human resources director for Clarksville-Montgomery County School System, and Tom, a former director and administrator with over 20 years’ experience in special education, combine their unique perspectives to address the concerns of a current superintendent and special education director.

Does your organization have a system to recruit, hire and support special education teachers that will grow with your team? Consider how Frontline Education can help you find, develop and retain the right teacher talent.

 

References
[1, 2] Sutcher, L., Darling-Hammond, L., & Carver-Thomas, D. (2016). A coming crisis in teaching? Teacher supply, demand, and shortages in the US. Washington, DC: Learning Policy Institute. Retrieved from: https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/product-files/A_Coming_Crisis_in_Teaching_REPORT.pdf.
[3] EdWeek. (2017). School Districts Look to Philippines to Fill Teacher Vacancies [Blog post]. Retrieved from: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2017/07/school_districts_look_to_philipines_to_fill_teacher_vacancies.html
[4, 5] National Coalition on Personnel Shortages in Special Education and Related Services. (2016). About the Shortage. Retrieved from: http://specialedshortages.org/about-the-shortage.

5 Reasons Teachers Love Competency-based Learning & Micro-credentials

 

 

Schools and districts across the country are turning to competency-based learning, using tools like micro-credentials for teacher development. As opposed to traditional workshops, micro-credentials allow learners to gain and demonstrate mastery of skills incrementally. They’re changing the way educators think about professional development, and recent research indicates that teachers love them.

Here’s why:

1. Yesterday’s traditional PD model often doesn’t translate to classroom practice.

Studies by the Gates Foundation and others overwhelmingly show that teachers are dissatisfied with traditional professional development. Their data also suggests that the widely used workshop-based model doesn’t help teachers make changes in their classrooms. Recognizing this, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) goes so far as to state that “stand-alone, 1-day, and short-term workshops” do not meet its definition of effective professional development.

Why? For one thing, workshop topics are often too broad and fail to connect with the day-to-day needs of their audiences. They lack the kind of job-embedded learning that leads to long-term success. Professional development that impacts teacher practice happens in context: it directly relates to the competencies and skills teachers use every day in class.

Here’s some hand-picked content you may enjoy

White Paper: “Flipped Professional Learning: How (and why) to structure a flipped or blended learning model for individuals and groups” 

2. Micro-credentials are more than just summative.

Just as summative assessment alone fails to equip students with the tools they need to make lasting gains in learning, professional development models rooted solely in evaluation and compliance fail to help teachers meaningfully improve their practice. Instead, PD that integrates formative learning strategies maximizes educator growth. For example, a traditional approach to teacher evaluation training for new administrators might provide two six-hour days of instruction followed by a single summative exam. As a micro-credential, however, this training could break up the necessary competencies into component skills. Administrators would learn, practice, receive feedback and demonstrate mastery of each skill in sequence, thus preparing them step-by-step to succeed on the final exam.

Shifting focus from compliance to competency, micro-credentials help teachers master skills for the classroom. bit.ly/2wS53rB

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By shifting the focus from compliance to competency, micro-credentials help teachers master skills and implement them in their classrooms. The micro-credential learning pathway requires reflection and self-evaluation, and it culminates in users selecting and submitting evidence that they feel best demonstrates the target competencies. The emphasis is truly on helping teachers master their classroom practice and reach their full potential.

3. Micro-credentials are a big step toward giving teachers voice and choice in their PD.

One of the clearest takeaways from research on professional development and teacher satisfaction is that teachers want to have a say in their PD. They want learning opportunities that are relevant to their needs and the needs of their students, and since they’re in the best position to know what those needs are, they want a voice in the PD they’re offered. Micro-credentials empower teachers to choose which skills and competencies they’ll pursue, bringing their own goals, needs and interests — as well as those of their students — to the table.

Micro-credentials also let learners schedule their sessions and determine the pace. This adaptability to teachers’ demanding schedules marks a welcome departure from the “one-size-fits-all” PD model.

4. Micro-credentials make mastery manageable.

Granular by nature, micro-credentials build competencies in small, focused steps, making them easy to incorporate into daily practice. This is especially important given the fact that implementation is often the hardest part of PD. The Center for Public Education notes that “the largest struggle for teachers is not learning new approaches to teaching but implementing them.” By breaking PD down into bite-sized pieces and requiring proof of competency, micro-credentials help close the gaps between knowledge acquisition, implementation and mastery.

5. Micro-credentials reinforce accountability.

Be honest: have you ever attended a conference and paid less than rapt attention? Maybe you checked your email and feeds, dozed off for a minute or brought a stack of papers to grade. PD that centers on seat time typically doesn’t require much more than attendance, and unfortunately, attendance is a poor measure of mastery.

