NORTHWEST

EDUCATION

WINTER 2007 / VOLUME 12. NUMBER 2

BUILDING

STRONG

DISTRICTS

Sustaining leadership 18 Creating a community of learners 24 Digging out of improvement status 30
C2 nwrel.org/nwedu

ON THE COVER

In the tiny Eastern Oregon community of Nyssa, school district

headquarters share the same campus as the elementary, middle,

and high schools. The district has drawn national attention for its

success in closing the achievement gap—an accomplishment it

attributes to a high rate of parent involvement, open communications, and a “no excuses” culture.

Photo by Darin Oswald
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 1

Web exclusives at nwrel.org/nwedu/

6

20

34

12

FEATURES

6 Delivering a World-Class Education

In Microsoft’s backyard, a high-performing Washington district measures

success against stiff benchmarks.

12 Turning Things Around

Strong leadership helps close the achievement gap for limited English

proficiency students and turns a poor rural district into a shining star.

18 Finding “What Sticks”

Sustainability isn’t just for environmentalists: Professor and international

researcher Andy Hargreaves applies its lessons to educational leadership.

School Leaders on Staff Development

Recommendations by leaders, for leaders, on developing professional

development programs.

20 Leaps and Bounds

Population growth and academic growth go hand in hand in an Idaho district

with an eye on data.

24 Where Everyone’s a Learner

From teacher book clubs to administrator meetings that dig into research, 

an award-winning Oregon district promotes learning at all levels.

A Model Leader: Q&A With Krista Parent

A finalist for National Superintendent of the Year shares strategies for

developing instructional leaders and boosting student achievement.

30 Improving on Culture

A robust planning process helps a district climb out of improvement status

and transform its core beliefs.

34 Forward Motion

A Montana district tackles high school reform in an effort to boost graduation

rates.

39 Accountability: A District and State Partnership

States share the responsibility for helping districts and schools improve.

NORTHWEST

EDUCATION

CONTENTS / WINTER 2007 BUILDING STRONG DISTRICTS VOL. 12 / NO. 2
2 nwrel.org/nwedu/

DEPARTMENTS

3 Forum

4 Editor’s Note

41 Region at a Glance

State Support for Districts

43 Voices

Developing Instructional Leaders

45 Research Brief

What Matters at the District Level

47 End Note

48 NWREL News

Collaborating To Support Oregon Schools

When It Comes to SLCs, District Support Is Key 

Conference Call

What’s New on the Web

Flashback

NWREL Products

What the Research Says (or Doesn’t Say)

For districts considering “sustained silent reading,”

the research shows success may hinge on a variety of

factors.

From the Field

Communications expert Simona Boucek offers tips on

how districts can get their message across.

On the Web

Northwest Education is available online in both 

PDF and HTML versions at www.nwrel.org/nwedu/.

Look for Web exclusives, marked with .

Northwest Education is published three times a year by the

Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. Past and current

issues of the magazine are available at www.nwrel.org/nwedu/.

ISSN 1546-5020

Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Carol F. Thomas

Deputy Executive Officer

Dr. Robert E. Blum

Administrative Director, Development and Communications

Dave Wilson

Editor

Rhonda Barton

Assistant Editor

Bracken Reed

NWREL News Writers/Photographers

Kate Fitzgibbon, Michael Heavener, Paula Surmann

Technical Editor

Eugenia Cooper Potter

Design

Denise Crabtree

Data Analyst

Richard Greenough

Library Support

Linda Fitch

Webmaster

Vicki Jean Beauchamp

Circulation

Lorelei Aldridge

Statement of Purpose

Northwest Education aims to promote a regional dialogue and to elevate teaching and learning by giving readers the best information,

ideas, and personal stories from practitioners, researchers, and other

experts. 

Copyright © 2007, Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. 

Articles and information in this publication may be reproduced and

distributed without permission for nonprofit educational and professional development purposes. Please acknowledge NWREL as

the source.

NORTHWEST

EDUCATION 
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 3

Labeling Students

I am very appreciative of the information shared on your Web site and completely thrilled and excited about the

research Virginia, Bob, and others at

University of Washington conduct in

the field of learning disabilities (“Why

Can’t I Read?” in spring 2003). I am the

chair of the special education department at Seattle University and teach

graduate students. My students read

many of the journal articles that come

from these studies. 

My issue is the phrases used such as

“LD kid,” “learning disabled kid,” etc.

I strongly believe in person-first language and believe we should label the

disability, not the kid. I know that Dr.

Berninger and the authors of this article are respectful of children and people with disabilities, but I would hope

that a little more time could be taken

with language and describe “a child

with a learning disability.” I actually

“charge” my grad students a quarter if

they say “SPED kid,”“BD kid,”or 

“MR kid.” I also believe very strongly

in self-advocacy and self-determination

for all people, including children with

disabilities. I am not suggesting that

children and families are not completely knowledgeable about the learning disability, but rather that we are

careful with our language. Thanks for

hearing me out!

Cinda Johnson

Professor of Special Education

Seattle University

Seattle, WA

P.S. In addition to being a professor

here at SU, I have a state-needs grant in

transition services that I always want to

share with parents, students, and teachers. The Web site is www.seattleu.edu/

ccts/. I do follow-up research with

youth after they leave high school

(postschool outcome studies) and provide training technical assistance in secondary special education.

Kudos

“Creating a Culture of Readers” (in

spring 2004) is a truly inspiring and

hopeful description of how to create an

environment that’s safe and welcoming

for students. Incredible!

Kari Rustand

High School English Teacher

North Sioux City, SD

We want to hear from you! Send your

letters to the editor, comments on current and past issues, article ideas, and tips

on places where good things are happening to nwedufeedback@nwrel.org.

Letters may be edited for length or clarity.

FORUM

NWREL BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Dr. Richard McCullough (Chair)

Adjunct Professor, Western Washington University

Jerry Colonna (Vice Chair)

Superintendent, Beaverton School District (OR)

Dr. John Davis (Secretary-Treasurer)

Superintendent, Bering Strait School District (AK)

Dr. Terry Bergeson

Washington Superintendent of Public Instruction

Susan Castillo

Oregon Superintendent of Public Instruction

Tom Luna

Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction

Linda McCulloch

Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction 

Roger Sampson

Alaska Commissioner of Education & Early Development

Doreen Brown (Parent Representative)

Supervisor, Indian Education, Anchorage School District (AK)

Karanja Crews

Teacher, Beaverton School District (OR)

Rubén Degollado 

Assistant Principal, Hillsboro School District (OR)

Rudy Edwards

School Board Member

Snoqualmie Valley School District (WA)

Dr. Joanne Erickson

Assistant Professor, Montana State University–Bozeman

Jeff Estes

Manager, Office of Science Education Programs, 

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (WA)

Jeri Harris

Teacher, Seattle School District (WA)

Dr. Larry Harris

Dean, University of Alaska Southeast

Dennis Haverlandt 

Principal, Deer Park School District (MT)

Dr. Jannette R. Hill

Chair, Division of Eduction, 

Lewis-Clark State College (ID)

Jerry Keane 

Superintendent, Post Falls School District (ID)

Nancy Larsen

Teacher, Coeur d’Alene School District (ID)

Richard Mauer

Chair, Alaska State Board of Education & Early Development

Dr. Bill McDiarmid

Professor, University of Washington

Dr. Geoffrey Mills

Dean, Southern Oregon University 

Ted Popplewell

Director, Elementary Education, Twin Falls School District

(ID) 

Kay Purcell

Principal, St. Rose Parish School, Longview (WA)

Barbara Riley

Community/Business Representative, Missoula (MT)

Dr. Perla Rodriguez (Parent Representative)

Principal, Forest Grove School District (OR)

Dr. Doug Sullivan

Superintendent, Sidney School District (MT)

Carol VanDerWege

Teacher, Kenai Peninsula Borough School District (AK)

Dr. Joan Parker Webster

Associate Professor, University of Alaska Fairbanks
For school districts around the

nation, the rubber is really hitting

the road these days. Five years after

President Bush signed the No

Child Left Behind Act into law and

put in place requirements for adequate yearly progress (AYP), more

schools are winding up in the

pipeline for corrective action and more districts have been

thrown into improvement status. According to a count by

Education Week, 1,624 districts around the nation were listed

as in need of improvement in 2005 for failing to meet AYP

targets for at least two years in a row.

Under NCLB requirements, a district must provide support to a school in the first year after it misses its AYP goal. If

the school fails to achieve progress for two consecutive years,

the school is identified as in need of improvement and the

district must provide technical assistance. After a school has

been labeled as needing improvement for four years, districts

must take strong corrective action to bring about meaningful

change. The law states that such actions must include at least

one of the following: “replacing school staff, implementing a

new curriculum, decreasing management authority at the

school level, appointing an outside expert to advise the

school, extending the school day or year, or reorganizing the

school internally.”

Just as for schools, districts are held to stiff accountability

standards and also can be identified as in need of improvement. Districts in improvement status face sanctions that

range from being put into state receivership to being abolished, if that option is allowed by the state. NCLB also mandates state assistance to low-performing districts, which can

range from providing on-site coaches to assisting with planning to endorsing specific school improvement models.

Here in the Northwest, the number of districts in each

state designated as needing improvement varies widely (see

chart), but it would be a mistake to conclude that students in

one state are superior to those of another. Rather, it’s a matter of substantially different accountability systems. Differences also exist among the Northwest states in the AYP

categories that are creating challenges; for example, while

reading proficiency of students with disabilities is the number one issue for Idaho districts not meeting AYP, in Washington it’s the math proficiency of economically

disadvantaged students. 

In the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory’s

needs assessment survey—and again in state forums held last

summer—district improvement was a hot topic. Four general

themes bubbled to the surface: finding time for teacher collaboration in improvement teams; assessing school readiness

to engage in improvement activities; ensuring necessary district resources and support for school improvement; and

identifying methods for continuing improvement efforts.

This issue of Northwest Education offers examples of districts

confronting and finding innovative ways to deal with those

concerns. In South Lane (Oregon) School District, book

clubs engage teachers in collaborative research on school

improvement. Washington’s Office of Superintendent of

Public Instruction marshals resources to help districts like

South Kitsap get out of improvement status. Lake Washington

School District follows rigorous benchmarks, developed by a

consortium of high-performing Western districts with similar

demographics. Idaho’s Joint School District #2 relies on a

highly individualized assessment system to yield the kind of

data needed for continuous student progress.

We hope these stories both inform and encourage educators grappling with the same thorny issues in their own 

districts across the region.

—Rhonda Barton, bartonr@nwrel.org

EDITOR‘S NOTE

Photo © Malewitch | Dreamstime.com

DISTRICTS DESIGNATED AS IN NEED OF IMPROVEMENT FOR 2006–2007

State (total # of districts) Alaska (54) Idaho (114) Montana (430)* Oregon (196) Washington (296)

Year 1 Improvement 8 25 2 7 19 (Step 1)

Year 2 Improvement 10 12 16 4 11 (Step 2)

Corrective Action 11 21 26 4 Not applicable

Total in Improvement 29 58 44 15 30

Based on determinations released in August 2006 to January 2007.

* In addition to traditional K–12 districts, Montana also maintains combined elementary districts, combined high school districts, single districts, 

state-funded districts, and nonoperating and annexed districts.

4 nwrel.org/nwedu/
5

NORTHWEST EDUCATION FEATURES

BUILDING 

STRONG DISTRICTS

WINTER 2007 / VOL. 12. NO. 2

A district sets high benchmarks for personalized learning 6

A “no excuses” attitude turns things around 12

Andy Hargreaves defines sustainable leadership 18

Academic and population growth present twin challenges 20

A districtwide learning community boosts scores and graduation rates 24 

The road out of improvement status leads to a change in culture 30

Tackling high school reform becomes a district priority 34

Districts look to states for help in meeting NCLB requirements 39
A high-performing district leaves 

no school behind when it comes to 

preparing students for life beyond the classroom.

6 nwrel.org/nwedu/
REDMOND, Washington—The portraits of Lake

Washington’s five school board members gaze

out over the wood and glass lobby of the sleek

district headquarters. The engraved name plates

speak volumes about the stable leadership

enjoyed by this large, high-achieving district in

the suburbs of Seattle. The newest member

joined the board in 2003, while the one with the

longest tenure is closing in on 30 years. 

In the mid-1990s, at the board’s prodding,

Lake Washington set out to define what a “worldclass education” looks like—not just today, but

20 years down the road. The board also told district leaders it wasn’t enough to compare Lake

Washington students to their peers in neighboring districts: They needed to cross state lines and

measure results against other large high-performing districts in suburban settings where

high tech is the main industry.

That was the genesis of the Western States

Benchmarking Consortium—organized by

Lake Washington and comprising a select group

of seven districts that hail from Texas, Kansas,

Colorado, California, Arizona, and Washington

(with both Lake Washington and Vancouver

claiming membership). According to the

Delivering a 

World-Class 

Education

Story by RHONDA BARTON

Photos by CAROL BROZMAN

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 7

Finding Guatemala is a snap for these

children from Explorer Elementary, 

one of the alternative “Choice Schools”

initiated by community and staff members

in the Lake Washington School District.
group’s Web site (www.wsbenchmark.org), “consortium

members have developed common definitions of organizational effectiveness [or benchmarks] that articulate the steps

toward achieving the highest quality public education.”

Three times a year, members gather to share how those

benchmarks are helping them provide personalized learning

for continuous student improvement.

The consortium, which was highlighted in a Harvard

University report on effective training programs for school

superintendents, concentrates on four strategic areas that

research shows are critical. The central one is student learning, with “high standards buttressed by a coherent curriculum.” That’s followed by developing organizational and

human resource capacity; forging strong community partnerships; and using data and information to drive decisions.

Each focal area has a series of benchmarks tied to indicators

and “bottom line” impact questions. Thus, the districts have

a road map to use when reviewing school improvement

plans, identifying new priorities, or assessing progress.

The benchmarks are just one contributor to achieving

Lake Washington’s goal of every student “as well educated as

any in the world.” Other pieces include mentoring for new

teachers and ongoing professional development for veteran

staff; a Better School Program that gives extra support to

schools with greater needs; a capital construction plan that

calls for modernizing every school building every 40 years;

and a nationally acclaimed curriculum framework that outlines a student’s learning path from kindergarten through

high school.

“Forward to the New Basics” 

Lake Washington’s framework for teaching and learning has

made an impact far beyond this affluent district situated in

Microsoft’s backyard. It’s been written up in national education publications, and more than 100 districts around the

country are using their own adaptations.

The framework, which is broken into five grade levels,

describes what students should know and be able to do when

they leave the school system. “It’s very constructivist,” says

Chief Academic Officer Dan Phelan. “It talks about what our

curriculum should look like: the concepts, skills, processes,

critical content, guiding questions, and the essential understandings that students need. We’ve always been about deep

learning, not about broad coverage, and our framework was

built around that.”

Lake Washington refers to the framework as a “forward to

the new basics” approach. While it includes power standards—the key things students need to know—and a

sequencing guide or schedule for teaching them, the framework still offers teachers a certain amount of latitude. “They

need some freedom and ownership of what they’re teaching,” Phelan points out. “There needs to be room in the day

and probably in every subject area for [the material] that they

care deeply about.”

In the process of delivering that content, Lake Washington

holds its teachers and its students to even higher standards

than the state’s rigorous requirements. “Our standard is that

kids can actually do and produce things that are real world

and worthwhile,” says Phelan. As part of that, students must

write three different essays as a graduation requirement;

seniors must also complete an independent project, guided

by an adult mentor, and present it to the community. Recent

examples have ranged from the kid who designed and marketed a line of T-shirts to one who traced the history of the

blues and produced his own album.

