Attainable, sustainable real-world success: teachers in this district fight for the opportunity to share data and collaborate on ways to improve the instructional program.

For many years, we in the educational community have heard the success stories that prove wrong the belief that low socio-economic/minority students can't learn. But by the time these stories are published, the success is long enough in the past that the published summaries lack the rich details needed to replicate the success. They also leave out the trials and tribulations leaders encountered along the way, as well as what was done to deal with the difficulties in a productive manner.

The current circumstances in public education require a sharing of the steps and missteps to success so that we can support our profession and the children we serve.

The Cucamonga School District began the deliberate journey to becoming a place where children consistently learn, grow and master standards in 1997. As with any journey, there are always questions about what to do, what to do next, and whether this will continue to work or if it was just luck. There is never a time when everyone is on the same fully-committed page. We have learned that even in this very human type of environment, success is possible.

The Cucamonga School District is a small, K-8 organization located in the Inland Empire. While areas around the district grew rapidly and became more affluent, the Cucamonga School District has remained small and continues to serve a highly transient population of students, 70 percent of whom qualify for free or reduced lunch. Approximately 25 percent of our students are English learners, and until recent years, approximately 20 percent of our teaching force left the district each year. Most managers were hired from outside the district and their tenure in the district was short.

These conditions provide the backdrop for the continuous improvement process that has proven successful in the real world and is both attainable and sustainable.

The process began with the focus on analyzing student achievement, with the purpose of having that analysis lead to goal-setting and changes in the instructional program. To anyone who is a logical thinker, these steps made sense. To others devoted to the creativity of the teaching/learning process, this suggestion was seen as a betrayal of our children.

To address these concerns, teacher leaders were selected from each school who understood the logic of the process and who used creativity in their classroom instruction. These leaders were provided in-depth professional development and served as the communicators for the change to be implemented.

Over the years, time for collaboration has been provided through substitute released time and use of physical education specialist teachers. A final solution to the question on how to provide collaboration time has come through a negotiated agreement to shorten lunch by 10 minutes a day and dismiss students early one day a week. Teachers use the time on the early dismissal day for collaboration and planning.

Although it took several years to build the foundation of collaboration for the purpose of jointly improving student achievement, teachers now fight for the opportunity to share quality data and to work together to adapt the instructional program for students.

The use of teacher leaders has been formalized over the years. Each school identifies six to seven Student Achievement Instructional Leaders. These teachers receive extensive professional development and serve as grade-level or department chairs, with the responsibility of facilitating the implementation of each new step in the ongoing improvement process. Indepth professional development is also provided to teachers in Teacher Expectations and Student Achievement, reading/mathematics instruction (AB 466) and strategies for English learners.

The dramatic systems change that is necessary to improve student achievement needs the support of administrators who are trained in guiding an effective change process. All district leaders participated in a year-long training on change. Schools are asked to use a variety of structured discussion tools to plan their next steps with staff, to debrief and adjust and to define/monitor the agreed-upon behaviors that support effective change.

As our reforms progressed, we found that data for data's sake can fuel a lively conversation; however, something productive must be done with the information for anything positive to happen. Teachers were guided to develop pacing charts and to identify instructional materials that support improved student achievement. This certainly organized the instructional calendar, but it also clearly demonstrated that there was far too much material to cover in a school year. The identification of essential standards based on the content of the state tests helped teachers to refine their pacing charts and to focus their teaching.

This raised the question of what should be considered essential. When a majority of students are not performing at grade level, improvement must focus on the standards that not only are tested, but those that create the building blocks for future learning. This can be very skills-based.

Finding a creative balance

Many teachers were concerned about having time to incorporate music, art, higher-level thinking and other creative and necessary components of a balanced educational program. We asked for patience, and that patience has indeed paid off. After several years of intensive intervention, a significant number of middle school students have progressed to the point that the master schedule can be changed to reduce the number of specialized support classes and increase the number of elective classes being offered.

Even with this more focused teaching, some students mastered the essential standards and some did not. To enhance the instruction on essential standards, classroom instruction each day begins with a short standards-based lesson. Each week the standard(s) incorporated in the mini-lessons are assessed. Over the school year, all essential standards are repeatedly taught. This instruction is, of course, in addition to the paced instruction plan followed for the remainder of the instructional day.

Organization of the instructional day

Using the results of these mini-assessments along with other assessment tools, teachers also began to look at the organization of the instructional day to carve out time when specialized grouping of students would allow for tutoring and enrichment. This has taken the form of 30- to 45-minute sessions during the day, after-school classes, tutorial classes in lieu of electives and Saturday academies.