Micro-credentials make the case for a competency-based learning model over one primarily based on seat time, and they require demonstration of skills and abilities. In other words, they require evidence — and the words “evidence-based” appear 27 times in the ESSA regulations describing acceptable professional development for Title II funding.

Tweet: The words ‘evidence-based’ appear 27 times in ESSA regulations about PD for Title II funding. #microcredentials bit.ly/2wS53rB

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Teachers love micro-credentials.

In contrast with the current widespread dissatisfaction around traditional PD, the most exciting thing about micro-credentials is that teachers love them. In fact, a recent survey of micro-credential users showed that 97% of respondents who had completed at least one micro-credential indicated that they wanted to pursue another micro-credential in the future. That’s because micro-credentials are more than mandatory continuing education—they’re formative learning opportunities that personalize professional development, make mastery manageable, and reinforce accountability—all of which helps teachers improve their practice and apply what they’ve learned in their classrooms.

Your RTI & MTSS Data Analysis Team: Nerve Center of Tier 2/3 Services

Data Analysis Team and Tier 2 and 3 Services

Student data tells a story. When schools administer building-wide academic screeners, screening data has the remarkable power to predict which students are at serious risk of academic failure and need targeted RTI and MTSS interventions.

At Tiers 2 and 3, the Data Analysis Team (DAT) is the building-level group that interprets this data ‘story’ — they analyze screening information to discover and place students requiring more intensive academic support.[1] The role of the DAT is to use data to oversee entry and exit of students across Tiers 2 and 3.

The DAT meets after each of 3 school-wide academic screenings that take place in fall, winter and spring. Each time they meet, the DATs tasks are to:

  1. Share screening results with grade-level teachers to help them to improve instruction;
  2. Identify students that qualify for Tier 2/3 services; and
  3. Assemble an individual plan for each student identified for Tier 2/3 services.

DAT Goals

DAT members should also set goals for academic performance, and apply decision-rules to evaluate student progress. These critical functions will be topics of future posts as the school year continues.

The DAT is typically a multi-disciplinary building-level team. While there is no minimum or maximum number of team members, the team should collectively:

  • Be familiar with the state academic standards and academic curriculum for each grade level in the building.
  • Be knowledgeable of all intervention personnel and evidence-based programs available in the school for Tier 2/3 interventions.
  • Be skilled in applying benchmarks to estimate the risk for academic failure of each student picked up in the screening.
  • Be able to match identified students to appropriate interventions while providing students with sufficient instructional support.
  • Have the capacity to document in writing the Tier 2/3 intervention plan set up for each student.

Preparing For & Holding Tier 2/3 Intervention-Planning Meetings

(Adapted from Kovaleski et al., 2013; Kovaleski & Pedersen, 2008).

True to its name, the primary mission of the Data Analysis Team is to analyze and respond to student academic data. In preparation for the DATs work, the school identifies an appropriate range of screening tools and other data sources capable of accurately assessing student basic academic skills and/or curriculum skills.

Step 1: Select screeners.

The school chooses an appropriate range of screening tools to accurately assess student basic academic and/or curriculum skills. For each screening tool, the school establishes ‘cut-points’ — score ranges that allow students to be sorted and placed in categories according to their level of risk for academic failure. Those categories may include:

Tier 1: Core Instruction: Low Risk: No intervention is needed.

Tier 1: Classroom Intervention. Emerging Risk: A classroom intervention plan is sufficient.

Tier 2: Supplemental Intervention: Some Risk: The student requires intervention beyond core instruction to remediate off-level academic skill gaps. Tier 2 groups are limited to 7 students and meet at least 3 times per week for 30 minutes.

Tier 3: Intensive Intervention. At Risk: The student requires the most intensive level of intervention support matched to their unique skill deficits. Tier 3 groups are limited to 2-3 students and meet daily for 30 minutes or more.

Step 2: Find additional data sources.

The school can select additional data sources (e.g., state test scores; teacher nomination) for identifying students needing intervention support. When possible, cut-points are established for these additional data sources (e.g., organizing raw scores into cut-points on a state reading test to correspond with Tiers of intervention).

Step 3: Weight screeners & other data sources.

The school weights (in descending order of importance) are measures to be used to make intervention placements, with the most reliable, diagnostic sources appearing in first position.

When a student’s data shows an inconsistent profile (e.g., with some sources indicating a need for intervention and others suggesting that the student is low-risk), the school assigns greater weight to the more ‘trustworthy’ data sources to help to resolve the uncertainty.