In its efforts to provide a personalized and highly relevant

education, Lake Washington has even taken the highly

unusual step of encouraging its own competition.

The district has eight special focus or “choice” schools that

are distinct from charter schools. Anyone who lives in the

district can receive funding for a choice school, usually

located on the campus of a “regular” school. First, though,

they must meet certain criteria: The organizers must have a

compelling mission different from any other in the district;

demonstrate a high level of parent commitment; and agree to

meet all of the district’s contractual obligations and teach its

curriculum. Among the three elementary and five secondary

“choice” schools is one that focuses on artistic development,

one organized around environmental adventures, and

another that looks at education through the lens of history.

Tools for More Effective Teaching

As one would expect from a district in the heart of Washington’s “silicon forest,” schools are equipped with the latest

technology. The district maintains a 4:1 student-to-computer 8 nwrel.org/nwedu/

BY THE NUMBERS: Lake Washington School District

Total students 24,332

Racial/ethnic makeup:

White 75.2%

African American 2.8%

Hispanic 6.6%

American Indian/Alaska Native 0.7%

Asian 13.5%

Free and reduced-price lunch 11.9%

Staff/teachers 2,660

Spending per student $7,299

For more information: www.lkwash.wednet.edu
ratio plus computer labs in all buildings and provides e-mail

accounts for fifth- through 12th-grade students so they can

collaborate on projects and communicate with teachers. The

newest high-tech tool is interactive whiteboards, or

ACTIVboards, installed in 1,500 classrooms along with ceiling-mounted projectors, media computers, and document

cameras.

“That’s really ramped up our ability to look at student

work or the Internet on the fly,” says Linda Stevens, the district’s instructional technology specialist. Stevens choreographed comprehensive teacher training on the boards,

which she says have “more robust software” than the more

common SMART Boards. Now, teachers are undergoing

training in ACTIVote, a program that allows them to give

instant formative assessments to see how many students

understand a lesson. 

While technology enhances instruction, everyone recognizes that great teachers are at the heart of providing a worldclass education. As Phelan puts it, “the only thing that makes

a difference in a school is what a teacher does with a kid ... .

That’s the only point of change in the system.”

Lake Washington invests in its teachers—whether they’re

new or veterans of the classroom. Every first-year teacher is

assigned a “consulting teacher”—one of six full-time mentors in the district whose salaries come from a statewide initiative. “[The mentors] receive training in cognitive coaching

and offer everything from a shoulder to cry on to advice on

classroom management. They even help new teachers set up

their classrooms before school starts,” remarks Betsy Wendt.

Wendt is responsible for shepherding three cohorts of

beginning teachers down the road to state certification. The

district provides three release days for three years so new

teachers can work with Wendt on their certification coursework. On one such release day, 10 teachers—casually clad in

jeans and sweatshirts—listen as Wendt explains what they’ll

need for their culminating portfolios. She then launches into

a discussion of student learning profiles, advising her charges

that “until you understand who your kids are, what the learning environment is, and what the community’s like, you can’t

make instructional decisions.”

Amanda Jacob, who graduated from the Lake Washington

School District in 1994 and is back as a new fifth-grade

teacher, knows how lucky she is to work here. Unlike the

district where she did her student teaching, “you feel trusted

here to present subjects the way you want to, as long as you

can show your principal that you’re meeting set objectives.”

Jacob appreciates the release days and the fact that, through

the district’s agreement with a local university, she pays only

about a third of the normal rate for her certification credits.

She’s also benefited from the mentoring program: When she

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 9

DELIVERING A WORLD-CLASS EDUCATION

Lake Washington’s nationally acclaimed framework for teaching and learning outlines what students should know and be able to do from kindergarten

through high school.
was having trouble organizing reading groups, her mentor

arranged release time so Jacob could observe another fifthgrade teacher’s techniques. “It gave me a lot of good ideas,”

she recalls.

The chance to tap into other teachers’ knowledge doesn’t

end as staff members become more seasoned. “One of the

strongest things the district has done is brought teachers

together on a regular basis,” says Victoria McCarter, now in

her 16th year of teaching junior high science classes. “We’ve

known instinctively it’s productive when you meet with

other teachers to share practices, and the district is actually

providing that time for us.”

Two years ago, Lake Washington introduced a 90-minute

early release on Wednesdays with time set aside for a different purpose each week. For example, McCarter works with

other science teachers or cross-subject teams at Rose Hill

Junior High one week; the following week is “building time”

when all of the school’s teachers might gather for training on

school improvement issues; the third week is individual professional development time; and the fourth week is dedicated

to learning communities that extend beyond the school’s

doors. The district is divided along geographic lines into four

learning communities. “We meet and share ideas with science

teachers from the other junior highs that feed into the same

high school we do,” explains McCarter. 

Even after spending all those years in the trenches and

achieving national certification, McCarter realizes that she

still needs to tweak her teaching. “I know if my students

aren’t getting it, I’m not teaching it,” she says. “I need to look

at what my students are doing and make ongoing modifications. We check and we teach; we check and we teach!”

“There’s a real commitment here to helping people grow

as educators,” comments Georgia Lindquist, who coordinates professional development for secondary teachers.

“Some people think we succeed because of our demographics and the fact that we’re in an affluent community. But, it’s

because our teachers are focused on the right kind of learning targets that involve deep thinking and helping kids do

that thinking and processing the skills they’re learning.”

No School Left Behind

Indeed, it would be easy to dismiss Lake Washington’s

accomplishments because the district draws from highly educated households in the high-income neighborhoods of Redmond, Kirkland, and Sammamish. But that would ignore the

fact that Lake Washington also covers lower income areas

populated by service workers. While the free or reducedThanks to a generous capital fund, every school in the district is replaced or renovated on a 35- to 40-year cycle. The newest building is Rose Hill

Elementary where the black and white tile trim makes reference to the school’s mascot, the raccoon.
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 11

price lunch tally for the entire district stands at just under 12

percent, the rate goes up to almost 41 percent at schools like

Rose Hill Elementary.

The Better Schools program—which Dan Phelan

describes as “No School Left Behind”—takes into account

that some buildings may need more support so students

across the district can achieve at the same high levels. “We

have a pot of resources—about a million dollars—that’s allocated based on a continuum of factors,” says Deputy Superintendent Janene Fogard, who handles finances. Every three

years, schools are ranked according to a numeric derived

from demographic and achievement data. Based on the

results, some schools may get additional staff to lower class

sizes, more reading specialists, or extra funding for afterschool programs. “When looking at equity, we came to the

conclusion that equal isn’t necessarily equitable,” remarks

Fogard. “Those with the greatest needs may get one or two

additional teachers, besides any federal Title money that

would flow to them.” 

A generous capital fund—with $596 million from two successful bond measures—also ensures that all the district’s

schools are renovated or replaced on a 35- to 40-year cycle.

Students at Rose Hill Elementary are the latest beneficiaries of

the modernization plan. Their showcase masonry building

opened this school year, replacing a 1955 brick building. The

new school features pods of four classrooms with a common

instructional area; each classroom is equipped with an interactive whiteboard and overhead projector. There are also monitors that increase airflow if CO2 levels rise in the classroom.

That’s because high CO2 levels can make students sleepy.

Showing off her sparkling new facility, with its vibrant

glass mosaic entry, Principal Joyce Teshima says the design

enhances collaboration among teachers, specialists, and other

staff. Common areas are also used by students for cooperative

projects as well as peer tutoring. 

Teshima acknowledges that out of the seven elementary

schools in her learning community, there’s only one with a

population similar to Rose Hill’s. She regularly meets with

the principal of that school to share common concerns. “It’s

difficult when over 30 percent of your students speak languages other than English, and many are not literate in their

first language,” she says.

In a concerted effort to reach out to parents and the community—which includes Hispanic, Portuguese, and Russian

speakers—the school is participating in a new district program called Achieving Family Friendly Schools. Parents were

recruited to visit Rose Hill to evaluate whether staff and the

environment are welcoming and if written communications

and policies are clear and helpful. A survey administered during

teacher-student conferences also measured parent perceptions about the school.

Like other elementary schools in Lake Washington, Rose

Hill has adopted a new approach to report cards this year.

Letter grades have been replaced with numbers on a scale of

one to four, based on whether a student is not at standard (1),

approaching standard (2), at standard (3), or exceeding standard (4). The grading system also makes it clear if students

are doing well in life skills such as turning in work on time,

or mastering content matter, or both.

In its parent newsletter, the district notes, “This grading

system reflects the district’s standards-based educational philosophy. Students must be able to demonstrate what they

have learned, meeting a specific standard. Students who meet

a specific standard of learning at each grade along the way will

be able to graduate with the knowledge and skills they need

to be successful in higher education and/or the work force.”

And, just as board members mandated more than a decade

ago, Lake Washington students will assuredly graduate with a

world-class education in hand. ■

DELIVERING A WORLD-CLASS EDUCATION

In addition to meeting state graduation requirements, Lake Washington

high school students must write three essays and complete an

independent senior project.
Nyssa Superintendent Don Grotting’s “no excuses”

attitude has helped this rural Oregon district build a

new reputation for success.
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 13

Turning Things

AROUND

NYSSA, Oregon—Before interviewing for the superintendent position at the

Nyssa School District in 2001, Don Grotting did some research. The

word on the street—as well as in the data—was not encouraging. “There

was a perception that things weren’t working,” says Grotting. “They had

a reputation as a chronically low-achieving district.”

According to Geno Bates, the current principal at Nyssa Elementary,

that negative perception extended to the town itself and had a long history.

“I grew up in a town 12 miles from here,” he says, “and there was always

a kind of stigma or negative stereotype about Nyssa.” Most of that reputation was related to Nyssa’s differences—ethnic and economic—from its

neighbors. Located on the Oregon-Idaho border, with the Snake River

defining both the eastern edge of town and the state line, more than half

of Nyssa’s approximately 3,100 residents are Hispanic, a significantly

higher percentage than most of the surrounding communities. According

to the 2000 U.S. Census nearly a quarter of the town’s population falls

beneath the national poverty line. 

Traditionally, Nyssa was also a factory town in an area more commonly

populated by farmers, ranchers, and small business owners. A giant Amalgamated Sugar Company refinery still looms over the west end of town,

and for more than 60 years a majority of Nyssa’s residents worked there,

turning sugar beets into White Satin sugar and sending their children to

the public schools just up the road. 

But, in the late 1990s things began to change. International trade agreements and other realities of the global marketplace sent the refinery into a

downward cycle, finally resulting in its closure in January 2006. The

Nyssa School District, however, was going in the opposite direction. In

March 2005, Oregon Superintendent of Public Instruction Susan Castillo

honored the district with a Celebrating Student Success award, recognizing Nyssa as one of the most successful districts in the state at closing the

achievement gap. In the same school year, the Oregon Department of

Education named Nyssa Elementary teacher Steve Wyborney as the Oregon

Teacher of the Year. 

A rural district in far eastern Oregon builds a new reputation for success. 

Story by BRACKEN REED • Photos by DARIN OSWALD
The word on the street changed dramatically. Almost overnight Nyssa

became a model of how a rural school

district can find success despite dealing

with such challenges as high poverty

and a large limited English proficient

(LEP) population. Castillo’s award was

based primarily on the district’s outstanding achievement on the statewide

assessment. In the past three years the

district’s scores have been well above

the state objective in nearly every subject area and grade level. The thirdgrade reading scores, for example, have

been at or above 92 percent for the past

three school years. Eighth-grade reading scores were at 76 percent on the

most recent assessment, which is 11

percent higher than the state average. 

Castillo’s award focused particular

attention on the district’s success with

LEP students, and the most recent test

results continue to warrant that notice.

LEP students met or exceeded the state

objective in reading at every grade level

tested. The combined reading proficiency score for all LEP students was 74

percent, nearly 25 percent higher than

the state average for that subgroup.

These kinds of results have kept visitors coming to the school looking for

ideas. Grotting and the building principals are frequently invited to speak at

regional and national conferences.

Everyone wants to know their secret. 

The story they have to tell, however,

is not one of overnight success, packaged reform models, or specific programs. It’s a story of how staff,

students, parents, and community

leaders turned their collective focus

and talents to the same goal—increasing student achievement—and of the

difficult decisions and hard work it

took to achieve that goal.

A NEW DIRECTION

Despite his attempts to deflect it, much

of the attention for Nyssa’s success has

focused on Superintendent Don Grotting, whose inspiring personal story

and straight-talking approach make

him a compelling representative for the

district. In the early 1990s, Grotting

worked in Coquille, Oregon, as a carpenter for the Georgia-Pacific Corporation. As the spotted owl debate raged,

and the Pacific Northwest logging

industry faltered, Grotting suddenly

found himself with no job and few

prospects. Many workers felt they had

lost not only their jobs but also their

identities. Grotting saw it as an opportunity. 

Taking advantage of a job retraining

program, Grotting first attended

Southwest Oregon Community College in nearby Coos Bay and went on

to get his B.A. in elementary education

from Linfield College. As a teacher,

Grotting found he had natural leadership ability. He wasted no time in earning a master’s degree in Educational

Administration from Portland State

University and then a superintendent

license from Lewis & Clark College. In

less than eight years, Grotting transformed himself from an unemployed

timber worker without a college degree

into a sought-after administrator. 

While Grotting was working his way

toward a superintendent position,

Nyssa was struggling. The state had

designated both the elementary and

middle school as low performing, and

the high school was right on the cusp.

According to Idalia Stam, the chairperson of the Nyssa School Board, there

was a growing sense that it was time to

shake things up. Although many positive elements were in place, the district

lacked a cohesive, coordinated, and

consistent approach. Communication,

at all levels, needed to improve. Student achievement, while never an

afterthought, needed a deliberate move

to the foreground. “Those were our

goals,” says Stam. “We wanted to focus

on raising academic achievement and

we wanted to hire a superintendent

with solid communication skills—

someone who could communicate

with the board, with the building

administrators, and with the entire

14 nwrel.org/nwedu/

Nyssa Middle School Principal Jana Iverson’s commitment to parent involvement has led to 100

percent parent participation in parent-teacher conferences.
staff. We saw those as connected—good

communication was a key to raising

student achievement.” 

In Grotting, the board found just

what it was looking for: a strong leader,

willing to make tough decisions, try

new ideas, and work to build consensus. His affinity for small-town living

and his love of sports and the outdoors

also made him a good fit. Not everyone

could relate to a relatively isolated,

rural, working class community going

through hard times. Grotting could.

The district offered him the position

just before the 2000–2001 school year,

and he accepted. 

CHANGING THE CULTURE

“A culture of excuses. Low morale. A

little apathetic.” That’s how Nyssa

Middle School Principal Jana Iverson

describes the district upon Grotting’s

arrival. “There was a bit of an attitude

among some staff members at the

time,” she says. “They had a lot of

excuses as to why our kids couldn’t

achieve—‘they come from a poor background, their parents don’t speak

English, there’s nobody at home to

help them’—all those kinds of things.”

Janine Weeks, the elementary school

principal at the time of Grotting’s

arrival and now the assistant superintendent and curriculum director,

agrees. The district had been making

gradual improvements, she says, but

still struggled with a culture of complacency. “There was just the attitude that

‘30 to 50 percent of our kids are on

grade level and that’s the way it is. We

can’t do any better. These are the kids

we have.’”

