When Deer Creek School District in Edmond, Oklahoma, was asked to participate in a pilot program for Marzano High Reliability Schools, there was an immediate buy-in from Grove Valley Elementary School principal Kelly McCoy. "We were very excited to see what it could do and if it could make an impact at our school" McCoy […]
Indicative of a rich curriculum, deeper learning occurs when a district successfully empowers students to synthesize and creatively apply knowledge through critical thinking, problem solving and collaboration. While essential to preparing today's students for colleges and careers, building a culture of deeper learning can be challenging to accomplish at a district level. This web seminar […]
Three chronically underperforming Baltimore City Public Schools are now getting intensive, hands-on guidance from educators at a fourth district school, Commodore John Rodgers, that has achieved a dramatic turnaround. Educators at the struggling elementary and middle schools—Harford Heights, James McHenry and Mary E. Rodman—won't just follow a set of guidelines. Rodgers' principal, Marc Martin, has […]
District leaders and experts weigh in on the four steps to having a successful intervention. – Plan ahead. Every system drifts. Perform regular audits of your intervention system. "If you want to have any initiative survive, you need to plan forward." — Jim Wright, author and RtI trainer Link to main story: Intervention strategies evolve […]
Disruptive Classroom Technologies: A Framework for Innovation in Education Sage Publications Ltd. Schools continuously fund technology for classrooms but not always with a clear plan. This book lays out a framework for the T3 system, which categorizes technology as "translational" to help educators perform tasks more efficiently, "transformational" as a way of reinventing old tasks […]
Evidence-based best practice is a hot topic in education, especially in regard to the proposed ESSA accountability system. It means that schools tailor their action plans to meet their individual student and school needs based on objective- and research-based models. This process provides for an internal accountability system and enhanced professional learning communities. During a […]
Districts devote nearly 80 percent of their budgets to personnel costs—leaving little wiggle room for administrators tasked with maintaining fiscal responsibility and boosting the quality of education in a time of nearly stagnant funding. John Hutchison, chief financial and operations officer at Olathe Public Schools in Kansas, began budgetary planning for the 2017-18 school year […]
The number of young people suffering from depression has increased almost 40 percent in the last three years. And, as the Hamilton Southeastern School District has found, mental health issues are hardly limited to teens. After the city of Fishers, an Indianapolis suburb of about 90,000, had 13 suicides in 2016, city officials launched a […]
Districts have several options when introducing a badging program. For students, the process tends to be more intricate because these badges, often awarded for soft skills and career-preparation activities, contain metadata that details what students did to earn the badges. Such higher-tech "open badges" can be shared on social media and live on an online […]
Free or low-cost resources exist to help districts start or improve computer science education. Free or low-cost resources exist to help districts start or improve computer science education: 1. Plan. Develop an ambitious but realistic plan, says Chris Stephenson, head of computer science education strategy at Google. Districts should prioritize needs and first focus on […]