Using Data to Have Conversations About Each Student

With your school-wide academic screening system in place, the DAT is ready to make data-based decisions about who is to receive Tier 2/3 intervention services. The DAT meets after fall, winter and spring building-wide screenings to update the roster of students eligible for supplemental interventions. Here are the general stages of DAT preparation and meetings that unfold after each screening:

  1. Prepare screening data.The DAT prepares school-wide screening data in formats suitable for sharing with classroom teachers and making Tier 2/3 service placement decisions. Your team should display this information in a way that’s likely to motivate educators to act on it. For example, teachers may benefit from individualized reports that include screening results for each student in their classroom along with summary performance information for all students at that grade level.To aid them in determining who is eligible for Tier 2 and Tier 3 services, DAT members should have access to clear, easy-to-read lists of students organized by intervention Tier according to the screening benchmark norms.
  1. Conduct grade-level instructional conversations. The full DAT (or its representatives) meet with teachers at each grade level. Grade-level teachers are given data reports containing academic screening results for their students, including summaries highlighting patterns of student performance and eligibility lists by Tier for that grade level.
The goals of DAT grade-level conversations are to:
  • Evaluate the effectiveness of core instruction. DAT and teachers review the numbers and percentages of students whose screening results met or exceeded benchmarks. A general rule of thumb is that core instruction is judged to be adequate if at least 80% of students perform at or above the benchmark cut-point.
  • Examine patterns of student performance. DAT and teachers next look over the screening results to see what grade- or class-wide patterns of performance emerge. Relative areas of strength and weakness are identified.
  • Brainstorm ideas to strengthen instruction. Once specific areas of student weakness are identified, the conversation turns to a discussion of specific strategies that teachers can incorporate into core instruction across the grade level to improve learning and outcomes. A recorder takes notes and the resulting ideas are formulated as an ‘action plan’ for teachers to implement.
  • Identify Tier 2/3 students. The DAT next reviews screening results at each grade level. The team’s task now is to identify students who qualify for Tier 2/3 services because they fall below cut-point scores on the academic screening measure(s). (For specific guidelines on how to sort students into intervention tiers, consult the technical documentation that accompanies your screeners.)
  1. Develop Tier 2/3 intervention plans. In the final segment of the DAT meeting, the team assigns each student to a specific intervention program and creates a matching plan. For each student, the team decides on details such as what group and intervention program that learner should be assigned to, the frequency and length of intervention sessions, and the number of weeks the intervention will last before check up. Of course, each student’s plan will also have a data component — a method of progress-monitoring — initial (baseline) assessment, and a clear outcome goal.The DAT also creates a written record of the intervention plan.  A key consideration for schools is how the content of these plans can be managed most efficiently. In the near term, DAT members need ready access to the intervention plans to evaluate student progress. Over the longer term, schools must be able to assemble a student’s full history of RTI support to judge whether they are responding adequately to academic interventions. An electronic management system for RTI/MTSS records is a recommended solution, ideally balancing ease of access with data security.
Here’s some hand-picked content you may find helpful: sample agenda and script for running DAT meetings.

Final Thoughts on the Role of Your Data Analysis Team

The DAT is essential to the smooth functioning of RTI and MTSS for academics. Its responsibilities are great — to manage Tier 2/3 entry and exit for the school’s most at-risk students. Therefore, the DAT is most likely to serve as an effective ‘decision point’ for routing students to appropriate academic services when it can depend on reliable screening data and follow a structured problem-solving meeting agenda.

Does your organization have a scalable workflow that supports high-quality data capture and analysis for struggling learners? Take a look at how Frontline’s RTI & MTSS Program Management software can help you identify and support each student.

 

Reference
1. Kovaleski, J. F., VanDerHeyden, A. M., & Shapiro, E. S. (2013). The RTI approach to evaluating learning disabilities. New York: Guilford Press.

2. Kovaleski, J. F., & Pedersen, J. (2008). Best practices in data analysis teaming. In A. Thomas & J. Grimes (Eds.), Best practices in school psychology, V. Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.

5 Reasons to Manage Teacher Professional Development & Learning Online

Google “online professional development” and you’ll find scads of articles about taking online PD courses. That’s great (we believe online courses can play a big role in meeting teachers’ needs — more on that later), but we’re thinking bigger.
 
What I mean is, why is it a good idea to manage professional learning online? To use a cloud-based system to administrate, track and report on PD, and provide follow-up opportunities for collaboration?
 