One of Grotting’s first actions was to

call an all-staff meeting to address that

attitude head on. As Iverson remembers

it, “He basically said, ‘It’s our expectation that these kids will achieve. This

will happen, and there’s no excuse for it

not to happen. We will do this, and if

you don’t want to do it, maybe you

should consider whether you have the

commitment that’s necessary for our

population to succeed. There are a lot

easier places to be a teacher.’”

Iverson laughs

when she recalls

the meeting. “It

was pretty harsh,”

she acknowledges,

“but for a lot of

staff members it

was also really

refreshing. They

wanted to hear

that. They were

working their tails

off, and they were

tired of hearing the

excuses.”

That desire to

change would lead

to an important

project in Grotting’s first year on

the job. Due to the

district’s low-performing status, the

state had already

offered Nyssa various grants. The

elementary school, for example, had

received a Comprehensive School

Reform grant and used it to implement

a reform model called Accelerated

Schools, which was showing positive

results. Now, the state was recruiting

willing participants for a High-Performing Learning Communities

(HPLC) program.

“The state department called up

looking for a volunteer,” Grotting says.

“They were going to do a pilot of the

program and they wanted to come into

the middle school and basically take it

apart to find out why it was low performing. It took a lot of trust on the part

of the staff to agree to that. You have to

be willing to take some criticism.”

Grotting had already made some

observations of his own—as well as

gathering staff, parent, and school

board feedback—and had identified

some possible changes. In retrospect,

he says, the work of the HPLC team

made those changes easier to implement. “They didn’t really make an official recommendation,” he says, “but

they expressed some significant concerns about the leadership at some of

our schools. It basically validated what

we already knew needed to be done.”

The result was a change in leadership at both the middle school and high

school. “It had to be done,” Grotting

says. “You have to have instructional

leaders in all of your buildings. You can

try to give them support—whether it’s

a teacher or an administrator—but you

don’t have a lot of time to waste.”

For Janine Weeks, the issue was one

of clear vision and consistent implementation. “You have to have the focus

on academics,” she says, “and you have

to understand the steps that need to be

taken in order to build student 

academic achievement.” 

For example, she says, “The curriculum needs to be aligned with the standards and with what is going to be

assessed, and you need to make sure

that teachers are actually teaching the

curriculum and not just their favorite

thing. There are several pieces that are

critical for student success that just

weren’t consistently in place.”

TURNING THINGS AROUND

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 15

Nyssa High School Principal Ken Ball helped bring continuity and

stability in a time of change.
OPENING DOORS

Ken Ball, Grotting’s

choice to fill the high

school principal position, has a unique perspective on Nyssa’s

decade of reform.

According to Ball, a 28-

year veteran in the district, positive elements

existed before Grotting’s

arrival, including many

outstanding staff members. The problem, he

says, was that no one had

been able to put all those

pieces together. “What

Don brought was just

total leadership,” says

Ball. “It’s about attitude and communication and developing trust.”

An example, he says, are the weekly

administrative meetings, which were

previously limited to principals and

central office administrators. Under

Grotting’s leadership, the meetings are

wide open. Not only are all building

principals in attendance, but so are all

vice principals, as well as the transportation, maintenance, and food service department managers. Board

members and staff members with

important issues are always welcome.

As a result, says Ball, “Relationships are

very strong here. There’s a really high

sense of integrity, and with that comes

trust. When you have that trust that

people are going to shoot straight with

you, then you get better performance.”

Geno Bates, who took the reins of

the elementary school when Weeks

moved to the district office, agrees.

“The trust factor is huge,” he says. “If

you’ve got a problem or a concern, you

know you can call Don. He supports

your ideas and he believes in the kids.”

That kind of support makes a culture

of high expectations possible, says

Weeks. “There are high expectations

now, but there’s also support. Don follows up. He visits the classrooms and

talks with teachers, and that communicates to them that he cares about what

they’re doing. He’s there

to support them. And the

same thing happens in

every department in the

school—transportation,

food service, maintenance

—they’re all committed

to helping students

achieve, and they all feel

supported by their superintendent. He knows

what their jobs are, and

he’s there for them.”

SPREADING 

THE WORD

Those new lines of communication don’t end at

the edge of campus.

Community pride and parental support

have always been strong in Nyssa. High

school athletics, in particular, have traditionally been a rallying point for the

entire community. Fan support is legendary. Despite the long drives required

for road games—made worse by the fact

that Nyssa is in a different time zone

than most Oregon schools—the visiting

Nyssa fans frequently outnumber the

home team fans by a wide margin. But

that kind of support has not always 

carried over to academics. The district

sought to change that by implementing

a new mandatory attendance policy for

parent-teacher conferences.

A key to the approach, says Grotting,

was to extend the “no excuses” philosophy to parent involvement. “We have a

poor community,” he says, “but that’s

no excuse. Your car broke down? We’ll

come get you. You need child care?

We’ll provide it. Need a translator? We’ll

provide one. You’ve got to work that

day? What day can you make it? Can’t

make it at all? Well, is there someone

who can? An aunt or uncle or grandparent? No? Then we’ll come to you.”

And that’s what they do. Principals

and teachers routinely conduct the

conferences in students’ homes, if

that’s what it takes. The result is that,

on average, 98 percent of all parents in

the district attend a conference. At the

middle school that number is 

frequently 100 percent.

However it gets done, Grotting says,

making that contact with parents is

essential. “It’s about saying, ‘This is

important. This is your kid’s education. We need your support.’”

An added bonus to the middle

school conferences, says Stam, is that

they’re student-led. “The students tell

their parents what they’ve been doing

and what they feel they need to

improve—that gets them involved in

their own improvement. It focuses the

accountability on the student. They

know they’re supported, but they also

know they have to be accountable and

responsible.”

According to Weeks, parent participation in the conferences is essential to

conveying the importance of education

to students. “We want students’ school

experience to be recognized as an

important part of their lives,” she says.

“If they think of home life or their personal life as real and school as something they only do because somebody

says they have to then they’re obviously not seeing it as relevant to their

lives and their future. It’s up to us—

and their parents—to help them see

that importance and relevance.”

16 nwrel.org/nwedu/

BY THE NUMBERS: Nyssa School District

Total students 1,158

Racial/ethnic makeup:

White 37%

African American <1%

Hispanic 55%

American Indian/Alaska Native <1%

Asian 1%

Multi-ethnic 7%

Free and reduced-price lunch 100%

Programs:

ELL 53%

Title I-C (Migratory) 25%

Special education 12%

Staff:

Teachers 80

Support staff 74

Administrators 10

Spending per student $5,545 

www.nyssa.k12.or.us

Nyssa Elementary Principal

Geno Bates’s leadership has

helped the school become one of

the best in the state at closing the

achievement gap for LEP

students.
BUILDING ON SUCCESS 

Much of Nyssa’s success can be attributed to getting these “big picture” policies in place. Strong district guidance, a

clear statement of goals and expectations, building-level instructional leadership, improved communication, and

parent involvement—all these elements helped build the groundwork

for further reforms. As trust developed,

administrators at both the buildings

and the central office felt empowered

to share their ideas and to suggest bold

changes. 

Two of those changes focused on

scheduling. First, the district proposed

that the existing block schedule be

replaced by a seven-period schedule.

“Block scheduling isn’t necessarily a

bad thing,” explains Grotting, “but the

particular type of scheduling that was in

place didn’t provide for the kind of continuity that our population needed.”

The district went further, recommending a change to “half-day Fridays,”

or a 41⁄2-day week. Students have early

dismissal each Friday, which serves two

purposes. First, students have one-onone access to teachers for the first hour

of that time. And second, teachers have

a set time each week for lesson planning

and professional development.

“We weren’t doing everything we

should have been, in terms of finding

teacher professional development time

and also helping students on a more

individual basis,” says Grotting. “This

met both of those needs.”

Communication and trust were

again huge factors in getting these

changes approved. “We talked to the

community,” says Stam, “and some of

them were not quite sure. But they

trusted the administrators. They

believed that they were doing this

because it was best for the kids.”

That kind of support has been

invaluable in the reform process,

according to Grotting. “It allows us to

do a little bit of risk taking, in terms of

implementing new programs,” he says.

“That doesn’t always happen in some

school districts. We’ve really concentrated on keeping the board informed

and on following through with what

we say we’ll do. Once they realized that

we had people in place that could

implement research and provide effective programs, they’ve really let us do

our jobs.”

LOOKING TOWARD 

THE FUTURE

After 10 years of steady reform

efforts—and six years of Grotting’s

leadership—the district finds itself in

new territory. Test scores continue to

rise in almost all areas, but district leadership remains wary of hitting an

achievement plateau. “We have to continue to fine-tune what we’re doing,”

says Weeks. “We’ve got to keep doing

the good things we’re doing, in terms

of meeting the needs of the majority of

our students, but we’ve also got to find

strategies that are more fine-tuned to

individual needs. We don’t want to

write any of our students off. We want

to reach those last few percent that

aren’t succeeding.”

At the elementary school, Bates also

sees no letup in his staff. “Even though

we’ve had reading scores in the 90 percent range and math scores at 90, I

don’t see teachers sitting back and saying, ‘Well, we’re there.’ I just don’t see

that. They have a lot of pride in the fact

that they’re doing well, and they want

to keep it there.”

“And,” Bates wryly adds, “the state

department is helping us [stay motivated] by upping the standards.” 

With the state proficiency marks (or

“cut scores”) changing within the coming year, getting all students, in all subgroups, to meet or exceed proficiency

will no doubt continue to be a challenge. The difference for Nyssa is that

now the school district has the foundation, the leadership, the staff, and the

“no excuses” attitude that bode well for

the years ahead. 

“Ultimately, it’s about believing in

people,” Grotting says. “That’s the bottom line. Kids know if you don’t

believe in them. And when they feel

that you do believe, and that you care

about them in and out of the classroom,

then they’re going to do their best for

you. It makes all the difference.” ■

TURNING THINGS AROUND

Superintendent Grotting’s open communication policy includes frequent visits to classrooms.

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 17
18 nwrel.org/nwedu/

Fueled by bananas and armed with a dry British wit, Andy Hargreaves travels the globe to talk about leadership and educational change that lasts. Hargreaves, the Thomas More

Brennan Chair in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College, has authored or edited more than two dozen books that

have been translated into a dozen languages. He also serves

as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Educational Change.

Hargreaves’s latest work on sustainable leadership brought

him to Portland this fall to address representatives from 15 Oregon school districts involved in the State Action for Education

Leadership Project. The project, funded by the Wallace Foundation, is part of a national effort to increase student achievement

by strengthening the performance of education leaders.

While in Portland, Hargreaves talked to Northwest Education about the elements of education sustainability, the pitfalls

of No Child Left Behind, and the lessons to be learned from

our global neighbors. 

Q:

A lot of people talk about the challenge of sustaining reform

and describe it as continuing innovations over time. Your

definition of sustainability goes beyond duration. Why?

Most people use it [sustainability] to describe persistence

over time or cheap, prudent, and efficient strategies using

minimal resources. Both are important. But, we wanted to

understand what happens to change when people have experienced multiple changes simultaneously over time. Our

investigations of long-term change focus on more than 30

years in eight secondary schools in Canada and the U.S., as

seen through the eyes of 300 teachers who’ve worked in

those schools from the 1970s to the present. We looked at

what stuck, what didn’t, and what made the difference.

What we found running through the data were student

demographics, teacher demographics, and leadership demographics, and how these were affected by waves of reform

coming into the school that were simultaneous and contradictory. One thing we discovered is that in the last 10 years

there’s been more interconnectedness: What happens in one

school affects what happens in the schools around it.

We read everything we could in environmental policy—

where the concept of sustainability first emerged—and we

looked at business literature, connecting those two strands to

research on how change gets embedded into people’s practice. Through that, we came up with seven principles of sustainable leadership (see sidebar at right). 

You’ve asserted that those seven principles are “a meal, not a menu.”

With the pressures of No Child Left Behind, how hard is it for leaders to resist taking shortcuts or going for the quick fix?

It’s enormously hard. AYP and NCLB are shot through

with unsustainability. They make people think about the

present, not the future or the past. It [AYP] is the gas-guzzling SUV of educational policy. At the same time, what preceded NCLB was so long term that when teachers left or

budgets shifted, all reform was lost. Our challenge with sustainability is how to meet deep, long-term goals driven with

purpose but also have immediate, short-term lifts that show

FINDING“WHAT STICKS”

Andy Hargreaves and Sustainable Leadership
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 19

you’re making progress toward your goals. However, these

goals have to be set collectively in a culture of urgency and

hope, rather than one of compliance and fear.

It’s essential that school boards, leaders, and teacher organizations work together for a more creative, innovative

approach to responding effectively and transparently to the

diverse needs of their communities. If they rush around panicking in response to meeting short-term, standards-based

goals, they’ll dig themselves deeper into an inescapable grave.

What does the experience of other countries with standards-based

goals tell us?

It’s clear that America is heading in a direction almost all

countries have abandoned. The fact is that Wales abolished

educational testing before age 14. England is reviewing and

relaxing its National Literacy Targets because of problems

with retention of teachers and leaders. Fullan is now advising

Ontario [Canada] to pay attention to targets, but not forced

ones. 

So, America is going back to the future and most educators

don’t know this. The danger is that in 10–20 years, America

will be less competitive internationally, both educationally

and economically.

Your leadership work with Oregon’s State Action for Education

Leadership Project is supported by the Wallace Foundation. Can

others replicate this work without such resources?

All projects need to think about how to sustain the work

once the resources have disappeared. To do that, you need to

invest in building awareness and understanding of the different stages of leadership—both among principals and teachers.

This afternoon [at the institute in Portland] we’ll develop a

new staff development framework. Often, schools have one

staff development plan for teachers and one for aspiring principals, but we’re trying to connect them, developing a set of

indicators of sustainability to be used in designing a staff

development network. What we’re trying to do is mainstream

the idea of sustainability into the policies and practices. We’ll

know we’ve achieved that when sustainability is treated like

gender equity with strategies that people have to pay attention

to in a formal way and with cultural competency training that

equips them to do so. ■

School Leaders on Staff Development

SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF SUSTAINABLE LEADERSHIP

Andy Hargreaves and coauthor Dean Fink argue that “sustainability does not simply mean whether something can last.

It addresses how particular initiatives can be developed without compromising the development of others in the surrounding environment, now and in the future.” In their

recent book Sustainable Leadership (2006, Jossey-Bass/Wiley),

the two researchers articulate seven principles of sustainability in educational change: 

1. Depth—Sustainable leadership matters: It promotes the

fundamental moral purpose of deep and broad learning.

2. Length—Sustainable leadership lasts: It endures year after

year, from one leader to the next.

3. Breadth—Sustainable leadership spreads: It depends on

the leadership of others.

4. Justice—Sustainable leadership does not harm the surrounding environment: It doesn’t raid other schools’ outstanding teachers or students and doesn’t prosper at their

expense.

5. Diversity—Sustainable leadership promotes diversity and

cohesion: It avoids standardization.

6. Resourcefulness—Sustainable leadership develops materials and human resources: It doesn’t deplete them by wasting money or people’s time.

7. Conservation—Sustainable leadership honors the past in

creating the future: It considers organizational memories

and “the wisdom of memory bearers.”

