Description:
This partnership with the Children’s Literacy Initiative (CLI) is sought to support our focus on deepening teachers’ anti-racist early literacy instructional practices and content knowledge. The service model takes a comprehensive approach to school improvement, focused on building teacher capacity and leadership capacity through An Early Literacy Specialist, Teacher Professional Learning Communities and Trainings, and School Based Leadership Team Meetings.
The Early Literacy Specialist will provide instructional coaching to help teachers identify areas of strength and areas that need to be strengthened. Through job embedded coaching, we will be able to differentiate and apply real-time adjustments to classroom learning. The coaching cycle is focused on 1) Understanding and utilizing available data for long term and daily lesson planning, 2) Deepening teacher knowledge on anti-racist early literacy instruction, 3) Fostering a caring and equitable classroom environment, 4) Understanding bias and issues of equity in school structures, 5) Reviewing curricular materials for Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI), 6) Lesson planning design and implementation, 7) Reflective professional practices.
Through Teacher Professional Learning Communities, CLI works with a group of teachers during grade level meetings or common planning time on lesson and unit planning. Sessions focus on exploring and connecting what teachers are teaching, why and how they are teaching it. Coaches facilitate conversations on crafting literacy objectives, reviewing student data, and differentiating instruction to meet the needs of diverse learners.
The School Based Leadership Team Meetings (LTM) will provide an opportunity for multiple school-based stakeholders to come together to focus on teacher practice and student outcome data, and to use that data to examine and adjust the school’s literacy instruction. CLI and principals agree on the data that will be reviewed before the meeting. The purpose of the LTM is to build the principal’s and leadership team’s: • Familiarity with initiative • Capacity to review data and progress monitor • Early literacy knowledge.
In review of data from SY 21-22, schools that received support from CLI were able to double the percentage of K-3 students that scored in the highest tier on the STAR reading assessments compared to schools that did not receive CLI support. This contract connects directly with Goals 1& 2, with a specific focus on early childhood literacy. The focus of the work is to deepen teachers’ skills at implementing anti-racist early literacy instructional practices, which is also aligned to Guardrail 4: Addressing Racist Practices. The success of this contract will be proven through teachers' ability to customize their lesson plans to better align with the student demographic in their class. Leadership teams will also develop the skills to ensure the continuous reviews of curriculum for culturally responsive teaching. Side-by-side, job-embedded coaching remains one of the most effective ways to develop and teach adult learners. As with children, this approach to learning requires modeling, practice and repetition as part of the observation and feedback loop to ensure quality and successful implementation. The Chief of Schools Office has partnered with the Office of Academic Support and the Office of Evaluation, Research, and Accountability to identify the vendor to provide these supports and to align the supports to existing District Frameworks. The professional development and coaching provided by CLI will be in sync with District provided professional development opportunities. This contract connects directly with Goals 1& 2, with a specific focus on early childhood literacy. The focus of the work is to deepen teachers’ skills at implementing anti-racist early literacy instructional practices, which is also aligned to Guardrail 4: Addressing Racist Practices. The success of this contract will be proven through teachers' ability to customize their lesson plans to better align with the student demographic in their class. Leadership teams will also develop the skills to ensure the continuous reviews of curriculum for culturally responsive teaching. Side-by-side, job-embedded coaching remains one of the most effective ways to develop and teach adult learners. As with children, this approach to learning requires modeling, practice and repetition as part of the observation and feedback loop to ensure quality and successful implementation. The Chief of Schools Office has partnered with the Office of Academic Support and the Office of Evaluation, Research, and Accountability to identify the vendor to provide these supports and to align the supports to existing District Frameworks. The professional development and coaching provided by CLI will be in sync with District provided professional development opportunities.
Funding for this project is provided from generous donations from the Hamilton Community Foundation and the Neubauer Family Foundation.