If you’re a large district with thousands of employees, using an online system to manage professional learning is almost mandatory: stuffed binders and overflowing file cabinets just won’t cut it. But even if your school system is small, there are still powerful reasons to use a professional development management system to run your program.
 

Even if your school system is small, there are powerful reasons to manage PD online: http://bit.ly/2ySZLgL

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1. Get more buy-in, engagement, voice and choice.
Since every teacher is unique — with varied backgrounds and experiences, strengths and needs, gifts and areas of interest — assuming that everyone needs the same professional development is a mistake. Nothing new here: despite the ubiquity of large-group workshops, educators know that this format is generally less-than-optimal.
 
An online professional development management system allows teachers to create their own individual growth plans, set goals and propose learning opportunities. And although providing individualized PD certainly requires more than simply having a plan in place, that plan is the place to start.
 
Some systems can also be purchased with libraries of online courses. By allowing courses to be taken in bite-sized chunks, such content can be useful in meeting individual teacher needs. And when teachers are able to engage in learning that supports them toward their goals, it can help increase buy-in as well. But note: if the program is to be successful, the importance of providing district support to teachers as they take such courses cannot be overstated.
 
2. Tie professional learning to classroom observations and evaluations.
As school systems shift from seeing evaluations as a way to score a teacher’s performance (and by extension, to determine salaries, promotions and the like) and move toward a more collaborative process aimed at improving instructional practice, the close connection between observations and professional learning has come to the fore.
 
At Frontline, we call this the “Learning Loop” — where each teacher’s needs and strengths are highlighted, and appropriate learning opportunities can be recommended to address them. A system that melds professional learning and evaluations together can help people find the right learning opportunities and provide visibility into each teacher’s growth journey, increasing transparency in the process. And it’s a tangible way school districts can take steps toward meeting the Every Student Succeeds Act’s criteria for data-driven professional learning — learning that’s based upon and responsive to real-time information about the needs of teachers and students.
 

5 great reasons to manage K-12 professional development online: http://bit.ly/2ySZLgL

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3. See exactly where you are (so you know exactly where you’re going).
Professional learning represents a significant investment districts make in equipping teachers. But does it make an impact on the classroom? Does it help to improve teaching? Does student achievement climb?
 
These are questions a professional learning management system can help answer by letting teachers log their changes to classroom practice and provide feedback after learning activities, so you can see if those activities are making a difference.
 
Beyond that, an online system can help track the data points needed to show progress toward professional learning objectives, school improvement plans and individual, building, district or state-level goals. Are your teachers required to take 100 hours of professional learning every five years? Suddenly, it becomes easy to see where each one is in hitting that target.
 
4. Keep the learning going, even after the activity ends.
You’ve been there: you attend a conference, workshop or team meeting, and come away with great ideas and new strategies to implement. But somehow, they never take flight. Sound familiar?
 
We all know learning should be ongoing, and the best way for that to happen is by collaborating with other educators. Some online systems can provide an environment for teachers and PLCs to connect, discuss and collaborate after the formal activity has ended. Better yet, they can help you monitor how coaching, mentoring and peer collaboration are supporting educator growth and impacting practice, and include them as part of each individual’s learning history.
 
And many educators have discovered just how useful video is for coaching, mentoring and self-reflection. Managing professional learning online enables you to track these learning formats, and some tools even give you the ability to upload your own videos to watch and self-reflect, or to share with a colleague and invite feedback.
 
5. Save time and money.
Who can’t get behind more efficiency and bigger bang for your buck? Online professional development management systems mean less time pushing paper, less time pulling data together from different places, less time searching for that file that got sandwiched somewhere on your desk and less time moving different spreadsheets and Google Docs around your screen.
 

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Case Study: How Frontline Professional Growth helps Greece Central School District manage professional learning more effectively — and save time and money in the process.
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Still creating a paper catalog of PD opportunities? Save on printing costs — and make sure it’s always up-to-date — with a digital catalog instead. Have a backlog of emails to return, proposals to approve and PD reimbursements to process? Consider a system with customizable workflows to speed things along. Struggling to manage schedules, track registration and attendance at professional learning events? Those are all things that a cloud-based system can handle, freeing you up to start tackling items on your “Someday” list.
 
Interested in seeing just how an online system can help power up your professional learning program? Frontline Professional Growth gives you the tools to support best practices for real-world impact — and make your job easier at the same time. See how it can work for you.
 

Report: Special Education Classification Rates Across U.S.

Special Ed State Report
By 2014-15 the number of children served under IDEA was 6.6 million or 13% of total public school enrollment.  When looking at this data, districts, schools and educators must consider equity in education and the appropriateness of the classification of special needs students in and across states.