MERIDIAN, Idaho—Things are booming in Meridian. According to the

Idaho Commerce and Labor Department’s most recent statistics, this onetime farming town located 10 miles west of Boise is the fastest growing

community in the state. In 2004 Meridian had a 14.5 percent population

increase, gaining more than 7,000 new residents. Unofficial estimates put

the 2005 figure at close to 10,000 newcomers. While those numbers are

higher than normal, the Boise area’s rare combination of high-paying

jobs, world-class recreational opportunities, and a major university has

fueled a population explosion for more than a decade.

Perhaps no institution has felt the shock of that explosion more than

the public school system. Officially called Joint School District #2, the

district—which includes Meridian, parts of Boise, and the nearby communities of Eagle and Star—surpassed Boise as the largest in the state five

years ago and has continued to grow at unprecedented rates, averaging

1,000 new students every year for the past decade. In the 2005–2006

school year it absorbed almost twice that number. In fall 2006, the district

added another 1,764 students. 

“Any district that’s having that kind of growth is always, in some ways,

playing catch-up,” says Superintendent Linda Clark, “and we are, too.”

For JSD#2, playing catch-up means trying to pass multimillion dollar

school bonds as frequently as every two years. It means building two or

three new schools at any given time. It means hiring dozens of new staff

Leaps and Bounds

The largest school district in Idaho 

continues to find success 

by staying focused on 

annual academic growth 

for every student.

Story by BRACKEN REED

Photos by DARIN OSWALD

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 21

Meridian Elementary Principal

Byron Yankey’s two decades of

administrative experience helped

guide the school through several

major reforms in a single school year.
members each school year, often up to the beginning of the

second semester. It means constant adjustments to food service and transportation, finding portable classrooms on short

notice, and dealing with a steady trickle of new students—

some years as many as 800—who arrive after the state has

already allocated the district budget. 

Despite these circumstances, the district has managed to

stay focused on meeting its primary goal: annual academic

achievement growth for every student. “When a district has

that as its clear, articulated focus,” Clark says, “it changes virtually every decision you make: how you organize your

school; how classrooms are organized; how teachers deliver

instruction; the role of your assessments; and the role of the

materials that support your instruction. Everything is

changed.”

The district chose that focus and made those changes more

than a decade ago. To understand how the district stays firmly

grounded and continues to succeed, despite constant upheaval,

you need to go back to the mid-1990s—a time when the population had yet to boom; a time when no one was telling the

district it needed to improve, except the district itself.

Building a Foundation

Traditionally, JSD#2’s student achievement scores have

always been among the best in the state, and the mid-1990s

were no different. Clark, the district’s director of student

achievement at the time, says success was threatening to

become a source of complacency. “There were gaps,” she

says, “but basically we were a very high-achieving district.

And yet, when we sat down and looked at our achievement

scores we realized we were the same as we’d always been, as

if we’d just been patting ourselves on the back and saying,

‘Look at us, we’re good.’”

Thankfully, Clark says, the district administration and the

school board weren’t comfortable with stagnation, even at a

high level. Instead, they began to ask the question: How do

we get better?

With a J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation grant in

hand, the district was able to take up that question in earnest.

The answers they found, says Clark, “completely changed

the way we did business.” 

The district leadership set three major goals. First, they

would train all district staff members—including bus drivers

and custodians—in the continuous improvement process, a

management model based on the work of W. Edwards Deming. Second, they would revise the entire curriculum—all

subject areas, all grade levels—in one big project. And third,

they would implement a comprehensive assessment program.

Amazingly, the district was able to meet all three goals

within the next two years. Accomplishing the first goal, Clark

says, was the key. “Making that systemic commitment to continuous improvement became the context for everything else

we did,” she says, “and it still is. It drives everything we do.” 

The continuous improvement process is heavily based on

the use of data, Clark points out, and as a result the district

became data-driven like never before. The first thing everyone noticed was that it was the top half of students, ironically,

who weren’t showing academic growth. “If students aren’t

being introduced to new information, then they don’t show

growth,” says Clark. “That upper half of kids was kind of

coasting; they weren’t being challenged. That’s when we

realized that in order to continually improve we were going

to have to change our focus. We needed to make sure that all

students were going to show growth no matter what their

starting point.”

That shift led to the decision not only to revise the entire

curriculum, but also to find an assessment that could accurately measure academic growth. With the help of the Northwest Evaluation Association, the district implemented an

“adaptive” test, or one that selects each question based on the

answer to the previous question, effectively customizing the

test for each student. The result is a more accurate picture of

a student’s academic level, which in turn allows a school to

provide a more appropriate and individualized level of

instruction. The district now had the ability to track academic growth by individual students, by classrooms, by

schools, and even by the district—a system that perfectly

matched its stated goal.

The district’s assessment program gained national attention as one of the first of its kind, especially after a computerized version called

Measures of Academic

Progress (MAP) was introduced in the 2000–2001

school year. With MAP,

teachers got immediate data

to drive their instruction.

The district began using

the test twice a year—once in the fall to determine the appropriate instructional level for each student and once in the

spring to assess academic growth.

“It’s an assessment system that has meaning at the classroom level,” Clark says, “and it’s our belief that the classroom

level has to be the focus—that’s where the changes for individual students are made.”

The Exception

By the end of the 1990s—and the beginning of the area’s fullfledged population boom—the district had all the major 22 nwrel.org/nwedu/

“MAKING THAT SYSTEMIC COMMITMENT TO

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT BECAME THE

CONTEXT FOR EVERYTHING ELSE WE DID,”

she says, “and it still is. It drives everything we do.”
pieces of its reform in place: a districtwide curriculum;

appropriate and consistent instructional materials at each

building; a comprehensive assessment system; and a welldeveloped instructional model that provided guidance to

teachers by identifying research-based, proven strategies. The

foundation was there. “A district has to build the underpinnings,” says Clark. “You have to have a common understanding of what is to be taught, what the expectations are, what

materials can be used, and the data system that supports it.

We really believe we have those things in place, and have had

for quite a while.” 

The data bore the proof. Most students—typically close to

90 percent districtwide—were high achieving on the Idaho

Standards Achievement Test (ISAT), the proficiency-based

test implemented to determine adequate yearly progress.

More important for the district, the majority of students

showed annual academic growth on the MAP tests that was

well beyond the national average. But there was one glaring

exception.

Meridian Elementary is, as Principal Byron Yankey puts it,

“very, very unlike the majority of the other 28 elementary

schools in the district.” While most of those schools are predominantly white and middle- to upper-middle class, Meridian Elementary typically has a 70 percent poverty rate.

Located near the old center of town, the school serves a

neighborhood that looks much different than the sprawl of

town houses, condominiums, and planned communities

with names like Autumn Faire and Canna Lily Estates that

dominate much of Meridian. “We have high crime, high

mobility, high density of apartments, a lot of single-parent

homes, some homeless students,” says Yankey. “Basically, we

have the kinds of problems you would typically see in an

inner city.” 

Despite strong district support, the school consistently

had low academic achievement levels. Yankey, a veteran principal, was hired for the school before the 1999–2000 school

year in an attempt to turn things around. “The message from

the district was—do whatever it takes, let us know what you

need, make the changes you think need to be made,” says

Yankey. “They gave us a lot of support, but they were also

very hands-off.”

Yankey spent his first year at the school trying to learn

everything he could about what wasn’t working, what was

working, and why. Ironically, he got the clearest picture from

what he calls an “informal, anecdotal” study he conducted

during that first spring. 

Yankey decided to focus on four fourth-graders and four

fifth-graders, each of whom had been at the school since

kindergarten. All eight students were extremely low achieving and were being tested for learning disabilities. Yankey

then tracked every intervention the students had been

offered, every teacher they had had, and the data from every

assessment they had been given. Several things were immediately apparent.

First, it had been clear early on that the students needed

help. “It wasn’t that we didn’t know,” Yankey says. “We could

determine that, literally, at the end of the first full week of

kindergarten. It was that clear.” Second, each student had

been given significant extra help every year he or she was at

the school. That help included everything from formal interventions to tutoring by a teacher who had, on her own initiative, given five of the students an entire year of after-school,

one-on-one reading instruction for 30 minutes each week.

“So that made it clear that we had recognized they needed

help and we had tried to give them that help,” says Yankey.

The third factor, although harder to track, was Yankey’s

personal perspective that bad teaching was not the problem.

“That became especially clear in retrospect,” Yankey says,

“but I could also see it at the time. I had observed those

teachers and I knew them to be highly qualified, experienced,

and dedicated.”

The real problem, Yankey discovered, was bigger than all

of these. “We weren’t making decisions systemically,” he says.

“We weren’t looking at the type of data or the information

that would help us to determine what the kids knew and

what they needed to know. And as a result we were providing

services to kids in an extremely happenstance way.”

In short, all the pieces the district had put in place were

still just that at Meridian Elementary—separate pieces, without the necessary focus. The following year, Yankey set out to

change that. 

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 23

LEAPS AND BOUNDS

BY THE NUMBERS: Joint School District #2

Total students 31,779

Racial/ethnic makeup:

White 45%

African American 2%

Hispanic 3%

American Indian/Alaska Native 1%

Asian 1%

Free and reduced-price lunch 19%

Programs:

Special education 10%

Staff:

Teachers 1,763

Support staff 1,629

Administrators 127

Spending per student $5,000 

For more information: www.meridianschools.org

See LEAPS, page 42
24 nwrel.org/nwedu/

Where 

Everyone’s 

a Learner

COTTAGE GROVE, Oregon—The Cottage Grove High School

Lions have more to roar about than a winning football season that catapulted them into the state playoffs this fall. The

900-student high school scored second in the county in

10th-grade reading and math achievement tests, continuing a

steady climb above state averages. The school’s dropout rate

dipped to just 1.2 percent—about a fourth of the state average. And, the list of Advanced Placement and professionaltechnical options expanded. 

That’s a huge turnaround from a decade ago. Historically,

16-year-olds left high school early to work in the timber

mills that formed the backbone of this blue collar Willamette

Valley town. “Graduating from high school was not a priority and if you looked at our kids’ test scores in the 1990s, they

were pretty pitiful in many cases,” acknowledges Superintendent Krista Parent.

Today, with most of the mills idle, the South Lane School

District’s economically disadvantaged rate hovers around 54

percent. Almost a tenth of the student population is classified

as homeless. Despite the challenge of poverty, students here

are star achievers. Both the high school and middle school

recorded their highest percentages of students meeting or

exceeding state standards in reading and math; out of 305

high schools in Oregon, Cottage Grove High was one of 42

to receive a “strong” rating on the state report card; and all six

of the district’s elementary schools met the No Child Left

Behind requirements in all categories. 

An award-winning

superintendent makes

learning a priority 

for teachers, staff, 

and students.

Story by RHONDA BARTON

Photos by ERIK BISHOFF
First-grade teacher Mary Nisewander

tries out her new digital camera during

a professional development session on

using technology and the environment

to understand mathematical concepts.
What’s made the difference? Krista Parent—

recently named the 2007

Oregon Superintendent

of the Year and one of

four finalists for the

National Superintendent

of the Year—points to the

district’s literacy plan

with its pyramid of interventions at each school.

There’s also the grants

that support professional

development in mathematics and put an impressive amount of technology in teachers’ hands.

And, there’s a communication plan that reaches

out to parents and the

community in a very personal way. But, most of

all, South Lane’s vision of

a districtwide learning

community is modeled at

the top and touches every

adult and child. 

“Sacred Time”

Twice a month, the district’s leadership team

gathers for administrative

meetings. You won’t see

anyone’s eyes glazing

over with drawn-out discussions of business matters. Routine operational

items are handled via 

e-mail and meetings are

reserved for digging into

research and effective instruction.

This year, the two dozen administrators are tackling Change Leadership: A

Practical Guide to Transforming Our Schools

by Tony Wagner and colleagues at the

Harvard Graduate School of Education.

“We’ll read two chapters on our own,

come together, and one of us will facilitate a discussion,” says Parent. At a

recent meeting, they looked at two lessons—one for middle school and one

for high school—evaluating them individually and as a group. “It was really

enlightening because we think we know

what good instruction looks like,” notes

Parent, “but a third of the administrators rated the first lesson in the ‘B’

range, a third in the ‘C’ range, and a

third ‘D.’” Further discussion revealed

that group members weren’t that far

apart, but had different interpretations

of the grades.

The principals take what they learn

back to their schools, where every

Wednesday afternoon—an early release

for students—is “sacred” staff development time. “[The district] has armed

me with research and strategies so I can

be an educational leader, not just a

manager,” says Brian

McCasline, principal of

the district’s only middle

school. “I can go to our

staff and say I know these

work.” 

Principals also get to

model instructional strategies at the annual backto-school staff meeting,

which has become a

prime opportunity for

learning. “Everybody does

back-to-school and they

almost all look the same:

There’s a speaker and

break-out sessions,” says

Assistant Superintendent

Peter Tromba. “But here

we actually work, learning reading strategies

across all levels.”

A novel approach to

book clubs marked this

year’s welcome back session. Just before the close

of school last June, district staff members visited each building, toting

a wheeled cart loaded

with 20 of the best books

they had read on literacy.

“We shared a little piece

on each book and then

asked everyone to pick

one book and agree to

read it during the summer,” says Parent. All 250

teachers, administrators,

educational assistants,

and school board members selected

books that the district purchased for

them. Staff at some of the district’s

smaller schools elected to read the

same book, while larger schools had a

sprinkling of all or most of the choices.

In the fall, before school started, everyone gathered in book clubs to discuss

what they read.

A Culture of Readers

Voluntary book clubs focused on professional topics continue during the

school year. More than half of the district’s staff members—from teachers to

26 nwrel.org/nwedu/

Krista Parent, who’s led South Lane School District for six years, is one of four

finalists for National Superintendent of the Year.
WHERE EVERYONE’S A LEARNER

The emphasis on literacy continues

throughout the day: Math teachers

incorporate vocabulary lessons while

science teachers use literature circles

and social studies teachers turn to

graphic organizers. All teachers have

been taught specific before, during, and

after reading strategies to be used

regardless of their subjects.

Pam Jackson—the middle school’s

literacy coach—shares strategies with

Lincoln teachers at staff meetings and

inservice sessions, and through e-mails.

She also observes teachers in the classroom, provides advice or more indepth mentoring, and demonstrates

techniques through team teaching.

“The fact that we have a literacy

coach here is a huge thing,” says Jackson, who joined the school district this

year. “It’s a way for teachers to receive

instruction and modeling without

pulling them out of their classroom.”

Jackson, who has taught in five other

districts around the country, can’t say

enough about the support she gets

from South Lane’s administration.

“They put their money where their

mouth is. You can tell how important

literacy is because of the resources

they’re putting into it.” 

Like Lincoln, each school in the district has a working literacy plan that

defines the curriculum, assessment,

time, additional support, staff development, and resources dedicated to literacy instruction. The schools’ plans are

guided by the district literacy plan,

which is described as a “dynamic” document that’s reviewed and updated on

a regular basis. 

The plans, with their specific interventions for students who either aren’t

learning or need to be challenged, have

contributed to substantial gains in reading proficiency. The district saw a 16

percent jump in achievement scores,

from 49 percent of eighth-graders proficient in 2004–2005 to 65 percent last

year. Third-grade students improved

three percentage points to 91 percent

during the same period, and fifthgraders had a 15 point increase to 93

percent proficiency. At Cottage Grove

High School, 10th-graders also gained

15 points, with 59 percent meeting or

exceeding state standards.

Ramping Up Math 

and Technology

Reading isn’t the only area where the

district has seen hefty improvements.