Specialized grouping includes the coordination of regular education, special education, English learner and Title l services. To facilitate this coordination, blocked schedules were developed at the elementary level to allow the services to be focused on a different grade level at different times of the day. Supplemental teacher support is provided for English learners with the use of part-time teachers in the regular classrooms.

Title I staff was given flexed schedules so that as many as 30 students a day at each school could be given an hour of extended-day instruction. Regular classroom teachers also provide extended-day instruction for at-risk students.

The middle school schedule was totally revamped. Two teacher teams were created to serve the same group of students and to provide supplemental or enrichment class sections to support student mastery of the essential standards. This was a change from the past configuration, in which teams of four single-subject teachers worked with the same group of students. With the new configuration, teachers with multiple-subject credentials could be hired.

Since Cucamonga is a K-8 school district, after several years of experience, single-subject teachers had often moved to the local high school district and significantly increased their salary. This change in configuration allowed us to retain quality teachers and to significantly curtail teacher transiency. Several teams work together in planning and implementing new strategies. The music teacher was given a flexed schedule so that students who could not take an elective during the regular school day could extend their day and be in the band.

A jump-start en the school year

Summer school has taken on a new look that is directly connected with the other strategies used to improve specific student performance. Students most at risk are provided intensive and specific small-group instruction during the first few weeks of August. This provides them a jump-start on the school year.

District staff coordinate their program with Claremont Graduate School. Several district teachers are on staff at Claremont and instruct other teachers on how to teach reading. Interns in the Claremont program work with Cucamonga students as a part of the summer jumpstart efforts.

Developing and identifying assessments

While all of what appeared to be a smooth adaptation to the instructional schedule was taking place, many arguments continued to occur over which assessment should be used to identify student strengths and weaknesses. Much time was devoted to developing and identifying assessments all teachers would use, and whether or not they provided accurate data on the achievement of the essential standards. With the support of the Instructional Data Management System, consistent trimester assessments have been developed and implemented.

With consistent data available, the quality of the conversations about that data became an issue. These new assessments focused on the essential standards and are in the format of the test items on the California Standards Test. That is very different than using a test that is designed to test mastery of the instructional materials being used. Intensive professional development to include modeling by expert facilitators is used to make the conversations fact-based, focused on the individual student and solution-oriented.

Although specialized time periods exist to address the specific needs of students who are not mastering the standards, teachers needed support in becoming proficient in the most effective instructional strategies. New materials were also necessary to support both remediation and enrichment.

Using our Student Achievement Instructional Leaders team as the method of transmitting professional growth, training is provided on quality instructional strategies. The same leaders plan how to best implement the use of strategies in general classroom instruction and in specialized support programs. This training, founded on the research-based strategies compiled by Marzano, is improving instructional practice and addressing the concerns about the inclusion of creative teaching that supports the development of higher-level thinking skills.

This phase of implementation is in its beginning stages and will continue for several years to ensure all teachers have the training, support and confidence necessary to meet the individual learning needs of their students.

Data shows success

The data shows that these ongoing efforts have proven successful. All schools in the district have improved consistently. All schools have solid API scores. Two schools out of four qualify for a Title I Achieving Schools Award and qualify to apply for the Distinguished Schools Award. The number of students achieving at the proficient level or above at all schools exceeds the state's criteria.

We are finally confident in the knowledge that while some things will go as planned, bad things will still happen, and we can make the necessary adjustments to ensure our children continue to grow and achieve. We can make successful adjustments during times of financial strife as well as times of financial plenty. We can even be successful during times of distracting labor negotiations because we are all committed to the continuous improvement process and know it does work.

References

DuFour, R. and Eaker, R. (1998). Professional Learning Communities at Work. Bloomington, IN: National Educational Service.

Garmston, R. and Wellman, M. (1999). The Adaptive School: A Sourcebook for Developing Collaborative Groups. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon Publishers, Inc.

Harvey, T.R. and Drolet, B. (1994). Building Teams, Building People. Lancaster, PA: Technomic Publishing Company.

Harvey, T.R. (1995). Checklist for Change. Lancaster, PA: Technomic Publishing Company.

Lezotte, L. (1997). Learning for All. Okemos, MI: Effective Schools Products, Ltd.

Marzano, J and Pickering, D. and Pollock, J. (2001). Classroom Instructional that Works. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Marzano, R. (2003). What Works in Schools. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Schmoker, M. (1996). Results: The Key to Continuous School Improvement. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Claudia Maidenberg is superintendent of Cucamonga School District.