ESSA says each state is responsible for achieving equity for its special needs students.  This means that family income, race, ethnicity, English Language Learners’ proficiency and disability status should no longer be predictors of a student’s educational potential.  Equity is ensuring all students receive the resources they need to be successful, such as rigorous teachers, up-to-date instructional materials and more.

But with the significant flexibility allowed by IDEA in determining methods used to identify and classify special education students, how does classification from state to state look across the U.S., and do educators and administrators agree with the classification landscape in their local districts?

A recent Frontline Research & Learning Institute report, Crossing the Line: Exploring Equity in Special Education Across the United States, explores this question in depth.

Classification Rates by Region and State

The Institute report notes that the highest classification percentages are clustered in four northeast states with 17.8% in New York followed by 17.6% in Massachusetts, 17.5% in Maine and 17.1% in Pennsylvania. States on the lower spectrum were scattered across the country with Texas at 8.6% followed by Idaho at 9.8%, Colorado at 10.4% and Hawaii at 10.5%.

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[Quiz] Administrative Tasks Under IDEA: Who is impacted the most: teachers or administrators?

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Educators React to Their Local Classification Rates

The Institute surveyed 3,000+ administrators, educators and related service providers to see how they felt about the classification rates in their local districts. Despite the fact that classification rates vary greatly across states, the majority of nationwide respondents (56%) believe that the appropriate number of students are classified in their local system.

special education classification report part 1
Source: Frontline Research & Learning Institute. (2017). Crossing the Line: Exploring Equity in Special Education Across the United States.

Results vary a bit when breaking them down by role. While special educators and principals reported feeling that more students should be classified than currently are, administrators and directors of special education felt that fewer students should be classified.

You can see how perceptions break down by these job categories and how they compare to the national statistics in the full report.

special education classification report part 2
Source: Frontline Research & Learning Institute. (2017). Crossing the Line: Exploring Equity in Special Education Across the United States.

What About Your School System?

How do you think the number of students who are classified with a disability compares to the number of students who should be classified with a disability in your school system? And to take it a step further — what measures currently in place in your organization are working well to identify and support students with special needs?

Learn more about state-specific classification trends, equity and equality in the full report.

References
1. Frontline Research & Learning Institute. (2017). Crossing the Line: Exploring Equity in Special Education Across the United States. Malvern, PA. Retrieved from https://www.frontlineinstitute.com/reports/special-ed-report/.

Warning: Is your district at risk of a cyber security breach?

Is your district at risk of a cyber security breach?
Just this month, over 143 million American discovered their sensitive information was compromised by a massive security breach at Equifax. Once again Americans find themselves scrambling to update passwords and wondering when the scammer emails and phone calls will start rolling in.

For school districts, cyber security now more than ever needs to be at the top of everyone’s mind. With the majority of district information – including sensitive student information – moving online, districts need to know how to protect themselves. The cyber security of dozens of school districts has been compromised in the past few years, sometimes by mischievous students and (more often) by intruders with more insidious motives.

How does a cyber security breach happen?

One of the most startling implications of the cyber age is how easily hackers can gain access to school district data. Occasionally, third-party vendors can be hacked, which can lead to a district’s own data being compromised.

Often, however, it takes as little as one employee clicking on a single email, or an unprotected file on a district computer. From there districts are at risk of sensitive data – including student information – being illegally accessed.

Students often know how to hack or “jailbreak” their school-issued devices, too – exposing them to potentially harmful content and scams.

What can we do to protect our online data?

First, school district employees need to understand how these cyber attacks take place. Most attacks take place when an employee opens a phishing email. From there, hackers can gain access to district employee information or even gain control of district websites. And on average, these attacks take months to detect, long after the damage is done.

District staff need to be educated on identifying suspicious emails and the tricks hackers employ, such as contacting them via email addresses similar to, but ultimately different from their colleagues’ addresses.

Consider doing a phishing simulation with training.  You can take advantage of some well-developed and free resources from EDUCAUSE.

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Cyber Security in K-12: Is Your School District Prepared?  

Second, district staff need to be educated on how to handle sensitive data. Some student or staff information, such as social security numbers, should never be handled without proper encryption.

One of the best resources for understanding student privacy and how you can develop your own program is at FERPA SHERPA. Another good overview of how to manage privacy risk with EdTech is at ikeepsafe.org.

How can I learn more about cyber security?

Take steps towards greater employee and student information security with our free Cybersecurity Program Getting Started Guide. The guide includes a checklist and links to additional resources, so you can confidently evaluate your own district cybersecurity program.

Download now