Math scores are also on the upswing,

partly due to the district’s participation

in the Oregon Mathematics Leadership

Institute (OMLI) Partnership. The

National Science Foundation initiative

offers ongoing professional development that emphasizes reflective discourse about mathematics and

principals to paraeducators—have

signed on for the after-school activity.

They meet four times during the

semester and receive one credit from a

local college. One club, led by the

superintendent, dissected Robert

Marzano’s Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement: Research on

What Works in Schools. For homework,

teachers implemented one of Marzano’s

strategies and invited Parent to observe

them in action in the classroom. 

Students have their own voluntary

book clubs that gather once a week

during lunch. Kids pick the books and

join a teacher for a 30-minute session.

The clubs attract about 10 percent of

the students at Lincoln Middle School,

where literacy isn’t just confined to the

English classroom. 

Step into Lincoln just after the first

bell rings and you’ll see all students

bent over books during the daily 15-

minute reading period. During this

“zero period,” youngsters are assigned

to classrooms based on their reading

levels and everyone—from the P.E.

teacher to instructional aides and counselors—leads literacy activities or monitors sustained silent reading. One

room might be buzzing with children

reading aloud in pairs while students

next door are working on their own,

charting “event timelines” that trace the

action in the book. 

BY THE NUMBERS: South Lane School District

Total students 2,836

Racial/ethnic makeup:

White 89.4%

African American 0.7%

Hispanic 5.6%

American Indian/Alaska Native 2.5%

Asian 1.4%

Free and reduced-price lunch 54%

Special education 17%

Staff:

Teachers/counselors 153 FTE

Support staff 174

Administrators 17.5 (plus 4 interns)

Spending per student $6,219 

For more information: www.slane.k12.or.us

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 27

“KRISTA DOESN’T SAY ‘NO’ OR ‘SOME DAY,’”

according to Myers. “It’s ‘let’s find a way to

make that happen.’ She’s said every teacher

should have a laptop, and knowing Krista,

she’ll find a way.” 

Cottage Grove High School

Principal Donn Pollard
collaborative problem solving. As part

of the multiyear project, 14 teacherleaders from the district attend a halfdozen training sessions during the year

and an intensive three-week summer

institute. During the last week of the

institute, they’re joined by eight principals—an arrangement that strengthens

administrative buy-in for a new

approach to teaching math. 

“The OMLI work is focused on

building a professional community—

and one of the keys is to really use student thinking to learn about best

practices and what kids need,” says Julie

DePauw, who leads the district’s participation in the project. “You do that in a

variety of ways through case studies,

protocols looking at student work, lesson study, and discourse observations in

each other’s classrooms.”

Math coach Teresa Myers agrees

that “deprivatizing” practice in the district has made for stronger teachers.

“This project has created a broad base

of teachers across our district who

really feel supported by each other and

work closely together,” she comments.

One example is a first-grade teacher

who paired up with a sixth-grade

teacher. They each designed a lesson

and traded places so the first-grade

teacher taught her colleague’s lesson to

the sixth-graders while the sixth-grade

teacher instructed the first-graders.

Afterward, they compared what they

learned. “That’s a no-cost way to build

community as well as content knowledge about the trajectory of math from

where it starts to where it goes,”

DePauw points out. 

South Lane has been able to

enhance its math instruction with

high-tech tools, acquired through a

Title IID educational technology grant.

This year, the grant equipped 34 teachers with laptops, document cameras,

projectors, and digital cameras.

On this sunny day in October, an

all-day professional development session helps teachers discover new ways

to blend technology with math.

They’ve fanned out on the leafy streets

surrounding district headquarters to

photograph examples of mathematics

in nature. One teacher is busy snapping

shots for a counting book for her

kindergartners. A middle school

teacher is making plans to borrow

other teachers’ cameras and have her

students take photographs to illustrate

their own math problems.

In the classroom, the new computers, projectors, and document cameras—along with 1,200 hand-held

computers for student use—are

spurring a deeper level of discussion

about problem solving. Sharing student work becomes easier and more

immediate, says Lynn Lary, technology

director for the educational service district. “As kids are working on their

problems, the teacher can walk around,

look for different strategies and

sequence them from very simple to

complex. So, when she asks kids to

come up and share their work [on the

projector], there’s no wait time; it’s not

random; and it’s not just one kid. It’s a

whole sequence of student work that

helps build the instructional point of

the lesson,” says Lary.

Through Title IID funds and other

grants, about half of South Lane’s

teachers now have the latest technology

at their fingertips. But, Teresa Myers

says she’s confident that the superintendent won’t rest until everyone is

wired. “Krista doesn’t say ‘no’ or ‘some

day,’” according to Myers. “It’s ‘let’s

find a way to make that happen.’ She’s

said every teacher should have a laptop,

and knowing Krista, she’ll find a way.” 

GETTING THE WORD OUT

South Lane reaches out to parents, community, and staff members—not just at election time, but all year round:

• Customized bookmarks highlight indicators of school or district success. They’re

distributed at school and community events, local libraries, and bookstores.

• A weekly e-mail to staff from the superintendent features success stories, so

employees will have positive talking points when they’re out in the community.

• A committee of 25 people calls the parents of each high school freshman three

times during the school year to ask how things are going. The callers note if families need follow-up contact on specific issues.

As part of the Oregon Mathematics Leadership Institute, teacher-leaders and principals in the

South Lane School District receive ongoing training in collaborative problem solving and reflective

discourse about math.

28 nwrel.org/nwedu/
working on a number of other issues,

too, like improving parent involvement. Perhaps most notable, though, is

that the group meets regularly at seven

o’clock on Saturday mornings. 

For South Lane School District, losing a little sleep is nothing to worry

about when you’re building a community where everybody learns. ■

A Model Leader: 

Q&A With Krista Parent

Preparing Well-Rounded

Graduates 

The district is also finding ways to

ensure that all students leave high

school with the skills they need for success: literacy and mathematical competency; an understanding of technology;

habits that foster wellness; and a sense

of civic-mindedness.

At the impressive new $26 million

high school—built after voters approved

a levy by a three-to-one margin—students can get college credit not only for

Advanced Placement calculus and

physics, but also for professional-technical courses like engineering technology, recreation and tourism management, and anatomy and physiology.

State-of-the-art robotics, plastics, and

CAD (computer-aided design) drafting

labs give students a taste of career possibilities that their parents never

dreamed of.

Principal Donn Pollard, who’s been

at the helm for seven years, talks about

the sustained focus on a “culture of

achievement.” Pollard says, “We started

by asking, ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if

learning and success were the norm

instead of something just a few kids

do?’ We went to work on increasing

attendance, providing a welcoming

environment, communicating well,

and creating a system of interventions

when kids struggle. We’re asking kids

to do more and they’re responding.

But, we’re also offering them support.”

Part of that support is reorganizing

the schedule so that half the lunch

period is designated as a study hall.

Some students take advantage of the

time to do their homework; those who

need to bolster their reading take

classes organized around comprehension, fluency, or vocabulary. Students

with the greatest needs are enrolled in

Read 180, Scholastic Inc.’s comprehensive reading intervention program, in

addition to their regular language arts

block. In effect, they get a double dose

of literacy instruction.

A 32-member site council—which

includes parents and students as well as

teachers and administrators—helped

craft the literacy program. They’re

WHERE EVERYONE’S A LEARNER

At the middle school, a mentorship program brings eighth-grade students into sixth-grade

classrooms to lead group exercises that stress teamwork and mutual respect.

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 29
30 nwrel.org/nwedu/

Improving 

on Culture

Historically a

community of shipyard

workers, Port Orchard’s

focus is changing, along

with its attitude toward

education.
PORT ORCHARD, Washington—In 2004, South Kitsap administrators got the bad news: For the second year in a row, the district didn’t make enough progress on seventh-grade special

education students’ reading and math scores. 

That threw the 11,000-student district into Step 2

“Improvement” status. In Washington, such a designation

means that the school district is required to work with the

Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to

improve results or face increasingly stiff sanctions.

Today—after a lot of planning, hard work, and an infusion

of OSPI resources—the district has shed its “needs improvement” label. In reaching that point, South Kitsap realized that

simply improving some students’ performance wasn’t good

enough: It needed a sea change in district culture that would

benefit all students.

LESSONS LEARNED

Port Orchard—the home of South Kitsap School District—

is a community in the beginning stages of transition. The

Puget Sound Naval Shipyard dominates the waterfront along

Sinclair Inlet, which forms the western tip of the Sound.

While the Navy and defense contractors remain the top

employers, more and more people are using Port Orchard as

a bedroom community. A commute of two hours each way to

Seattle is not that unusual anymore.

The district’s 16 schools serve a student population with a

29 percent poverty rate, though some schools have free and

reduced-price lunch rates that exceed 40 percent. The number of special education students can reach almost 15 percent

in any given year. 

Assistant Superintendent Kurt Wagner admits that the

district isn’t without its challenges. He observes, “We struggle like anyone else.” But, the struggle to climb out of

improvement status has left enduring lessons that other districts might heed. Wagner ticks off some of those epiphanies: 

• You need a dedicated AYP planning committee that digs

into data and involves all principals in the role of instructional leaders.

• You need to identify the best instructional practices to

affect all kids, relying on research and the experience of

your best teachers when making curricular choices.

• You need well-designed, job-embedded professional

development that’s focused on supporting teachers’ efforts

to implement those best instructional practices.

• You need a collaborative team—including special education, Title I, instructional specialists, and literacy and math

coaches—to work with classroom teachers on a plan of

attack for each struggling student and to meet the needs of

all students.

• You need a strong partnership with your unions.

• You need to talk with staff about the belief that “all kids

can learn” and identify the barriers to accomplishing that

goal.

CHANGING PERCEPTIONS

The last lesson may have been the most revealing and potentially troublesome. As Linda Munson, South Kitsap’s director of special programs and head of the AYP planning

committee, recalls, “It was clear early on that we had to

A WASHINGTON SCHOOL DISTRICT

EXITS THE “IMPROVEMENT” LIST 

WITH A NEW OUTLOOK

Story by RHONDA BARTON • Photos by JEAN BOYLE and SUZIE BUTLER

Photo © Jean Boyle, KitsapImages.com

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 31
address our culture. We had come to

realize that not all teachers believed

all students could learn.”

Working with the Center for

Educational Effectiveness, a school

improvement organization based

in Redmond, Washington, the district surveyed staff, parents, and

students to uncover attitudes and

perceptions about school culture

and organizational effectiveness. In

examining the results, the AYP

committee discovered that a significant percentage of staff members was not convinced that all

students could meet Washington’s

rigorous achievement standards in

reading and math.

As its first priority, the group

engaged all staff members in deep

conversation about that belief and provided data to challenge

assumptions. They talked about using alternatives such as

portfolios to meet standards. And, they reframed the discussion so it became more personal and focused on success. 

“Instead of asking about meeting standards, you have to

ask teachers if they believe all kids can learn. If they don’t,

then you say, ‘Tell me the percentage that you think can’t’ and

you ask them to name those students,” says Wagner. “At that

point, when they attach those statements to their own kids,

it’s difficult for them to turn away.”

One tool the district has used to make the conversation

less abstract and more student-centered is a “literacy tracking

wall” in all elementary schools. At East Port Orchard Elementary, it actually covers two whole walls in the literacy

resource room. Three-inch square “sticky” notes, each bearing a child’s name, are color-coded by grade levels and

arranged in a continuum according to the student’s scores on

fluency and ability to

read complex text independently. The graphic

system makes it easy to

spot a fourth-grader,

denoted by a yellow

square, stuck in the

midst of a sea of pink

second-grade squares. 

Teachers come in on a

regular basis, examine

the wall, and talk to the

literacy coach and

instructional specialist

about how to literally

and figuratively move

their students along the

scale. “It helps in pinpointing the

skill deficits and identifying the

intervention that needs to be put in

place—from small-group instruction to working with the child individually,” says Wagner. He adds that

the tracking wall also aids in program evaluation: For example, if

too many students are having problems with fluency, it means that

teachers need more training in that

area.

The formation of collaborative

“child study teams” has also helped

match struggling students with the

most effective instruction. Each

school has a problem-solving team

made up of the principal, teachers,

literacy coach, special education

specialist, and psychologist. Teachers will bring concerns about their individual students to the

group for guidance. Munson notes, “Typically, the process

was used to decide which kids to test for special education.

Now, we’re asking teachers to identify the deficits and

exhaust the interventions first so special ed testing becomes a

last resort instead of the first.” The district believes that

approach is at least partially responsible for reducing the

number of youngsters now identified as special education

from nearly 15 percent to a little over 12 percent of the student

population.

TAPPING INTO STATE RESOURCES

These steps, along with robust professional development,

bring praise from Bill Rossman, the district improvement

assistance coordinator at OSPI. He admits that it’s difficult to

pinpoint the key component that can turn around a district

when there are many different strategies in the mix. However, he credits South Kitsap’s large and hardworking AYP

planning committee with playing a critical role.

“One of the things that was amazingly significant was the

size of their team—more than 80 members, including parents—and how many people they brought to the table for

conversation,” says Rossman. “That led to a serious look at

data and analyzing what students needed. They kept looking

deeper into the data and found ways they could approach

staff, parents, and students themselves about how they were

going to proceed with their improvement plan.”

Rossman says bringing in outsiders to help look at the data

and “ask the difficult questions” was important. He points

out that “someone from outside doesn’t have ownership nor

are they perceived as having a particular approach that an

insider might take exception to.” 

An 82-member team may sound unwieldy, but South Kitsap was able to manage the process under the direction of a

four-member steering committee (made up of Superintendent

32 nwrel.org/nwedu/

BY THE NUMBERS: South Kitsap School District

Total students 10,764

Racial/ethnic makeup:

White 81.8%

African American 3.3%

Hispanic 3.7%

American Indian/Alaska Native 2.6%

Asian 7.2%

Free and reduced-price lunch 28.7%

Staff:

Teachers 527

Support staff, including counselors 141

Administrators 36

Spending per student $7,392 

For more information: www.skitsap.wednet.edu

Assistant Superintendent Kurt Wagner
Bev Cheney, Special Education Director Rita Reandeau,

School Improvement Consultant Jim Whitford, and Munson)—all of whom also served on a slightly larger planning

team. While the entire AYP group worked together, members

broke into smaller groups to process information along

grade-level, cross-level, and school-based lines.

Rossman thinks having a large committee ensures that

there’s greater awareness of the issues and brings more ownership across the district. “The planning team obviously took

information from the larger group and strategized on how to

implement their recommendations, shift focus, provide

needed professional development, and

allocate budget dollars.” 

Washington’s district improvement

program has been able to provide more

financial resources to districts like South

Kitsap, thanks to a $2 million, two-year

appropriation from the state legislature

that was matched by a grant from the Bill

& Melinda Gates Foundation. The funds

are in addition to $7 million that Washington annually earmarks for school and 

district improvement.

This year, much of the improvement

money will go for beefed-up technical

assistance to 30 districts in need of

improvement. Of those 30, five districts

were selected for more intensive help,

including additional professional development, an on-site review by peer educators,

and the services of a facilitator for 80 days

during a two-year period. 

In the 2004 and 2005 school years,

South Kitsap received $35,000 a year from

the state’s district improvement program.

The district used the money, along with a 10 percent setaside in Title I funds, to cover the AYP committee members’

participation in after-school meetings. The extra dollars also

financed materials and services of consultants like the Center

for Educational Effectiveness.

More than money, though, South Kitsap relied on the

research and advice that OSPI and the Washington Association of School Administrators (WASA) made available during

the improvement process. “Both WASA and OSPI were at

our beck and call,” says Wagner. The two organizations put

on a series of conferences featuring noted

researcher Michael Fullan that were particularly useful in working to reshape the

district’s culture.

“As Fullan says, you have to change

behaviors before beliefs change,” Munson

points out. In the end, changing behaviors

and beliefs has been at the crux of making

improvements for all South Kitsap’s 

students. ■

IMPROVING ON CULTURE

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 33

RESOURCES FOR IMPROVEMENT

South Kitsap was one of four Washington school districts that successfully exited

the “needs improvement” list in the 2006 school year. The other three districts

were Lake Stevens, North Thurston, and Stanwood-Camano. All received substantial support from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI).

As part of its district improvement assistance program, OSPI offers a number

of online resources (www.k12.wa.us/DistrictImprovement/) that speak to continuous improvement issues. These include the School System Improvement Resource

Guide, which highlights best practices and provides a model planning process;

school improvement rubrics; and a comprehensive research analysis, Characteristics of Improved School Districts. 

Bill Rossman, the assistance coordinator, says one key lesson has emerged in

the six years since his program started: Superintendents need to be engaged in

all the activities around school improvement. “They need to be totally involved in

it, understand it, and champion it,” he asserts. “In the districts that seem to be

doing well, the superintendent is at the table when there are discussions around

school improvement and district improvement. When the superintendent is listening and hears what the needs are, the system begins to shift in terms of

administrative guidelines and budgets directed toward improvement initiatives.”

Literacy tracking walls in all elementary schools provide a graphic way to identify deficits in

students’ reading skills.
34 nwrel.org/nwedu/

FORWARD MOTION

By BRACKEN REED • Photos by JOHN REDDY

Concern about graduation rates sparks 

an ongoing, systemic high school reform effort 

in Montana’s capital city. 

HELENA, Montana—Talking over lunch at a restaurant in Helena’s Last

Chance Gulch, Superintendent Bruce Messinger sums up the major

dilemma facing the city’s three high schools. “Our challenge, as with all

high schools in America right now,” says Messinger, “is how do we make

school engaging and challenging for students that are high achieving and

also reach out to those students who are struggling and are really disenchanted with the whole experience? We’re finding that we have to be more

flexible and more personal in our approach.” 

In Helena, that question has a new urgency. Helena High School, one

of the district’s traditional grade 9–12 schools, did not meet the state’s

graduation rate benchmark of 80 percent for two years in a row. In 2003,

the school’s graduation rate was 75.4 percent. In 2004, it was 74.4. In 2005

it rose to 80.9, but the school remains in improvement status.

“It’s a statistic we’ve been paying a lot of attention to,” Messinger says,

“and at the same time we’re looking at failure rates within classes, because

to us the graduation rate is more like the effect, not the cause. Yes, we’re

losing 20 to 25 percent of the students before they graduate, but it isn’t like

they just woke up one day and said, ‘I think I’ll drop out of high school.’

There were obviously things going on that led to that.”

Identifying and addressing those causes has become a major initiative

for the Helena School District. “We’ve done a pretty good job at serving

students at the higher end and more in the middle,” says Messinger, “and

we need to continue to challenge those students and to offer them opportunities like AP courses and internships and the chance to earn college

credit. But we also need to figure out how to make the system responsive

to the needs of all students.”
NORTHWEST EDUCATION 

/ WINTER 2007 35

Helena Superintendent Bruce

Messinger takes a shared leadership

approach to everything from labor

contracts to high school reform. 
A Question of Values

According to Helena High Principal

Greg Upham, a pivotal moment in

Helena’s high school reform effort

came at a national Model Schools conference in the summer of 2005. Many

of the schools that presented at the

conference were from large, urban districts with radically different demographics than those in Montana. What

they had to say, however, hit home.

“The schools I had the opportunity to

listen to were schools that said, ‘We’re

not going to let our students fail anymore—period, end of story,’” says

Upham. “That sounds like a really simple message, but the implications,

when we thought about it, were really

profound.” 

Back in Helena, district- and buildinglevel administrators compared that message to their own approach. “What we

realized is that we were unconsciously

operating on a different set of assumptions,” says Upham, “and those were

based on really deep-rooted values.”

As a predominantly middle-class

community, Upham says, Helena is

unapologetic about its traditional

American values. “It’s the idea that you

reap what you sow—that if you get up

and go to school on time and work

hard, then good things will happen,”

says Upham. “And there’s something

to be said for that. But on the other

hand, it was kind of saying, ‘Well, if 20

percent of the students fail, that must

be what they deserve.’”

Changing those basic values wasn’t

the point, says Upham. The district

simply needed to acknowledge that not

all students come from the same starting point or thrive in the same kind of

conditions. “Middle-class people usually know how to maneuver the system,” say Upham, “but the students

that typically end up at risk don’t.

Given some extra help or some different options, they can succeed, and it’s

our responsibility to see that they do.

We needed the flexibility to do that—

we were extremely reactive to things

instead of proactive.”

Messinger and the Helena Public

Schools Board of Trustees agreed. That

fall the district began its high school

initiative in earnest. For the first half of

the school year all middle and high

school principals—including the principal of the alternative high school

called the Project for Alternative

Learning (P.A.L.)—met with Messinger and other district administrators

every Wednesday afternoon for several

hours. They looked at data, identified

problems, and searched for solutions.

They researched national reform

efforts and talked about how they

related to the district’s needs. They

underwent Breaking Ranks training—a

model designed by the National Association of Secondary School Principals

to specifically address the needs of high

school leaders undertaking reform.

By midterm, the group had

expanded to include vice principals and

members of the board, and had become

a formal, district-level high school

planning team. High school teachers

joined the planning process to help

form a larger, more representative

group. The board then facilitated a

series of candid discussions, asking

principals about their frustrations and

challenges. This was followed in the

spring by a formal report of the planning

team to the board.

What emerged from all of this “stage

setting,” as Messinger calls it, was a

dual approach. First, the team identified a few immediate, site-specific

strategies and programs. Second, they

suggested that the initiative needed to

be long term and systemic. The conversation needed to go deeper and the 36 nwrel.org/nwedu/

(Below and right) District reform efforts have

helped Helena High create 

a more personalized, supportive 

environment for all students. 

(lower right) A national conference had 

a powerful influence on Helena High School

Principal Greg Upham’s approach 

to helping struggling students.
circle needed to widen. Team members

realized they needed to hear from students, parents, teachers, and community members. They needed to stop

talking and start listening. “And that’s

when we called Bob,” says Messinger.

Bob is Bob Chadwick, a nationally

known consultant and facilitator who

specializes in consensus building. A

burly man with a full white beard,

Chadwick worked for the U.S. Forest

Service for nearly 30 years. While there

he gained a reputation as a rare person

who could find common ground

among private industry, the government, and environmental groups.

Chadwick eventually left the Forest

Service and expanded his conflict resolution work to all areas of public life. 

Breaking the Fall

While Chadwick helped the district

work toward long-term change,

Upham took the reins of Helena High

and implemented the more immediate,

site-specific reforms. In the fall of 2006

the school adopted a comprehensive

intervention framework—called “the

ladder of academic intervention”—and

began two safety-net programs to break

the fall of failing students. 

The goal of these programs comes

straight from the lessons Upham

learned at the Model Schools conference. “Our common vision is that

we’re just not going to allow students

to fail,” says Upham. “We’re trying to

be proactive about addressing students’

needs, which includes identifying

those needs as soon as possible.”

Improving communication between

the middle and high schools was essential. Before the start of the current

school year, Upham and his vice principals met with middle school staff to

identify incoming freshmen who were

at risk of failing. 

“It’s all about getting to know the

students,” says Upham. “We’ve made a

point of saying that we can no longer let

350 to 400 students enter our building

every fall and not know who they are.”

After looking at the data and talking

to the middle school staff, Upham personally contacted the parents of almost

two dozen students. “It was positive

outreach,” says Upham. “It wasn’t calling to say ‘your kid is bad, they’re

flunking.’ It was saying: ‘We think we

have a program that can help your student. It’s not special education, and you

don’t have to do it, but we strongly

encourage that you do it.’” 

That new program is called Late

Start and draws on the research of Kyla

Wahlstrom and her team at the Center

for Applied Research and Educational

Improvement (CAREI) at the University of Minnesota. Their research

shows that many adolescents’ “clocks”

don’t kick in until later than most

adults, often around 10 in the morning.

Both Helena High and Capital High

(which started the program a year earlier) decided to combine a late start

with intensive, small-group instruction. To make it work, they deferred

two of the normal freshman classes to

the sophomore year, and identified

math as the greatest area of need.

The students arrive at 9:45 a.m. and

have breakfast with a counselor who

talks with them about social skills. At

10:05 they begin a full period of math

instruction, breaking into smaller

groups according to their appropriate

instructional level. “That kind of levelappropriate instruction is often done in

elementary schools,” says Upham, “but

in middle and high school, kids are

typically expected to sink or swim. We

decided that we needed to start these

kids where they were, rather than

where they should be. They needed a

chance to do well and to gain confidence so they could move forward.”

And move forward they have.

“We’re seeing some kids have success

that have never had any success at all,”

says Upham. “These are students who

failed almost all their classes in the seventh and eighth grade, and now they’re

working hard and they’re building

some momentum.”

The Late Start program is a targeted

intervention that typically serves 20 or

fewer students. To meet the needs of

other freshman and sophomore students who are struggling but require

less intensive interventions, the school

has implemented a credit recovery program. Students who are falling behind

in a subject are taken out of the regular

classroom and given small group or

even one-on-one instruction with a veteran teacher. When they catch up, they

can return to the regular classroom.

Dave Thennis, who teaches a credit

recovery biology class, says the results

have been inspiring. “I think there are

FORWARD MOTION

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 37
several reasons for the success,”

says Thennis. “They’re less distracted. They’re able to basically

work at their own pace and in their

own way. They’re in a room with

only three or four other students,

so they can focus better. And I

think it makes it much clearer as to

what’s being asked of them—they

can visualize it and cross things off

as they go.”

But perhaps the main reason for

the students’ success, says Thennis, is their recognition that someone cared. “I think they really get

that concept: We’re going to give

you another shot because we want

you to succeed,” he says. “They

appreciate that and that appreciation is showing up in their engagement in the process. They come in

with smiles on their faces and say ‘I

got it done!’ It’s a complete role reversal

for some of these kids.”

According to Messinger, the

reforms at Helena High have one thing

in common. “We’re trying to make the

system more flexible and responsive to

individual needs,” he says. “It’s about

trying to personalize the educational

experience. In the past, the system was

maybe too tightly structured, too

inflexible. We’re starting to change that

in small ways, while working on a

more systemic reform.”

Continuing the Conversation

The work of the planning team, with

the help of Chadwick, is essential to

those larger reforms. After meeting

with the board, Chadwick recommended a series of “listening sessions,”

that would include at least one session

for each stakeholder group. He also

recommended that the team recruit

participants who wouldn’t typically get

involved—students who aren’t the

usual high achievers and parents who

haven’t participated in the past. 

Two students who are high achievers—Dawson, a junior at Capital High,

and Hannah, a senior at Helena

High—have been central to the

process. The two serve as the student

representatives on the board of

trustees, as well as on the high school

planning team, which gives them a

unique perspective on the district’s

reform efforts.

“It’s been a really exciting year to

serve as a student representative,” says

Dawson. “A lot of the focus has been

on the high school level, which makes

our role even more important.”

Both Dawson and Hannah have

worked hard to recruit students for the

listening sessions that represent a broad

cross-section of the student population.

“If we’re trying to make the system

more open and responsive to everyone

then we really need to include the students that aren’t traditionally successful,” says Dawson.

“This is about bringing students and

parents and teachers and administrators all to the same level,” says Hannah.

“We want to give everyone a voice and

a sense of empowerment—that their

input is valuable and will be listened to,

and that action will come from that.”

The listening sessions will be held

in February with multiple sessions for

different stakeholder groups at each of

the three high schools and a community session for others who are interested but not closely associated with

the schools. Where the high school

initiative goes from there will be

greatly influenced by what the 

district hears. 

“We hope these sessions can

build trust, which will lead to buyin on the actual strategies we propose,” says Messinger. “We’re not

going in saying ‘Here’s what we

want to do, what do you think?’

We’re asking them for ideas and

giving them a voice in what we do,

so that when we actually propose

some major changes they will have

support.” 

Seeing results is essential, says

Hannah, especially for students

who are already skeptical of the

system. “Listening to those students is great,” she says, “but if we

don’t do anything after that, then

it’s just going to make the situation

worse. They’re going to feel even less

empowered and like it was just the

same old thing. This is such a great

opportunity to prove that they really do

have a voice and that change really can

be made. It’s crucial that we not only

listen, but take action.”

In Helena, the stage is set and the

action is just beginning, but one thing

is clear: How things play out from here

isn’t the sole right or responsibility of

the board, the central administration,

the building principals, or any other

single group to decide. Here, everyone

has a say, so that all can succeed. ■

BY THE NUMBERS: Helena School District

Total students 7,960

Racial/ethnic makeup:

White 90%

African American 1%

Hispanic 2%

American Indian/Alaska Native 5%

Asian 1%

Multi-ethnic <1%

Staff:

Teachers 536

Support staff 307

Administrators 37

Spending per student:

Elementary/middle school $5,318

High school $5,943

For more information: www.helena.k12.mt.us

38 nwrel.org/nwedu/
As the country marks the fifth anniversary of the No Child Left

Behind Act in January 2007, an increased number of districts

are moving into improvement status, both in the Northwest

and nationally. In addition, many districts are now moving to

the next level of accountability, “corrective action.” 

According to Section 1116(c) of the original Title IA legislation, corrective action by the state for a district in improvement can take different forms: deferring a district’s funds;

instituting new curriculum; replacing district staff; removing

specific schools from the district; authorizing students to

transfer to another district; appointing a receiver or trustee to

administer the district; or even abolishing or restructuring

the district entirely. 

In reality, most states are reluctant to take such drastic

measures unless absolutely necessary. “The last thing we

want to do is to take over districts,” says Roger Sampson, the

Alaska Commissioner of Education & Early Development,

“but after five years of not making progress a district may

need more significant intervention.”

As more districts begin to hit that five-year mark the kind

of state-level assistance Sampson alludes to is gaining national

attention and raising multiple questions: What does the legislation actually say about states’ roles in providing assistance?

Are all states required to provide the same kinds of assistance?

What are states actually doing?

To answer those questions, the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory’s Center for School and District

Improvement has conducted a study of the five Northwest

states. Still in draft form, How Northwest States Are Responding

to Schools in Need of Improvement: A Study of Current Practices

(Davis, Krasnoff, Moilanen, & Sather, 2006) is one of the first

systematic, multistate analyses of its kind. The report provides a brief summary of the legislation that addresses the

state role, as well as details of current state efforts. 

THE STATE ROLE 

NCLB legislation gives districts the main responsibility for

providing assistance to schools in need of improvement.

However, they’re not expected to do that alone. The original

legislation called for states to develop a statewide system of

“intensive and sustained technical assistance and support for

ACCOUNTABILITY:

A DISTRICT AND STATE PARTNERSHIP

By BRACKEN REED and RICHARD GREENOUGH

Subgroups: NCLB requires schools and districts to report

on the academic achievement of several subgroups of students

in addition to the combined achievement of all students.

Those subgroups include students with disabilities as defined

in the Individuals With Disabilities Educational Act, students

in migrant status, students receiving free and reduced-price

lunch, students with limited English proficiency, and students

from major racial and ethnic groups. 

Minimum N: This is the minimum number of students a

school or district must have in a particular subgroup in order

for that group to be included in accountability measures. State

minimum Ns range from 5 to 75 students. A higher minimum N typically means that fewer schools and districts have

to be rated for a given subgroup, which makes it easier to

make adequate yearly progress. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings recently announced that the reauthorization of

NCLB will not seek to establish a uniform minimum N for

all states. 

Confidence Interval: An adjustment for margin of error,

which can be applied to states’ proficiency scores. In most

states, a school or district can apply a confidence interval

around its percentage of students meeting standards before

judging whether or not it made the AYP target.

Safe Harbor: If a school or district does not make AYP based

on proficiency scores with the application of the confidence

interval, it can still make AYP if the percentage of students

who score below the proficient level is decreased by 10 percent from the previous year and there is improvement for that

subgroup on the “other indicator”—typically high school

graduation rate or attendance.

IMPORTANT TERMS FOR UNDERSTANDING ACCOUNTABILITY

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 39
school improvement” and to implement that support both to

districts and directly to schools. 

Section 1117(a)(4) of the legislation lists the three minimum components—described as “approaches”—of a

statewide system of support to schools and districts: school

support teams, distinguished educator services, and “additional approaches that increase the opportunity for all students

to meet academic content and achievement standards.” The

section also requires states to recognize and reward highachieving schools. 

In July 2006, the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) released an update to the original NCLB legislation titled LEA and School Improvement: Non-Regulatory

Guidance, which provides further definition of the state role.

While this guidance gives more specific details—especially in

regard to the function and purpose of school support teams—

it again leaves many of the details up to individual states.

Typically, states are responding to the improvement mandate by strengthening approaches that were already underway

prior to NCLB and by developing additional technical assistance efforts that are compatible with those efforts.

COMMON GROUND IN THE NORTHWEST 

NCLB clearly prescribes state support teams as the “priority

approach” for states to use. According to the NWREL study,

states are doing just that. The original legislation defines the

support teams as “composed of persons knowledgeable about

scientifically based research and practice on teaching and

learning and about successful schoolwide projects, school

reform, and improving educational opportunities for lowachieving students.” The list that follows that definition

includes not only educators from the state, district, and local

level, but also parents, representatives from higher education,

“pupil services personnel,” regional educational laboratories,

and outside consultants.

In addition to state support teams, most of the Northwest

states have implemented some form of the distinguished

educator program. The legislation defines distinguished educators as “teachers and principals from Title I schools that

have been especially successful in improving academic

achievement.” These educators are typically invited to serve

on a team that reviews the academic programs at schools in

need of improvement.

Other approaches identified in the study as common to all

states include:

• Extensive and ongoing communication about NCLB and

related improvement issues

• Professional development designed to strengthen instructional weaknesses that led to improvement identification

• Mentoring and coaching for instructional leadership

• Emerging initiatives to support districts identified for

improvement

For a list of each state’s major efforts, see Region at a

Glance (page 41). 

NWREL’s full report will be published in early spring

2007 on the Regional Educational Laboratory Network Web

site: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/. Look for a

link from NWREL’s site: www.nwrel.org. ■

40 nwrel.org/nwedu/

HOW ARE DISTRICTS HELD ACCOUNTABLE? 

District accountability and school accountability are measured in the same way: using statewide assessment scores and

the federally approved adjustments to those scores, such as

confidence intervals and safe harbor provisions. However,

some provisions such as minimum N have important consequences when applied at the district level. 

For example, in most states, districts are held to the same

minimum N as schools. This means that all students in a

given grade level are combined into a single group, as if the

district had one big third-grade class, one big fourth-grade

class, and so on. As a result, a district that does not have a single school that meets the minimum N for a given subgroup

can still meet that number as a district. Each elementary

school in a district may have fewer than 30 limited English

proficient fourth-graders, for instance, and yet the district

may very likely have more than 30 students in that subgroup

when all schools are combined. 

This situation can result in a district being designated as in

need of improvement without having a single school in that

status. For example, of the 30 school districts in Washington

currently designated as in need of improvement, four of

those districts do not have a single school in improvement.

This situation raises a key question: How do districts in

improvement make needed changes if none or only a small

minority of their schools are facing school improvement

sanctions? 
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 41

REGION AT A GLANCE

State Support for Districts by Richard Greenough and Bracken Reed

NCLB requires all states to develop

statewide systems of support to help

both schools and districts in need of

improvement. All Northwest states are

currently implementing or developing a

variety of projects to meet that requirement. What follows is a brief list of

some of those projects. This is not a

complete list of each state’s efforts, nor

is it meant to compare one state to

another.

ALASKA

● School support teams conduct 

instructional audits of all schools 

and districts in need of improvement

● Alaska Reading Course—a professional development program

● Teacher Mentoring Program

● Principal Coaching Project

● Personalized technical assistance 

provided to principals and superintendents in schools and districts 

that are in corrective action status

IDAHO

● School support teams are made up 

of distinguished educators

● Teams conduct the Principal Academy of Leadership (PAL)

● Follow-up includes monthly coaching 

for principals and ongoing support 

from distinguished educators

● Teams use the Instructional Review 

and Surveys of Enacted Curriculum 

tools as part of the PAL

● Schoolwide Solutions Teams

● Reading academies based on the 

tenets of Reading First for all Title IA 

teachers and paraeducators

● Idaho Math Academies to be 

implemented in 2006–2007 

● Instructional Coaching Framework 

● Personalized and customized 

technical assistance to districts 

● Continuous improvement planning 

Plan Builder tool 

● Recognition of distinguished schools

● Funding: $300 per student for 

remediation and/or professional 

development to schools identified 

for improvement

OREGON

● Regional School Improvement 

Coordinators (RSIC) serve as 

external facilitators for schools in

need of improvement and also 

establish school support teams

● The coordinator guides the school 

improvement team for two years via 

weekly site visits

● Distinguished educators serve as 

RSICs and/or as members of the 

school support team

● Summer literacy and leadership 

institutes for school support teams

WASHINGTON

● Washington state began its assistance program prior to NCLB and has adapted 

that support system to the requirements of the new legislation

● School support teams

● Educational Audit tool is used by schools to create and implement school improvement plans

● School improvement facilitators are matched to the needs of each school and work 

with that school for a three-year improvement period

● Distinguished educators participate on audit teams and/or as facilitators 

● District improvement facilitators serve as superintendent/district leadership 

mentors for a three-year improvement period 

● Written performance agreements are drawn up between the school in need of 

improvement, the district, and the state

● Principal Mentoring Project in collaboration with the Association of Washington

School Principals

● Ongoing, transitional fourth-year support is offered as needed; for example, 

extended coaching time, planning time, and professional development 

● State Title I Distinguished School Award includes a $2,500 grant

● National Title I Distinguished School Award includes a $5,000 grant 

MONTANA

● School support team uses a scholastic 

review tool to audit schools and 

district in restructuring status

● School support team includes distinguished educators

● Audits include regularly scheduled 

follow-ups by the team leader

● High-Priority Schools Institutes in core 

curricular areas, with follow-up

● Montana Mentor Project for all districts 

in improvement status—includes the 

principals, superintendent, and school 

board
Finding a Focus

The first decision the school leaders made was to divide the

day into 45-minute blocks. Second, they identified reading as

the primary area of concern and decided that every student

should have two full blocks of reading—one at their appropriate instructional level and one at their normal grade level.

“That was one of the problems,” says Yankey “we were helping kids but we weren’t exposing them to their grade-level

curriculum. As a result, they were falling farther and farther

behind.”

To make this work, Yankey took his entire certified staff—

Title I, special education, and classroom teachers—and

designed a “focused” reading block for each grade level. The

result is similar to the walk-to-read model used in many

schools: Each grade level has a 45-minute block that matches

one staff member with a small group of students—typically

as few as five—who are at the same reading level. Frequent

assessments ensure that these groups are flexible—students

move to the next level as soon as they’re ready, rather than at

arbitrary times throughout the year. In addition, all students

still get a 45-minute at-grade-level reading block in the regular

classroom. 

The results were dramatic. “Within the first year, the first

semester, we saw massive movement in student reading levels,”

says Yankey. “It benefited the kids below-grade level, on-grade

level, and above-grade level. Everyone improved dramatically.”

District support was critical to the effort. The district reading specialists helped the school choose interventions and

reading programs that were horizontally aligned from one

reading level and one grade level to the next. The district also

provided support on conducting classroom assessments, the

use of data, and instructional techniques for small groups. 

The biggest challenge, says Yankey, was the loss of independence and control for classroom teachers. “Teachers definitely had to change their instruction,” he says. “And we had

to fight some old

belief systems. People would say things

like, ‘I don’t think

you can teach reading after two o’clock

in the afternoon.’ Or,

‘this isn’t going to

work—we have too

much student mobility.’ Well, the reality

is you can make it

work. And we did.

And we have the data

to show it.” 

What those data showed was double-digit improvement in

the first year. Five years later, the school’s reading proficiency

scores are consistently above 75 percent at all K–5 grade levels, and often in the high 80s. Math scores have also shown

huge increases during the same time period.

For Clark, the school’s most impressive result is the percent of student academic growth each year, at each grade

level. “They take those students, who are some of the most

economically disadvantaged students we have, and consistently raise their academic levels in the course of a year. They

went from being the lowest achieving school around to the

highest per capita growth school in the state. What it shows is

that the key ingredient that turns a school around is when the

staff comes to realize that the growth of every student is the

responsibility of every adult in the building.”

Pushing Ahead

At Meridian, population growth and academic growth continue to go hand in hand. The district has built nine schools

in the past five years, and is currently building three more

that will open in 2007–2008. Some predictions, based on land

development proposals already underway, suggest that the

district could see an influx of 40,000 more students in the

coming decades. With more than 30,000 students already

served in the district and a 70 percent increase during the past

decade, dealing with growth has become a way of life. For

Clark, keeping the focus on both continuous improvement

and academic growth for all students is the key to weathering

the storm. 

Clark has been an outspoken critic of the emphasis on testing for proficiency, insisting that academic growth is the only

measure that is fair, accurate, and useful in the actual classroom. In fact, despite the district’s sterling academic record,

there are a dozen schools currently in improvement status

based on the scores of students with learning disabilities.

“Those students are showing 20 to 25 points of growth a

year,” says Clark, “which is phenomenal. We’ve moved over

200 students out of special education classes and into the

mainstream over the past five years. We’re having tremendous success at educating those students, but that isn’t

acknowledged.”

Despite the current trend, the district continues to hold its

ground, conducting the MAP tests alongside the statewide

proficiency assessments. “We’re absolutely committed to

accountability,” says Clark, “but it’s our belief that if every

student is showing significant academic growth, then proficiency is going to come along. We choose to focus on what

we can control.”

With no end in sight to Meridian’s population boom, that

steadfast commitment keeps JSD#2 among the highest

achieving districts in the state, by any measure. ■

Leaps Continued from page 23

42 nwrel.org/nwedu/
VOICES

A Researcher’s Voice: Developing Instructional Leaders By Susan Sather

What does a highly functioning school district look like? Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory Program Advisor Susan

Sather has examined that question as both a researcher and

trainer. She has authored a case study of the Spokane School

District and organized three national forums that probed how

districts build capacity to improve student learning. Sather,

who holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley,

currently works with NWREL’s Center for School and District

Improvement to develop and implement professional learning

teams and other leadership tools for schools and districts.

What is a school district’s role in school improvement? In the

past, districts were sometimes seen as places of inactivity—

especially in matters of instruction and student achievement.

The district handled business matters, ensured payroll was

met, oversaw the hiring of new employees, and managed

purchasing, contracts, and grants. A common perception was

that the district office had little to do with curriculum and

instruction, let alone leading change that resulted in heightened student achievement. 

That picture is rapidly changing. The district’s role in supporting positive growth is now perceived as central to meeting the academic requirements of No Child Left Behind.

McLaughlin and Talbert underscore the importance of district leadership in stating that “districts matter fundamentally

to what goes on in schools and classrooms and that without

effective district engagement, school-by-school reform

efforts are bound to disappoint” (2003, p. 5).

Some Northwest districts are leading the way for schools

as they work to develop professional learning communities

that help teachers shift from former norms of privacy and

isolation in the classroom to greater collegiality, collaboration, and experimentation resulting in heightened student

success (DuFour & Eaker, 1998; Hord, 2004). In particular,

two districts in Washington are beacons of change.

The Spokane School District, located in Eastern Washington, faces increasing numbers of students living in poverty

along with a growing population of English language learners.

The school board and superintendent established a stretch

goal for 90 percent of all students to meet standards by 2007,

creating a sense of urgency within the district. To reach this

goal, they modeled systemwide instructional improvement

after Anthony Alvarado’s work in New York City’s District 2

(Elmore & Burney, 1999; Fullan, 2001). They also developed

a network of school directors with supervisory responsibility

for a small number of schools. These district-level supervisors

are required to spend time in schools getting to know the staff

as well as supporting and mentoring principals. They often accompany site administrators on a

“walk-through” (Downey, Steffy,

English, Frase, & Poston, 2004),

developing a more intimate view

of the teaching and learning that

takes place in classrooms.

During a middle school visit

by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory and three

administrators (including the assistant superintendent for

curriculum and instruction), teachers and students were completely comfortable as four adults entered their classrooms,

examined displays of student work, observed teaching, and

asked students not only what they were engaged in but why

they were doing that particular activity. Replies revealed the

depth of learning and engagement of these students.

Monthly administrators’ conferences in the Spokane

School District serve a professional development function,

enhancing knowledge and skills needed to understand and

lead schools to meet achievement targets. Instructional

coaches and mentor-teachers continue to develop their own

instruction and leadership skills through parallel monthly

training sessions.

The Highline School District, located south of Seattle,

serves a highly diverse population with students who speak

59 languages. Working with the Center for Educational Leadership at the University of Washington, the district aims to

develop powerful instruction that enables all students to

master cognitively demanding curriculum (Brandt, 1998). To

this end, they have invested heavily in leadership and literacy

training. 

There are full-time literacy coaches in each of the district’s

30 schools working to connect new learning to classroom

practice. All principals and central administrators undergo

extensive professional development that includes training in

literacy theory and strategies, as well as instructional knowledge and leadership skills (Gallucci, Boatright, Lysne, & Swinnerton, 2006). Principals and district officials are required to

spend two hours a day in classrooms, working directly with

teachers and observing and offering feedback. District administrators communicate regularly with building administrators,

providing individual school data and other information as they

support each principal. That communication, in turn, extends

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 43
44 nwrel.org/nwedu/

from principals to staff through reflective instructional letters,

regular meetings, and classroom visits. These strategies have

contributed to a steady increase in Highline’s Washington

Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) scores.

Both districts exemplify qualities identified by Togneri

and Anderson (2003) in districts working to improve instruction and achievement in all schools—districts that are moving “beyond islands of excellence.” Highline and Spokane

employ a systemwide approach to improving instruction

with a vision focused on student learning. They continue to

develop networks of instructional leaders to support classroom teachers as they adopt new approaches to professional

development and redefine leadership roles. In the process,

they are also constructing powerful networks of teacherleaders and building their own capacity to sustain change

over the long haul, leading to positive growth in student

achievement. At the center of all efforts is an intentional

focus on building relationships and developing avenues for

teachers and administrators to work collaboratively.

It should be noted that both districts are located in the

state of Washington, where the Office of Superintendent of

Public Instruction has invested heavily in school reform and

published a number of documents using research to guide

schools and districts in change efforts (see page 45). The

work in both Spokane and Highline reflects characteristics

necessary for improving districts identified by Shannon and

Bylsma (2004): effective and distributed leadership focused

on student learning with efforts sustained over time; quality

teaching and learning, including high expectations and

accountability for adults; support for systemwide improvement; and developing a professional culture that delineates

clear and collaborative relationships. ■

For more information on districts striving to improve learning, see these proceedings from a series of national forums

convened by NWREL on comprehensive school reform:

• The District Role in Developing Capacity To Improve

Learning for All Students Systemwide, www.nwrel.org/

scpd/re-engineering/forums/2003/ 

• How To Build District Capacity To Improve Learning for

All Students, www.nwrel.org/scpd/re-engineering/forums/

Sept2004/Proceedings.pdf

• How To Build District Capacity To Improve Learning for

All Students, www.nwrel.org/scpd/re-engineering/forums/

March2005/index.asp

• How To Build District Capacity To Improve Learning for

All Students, www.nwrel.org/scpd/re-engineering/forums/

Oct05/

• Case Study—The Spokane School District: Intentionally

Building Capacity That Leads to Increased Student Achievement, www.nwrel.org/scpd/re-engineering/SpokaneSD/

index.asp

REFERENCES

Brandt, R. (1998). Powerful learning. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Downey, C.J., Steffy, B.E., English, F.W., Frase, L.E., & Poston, W.K., Jr. (2004). The three-minute classroom walkthrough: Changing school supervisory practice one teacher at a

time. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

DuFour, R., & Eaker, R. (1998). Professional learning communities at work: Best practices for enhancing student achievement.

Bloomington, IN: National Educational Service, &

Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. 

Elmore, R.F., & Burney, D. (1999). Investing in teacher

learning: Staff development and instructional improvement. In L. Darling-Hammond & G. Sykes (Eds.), Teaching as a learning profession: Handbook of policy and practice (pp.

236–291). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 

Fullan, M. (2001). Leading in a culture of change. San Francisco,

CA: Jossey-Bass. 

Gallucci, C., Boatright, B., Lysne, D., & Swinnerton, J.

(2006). The pedagogy of third-party support for instructional

improvement: A partnership between CEL and Highline School

District. Interim findings report. Seattle, WA: University of

Washington, Center for Educational Leadership.

Hord, S.M. (Ed.). (2004). Learning together, leading together:

Changing schools through professional learning communities.

New York, NY: Teachers College Press, & Oxford, OH:

National Staff Development Council. 

McLaughlin, M., & Talbert, J. (2003). Reforming districts: How

districts support school reform. A research report. Seattle, WA:

University of Washington, Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy.

Shannon, G.S., & Bylsma, P. (2004). Characteristics of improved

school districts: Themes from research. Olympia, WA: Office of

Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Togneri, W., & Anderson, S.E. (2003). Beyond islands of excellence: What districts can do to improve instruction and achievement

in all schools. A leadership brief. Washington, DC: Learning

First Alliance.

VOICES
RESEARCH BRIEF

What Matters at the District Level By Rhonda Barton

In the wake of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), public attention

has zeroed in on school performance. However, the accountability spotlight is now shifting to the district level. Most

states began identifying school districts for sanctions in the

2004–2005 school year. Under NCLB, if the district fails to

make adequate yearly progress for four years, states must take

corrective action that can range from reducing administrative

funds or replacing personnel to the draconian step of abolishing the district (U.S. Department of Education, 2002).

The heightened importance of districts in achieving NCLB

goals has underscored the lack of scientific research on the district’s role in school improvement. Shannon and Bylsma

(2004) assert, “Many studies have documented the characteristics of improved schools, but relatively little is known about

districts that have shown significant improvement” (p. 1).

They point out that such research is limited to the last 10–15

years, consists primarily of case studies, and mostly focuses on

improvements at the elementary school level.

CHARACTERISTICS OF IMPROVED DISTRICTS

Under the aegis of Washington’s Office of Superintendent of

Public Instruction, Shannon and Bylsma analyzed more than

80 research articles, concentrating on 23 studies that looked

at multiple school districts. They identified 13 characteristics

of improved school districts and grouped those into four

broad categories: effective leadership; quality teaching and

learning; support for systemwide improvement; and clear

and collaborative relationships.

Among their findings were:

• Effective leadership that focuses on all students learning is

at the core of improved school districts. Leadership is

committed, persistent, proactive, and distributed throughout the system. Reform efforts are sustained over time.

• In improved districts, all adults in the educational system

are held accountable for student learning—starting with

the superintendent. The district communicates high

expectations, aligns curriculum and assessment, and provides embedded professional development. District leaders also develop a shared vision of quality teaching and

learning, monitoring classroom practice to ensure that the

vision is carried out.

• Improved districts use data to guide instructional decisions and allocation of resources. District staff provides

training in the use of data and helps schools collect and

interpret information. The district reviews and revises

policies to make sure that there’s coherence across programs and a focus on equitable and excellent learning. 

• Improved districts nurture collaborative relationships. They

“build a culture of commitment, collegiality, mutual

respect, and stability” (p. 46). They serve as helpful mentors

to schools, balancing state and federal policies with local

policies. They also manage family and community partnerships and “buffer” schools against external distractions.

The two authors emphasize that these characteristics work

in concert: “[T]hey are connected, impact one another, and

infuse the organization” (p. 1). Shannon and Bylsma conclude that the studies show “school districts can create [a]

vision, a professional culture, and a sense of urgency among

stakeholders and implement teaching and learning strategies

to advance the work of educational reform” (p. 55).

They suggest that districts initiate their own action

research projects—not only to inform their instructional

decisions, but to add to the body of knowledge on systemwide

improvements. 

AGENTS OF CHANGE

Like Shannon and Bylsma, Dailey and his colleagues (2005)

found the research base on district improvement limited,

though expanding. In an American Institutes for Research

review, they write that district leaders have traditionally been

viewed as “barriers” rather than “key agents” of sustained

school improvement (p. 1). But, they believe that negative

image is changing as more researchers and educational foundations examine district reform and invest in it.

After analyzing 20 recent reports, studies, and policy statements on higher performance in high-poverty districts, the

researchers found a surprising degree of consensus on the

components of successful reform. The most prominent were:

• An overriding focus on student achievement and learning

• A theory of action, with clear goals, on how to improve

student achievement

• Comprehensive, coherent policies to support the goals

• An increased sense of personal responsibility at all levels

for improving student learning

• Opportunities for meaningful professional development

• Use of data-based decision making

• Regular monitoring of progress with recognition for successful schools and intervention for ones that are still

struggling

The synthesis lists a number of other factors that are

important in district reform, though to a lesser degree. These

include stakeholder involvement; the need for both districtNORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 45
RESEARCH BRIEF

school collaboration and autonomy; equitable resource 

distribution; and tailored support for schools.

While the authors are encouraged by the fact that so many

studies produced similar conclusions, they caution that the

findings have somewhat limited applicability. According to

Dailey and his colleagues, “There is certainly no step-by-step

‘road map’ to success, since districts must view the broad

principles and then figure out how to put them into practice

in ways that make sense in their own contexts. Needless to

say, there is no guarantee of success” (2005, p. 8). 

THE EFFECT OF SUPERINTENDENTS

A recent meta-analysis by Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) homed in on the role of the

superintendent in creating effective school districts. A team

led by McREL’s Tim Waters and Robert Marzano (2006)

found a statistically significant relationship between school

district leaders and student achievement. Waters and

Marzano looked at 27 studies with rigorous methodology

conducted since 1970. The studies included 2,817 districts

and the test scores of 3.4 million students—resulting in what

McREL terms “the largest-ever quantitative examination of

research on superintendents” (p. 3). 

In addition to establishing that district leadership matters,

Waters and Marzano identified five responsibilities of leaders

that correlate with student achievement:

• Including all stakeholders in setting goals for the district

• Ensuring that non-negotiable goals address student

achievement and classroom instruction

• Keeping the board focused on, and supportive of, the goals 

• Monitoring district progress toward the goals

• Providing sufficient financial and human resources to

accomplish the goals

Waters and Marzano found that stability in the superintendent’s office also has an impact on student achievement.

Quoting from Chris Whittle’s book Crash Course (2005), they

point out that the chief executive officers of many major U.S.

corporations typically have tenures of a decade or more. In

contrast, superintendent turnover in large urban districts

may occur every one or two years. They state, “Superintendents should note the importance of remaining in a district

long enough to see the positive impact of their leadership on

student learning and achievement. Of equal significance is

the implication of this finding for school boards as they frequently determine the length of superintendent tenure in

their districts” (p. 20).

LEADING REFORM

Fullan, Bertani, and Quinn (2004) also discuss the role of the

superintendent in reform, noting that effective district leaders

leverage their position to implement their vision of large-scale

change. However, they stress that district leaders can’t do the

job alone: They need to build a coalition of leaders or “teams

of people creating and driving a clear, coherent strategy” (p. 1).

In their work with six districts in the United States,

Canada, and England, the authors saw the need for a “moral

imperative” giving everyone responsibility for improving education in a broad context. They assert, “District leaders must

foster a culture in which school principals are concerned

about the success of every school in the district, not just their

own. Districts must be concerned about other districts and

the overall environment in which they are working” (p. 2).

By broadening their perspective and working to nurture a

number of good leaders, district leaders can help ensure that

the progress they make is sustainable. After all, the

researchers point out, the main mark of success is not what

impact leaders have had during their tenure, but how many

people they leave behind to improve upon the work. ■

REFERENCES

Dailey, D., Fleishman, S., Gil, L., Holtzman, D., O’Day, J., &

Vosmer, C. (2005, May). Toward more effective school districts:

A review of the knowledge base. Washington, DC: American

Institutes for Research. Retrieved January 9, 2007, from

www.air.org/projects/ 

Fullan, M., Bertani, A., & Quinn, J. (2004). Leading in tough

times: New lessons for districtwide reform. Covington, LA:

Center for Development & Learning. Retrieved January 9,

2007, from www.cdl.org/resource-library/articles/

leading_in_tough_times/

Shannon, G.S., & Bylsma, P. (2004). Characteristics of improved

school districts: Themes from research. Olympia, WA: Office of

Superintendent of Public Instruction. Retrieved January 9,

2007, from www.k12.wa.us/research/pubdocs/District

ImprovementReport.pdf 

U.S. Department of Education. (2002). No Child Left Behind:

A desktop reference. Washington, DC: Author, Office of 

Elementary and Secondary Education.

Waters, J.T., & Marzano, R.J. (2006, September). School district

leadership that works: The effect of superintendent leadership on

student achievement. A working paper. Denver, CO: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning. Retrieved

January 10, 2007, from www.mcrel.org/topics/Leadership/

products/244/

Whittle, C. (2005). Crash course. New York, NY: Riverhead

Books.

46 nwrel.org/nwedu/
END NOTE

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 47

“We hire great teachers, and then we work with them to make

sure that they grow from that point of greatness, no matter where

that is, in the system.”

—Dan Phelan, Chief Academic Officer

Lake Washington School District, Redmond, WA

Music teacher Ward Brannman from Kamiakin Junior High in the Lake

Washington School District welcomes a preschooler to his classroom.

Photo by Carol Brozman
Territorial issues are not uncommon in school improvement programs with multiple stakeholders. However, the Regional

School Improvement Coordinator (RSIC) program, an Oregon initiative to establish standardized statewide support for

Title I schools in need of improvement, has been a model of

collaboration. The Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory helped craft the program in a unique arrangement that

involves the Oregon Department of Education (ODE), education service districts, school districts, and individual schools.

Through the RSIC program, external facilitators help

schools connect with training, tools, and other resources that

support their improvement plans. The coordinators are typically retired school administrators who are highly skilled in

group and change processes and who understand the challenges schools face in meeting

No Child Left Behind

requirements. 

Under the leadership of

NWREL’s Deborah Davis and

Nanci Schneider—who have a

combined total of 47 years’

experience working with Oregon schools—NWREL helped

design the RSIC program.

Under contract with ODE, the

Laboratory assists in recruiting

school improvement coordinators and provides ongoing professional development for the

coordinators, district staff, and

school administrators. 

According to Schneider, the

purpose of the RSIC program

is to build staff capacity so that school improvement structures can be effectively maintained after the school’s twoyear commitment to the program ends. “Some

low-performing schools tend to have high staff turnover,”

states Schneider, “so it’s critical to make sure key players at

both the building and district level have the skills, knowledge, and tools to carry on the work when the RSIC is no

longer there.”

A REMARKABLE GROWTH SPURT

Although new, the RSIC program has rapidly gained in popularity. At the beginning of the 2005–2006 school year, the

project began with five RSICs in nine schools. At the end of

October 2006, there were 18 RSICs in 25 schools. What

makes this growth truly remarkable is that it’s voluntary:

Schools are invited by their education service district and

local district to participate in the process. 

Several factors contribute to the high rate of school and

district buy-in. The program is based on best practices from

proven sources like the Quality Education Model and

research on continuous improvement processes. It also

incorporates aspects of Washington state’s school improvement model. Since the inception of Washington’s program in

2001, 47 percent of the participating schools are no longer in

need of improvement. 

RSIC’s popularity is also due to the fact that the program

is highly individualized. According to ODE’s Cathryn Gardner, “RSIC assignments are not

random—we look at several

factors from the skill set and

background of these external

facilitators and carefully match

them to a school’s needs.

RSICs receive in-depth and

continuous training and guidance from NWREL so that

they can assess these needs and

respond accordingly.”

In addition to its work in

designing the RSIC program

and providing training,

NWREL also produced a

school improvement handbook and toolkit for the Oregon Department of Education,

along with a Web site. Schneider describes the site, which the Laboratory maintains, as

“[ODE’s] own best practices library.” It connects school

improvement teams to promising practices on whatever

issues they request. 

HOW NWREL CAN HELP

NWREL is equipped to help states establish programs similar to RSIC to support Title I schools. State and local education agencies in the Northwest interested in receiving school

improvement assistance from NWREL can contact Nanci

Schneider (schneidn@nwrel.org or 800-547-6339, ext. 557).

Districts in Oregon that would like to participate in the RSIC

program should contact Cathryn Gardner of ODE

(cathryn.gardner@state.or.us or 503-947-5622). ■

Collaborating To Support Oregon Schools in Improvement Status

NWREL NEWS

48 nwrel.org/nwedu/

ODE’s Cathryn Gardner (far left) works with NWREL’s Nanci

Schneider (middle) and Deborah Davis (right) on intensive training

for school improvement coordinators. 
NORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 49

Just as “it takes a village to raise a child,” it often takes a district to transform a school. According to Diana Oxley, the

Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory expert on small

learning communities (SLCs), “District leadership is critical

for turning a 20th century comprehensive high school into a

21st century learning organization.”

Across the country, districts that are under pressure to close

achievement gaps and raise proficiency levels are receiving

federal funds to reorganize their large (1,000-plus student)

high schools into SLCs. For a district working with one or

two high schools, coordinating the transformation to SLCs is

a complex endeavor. For districts like Florida’s Miami-Dade

School District—which supports SLC implementation in all

26 of its high schools—it’s a monumental undertaking. But

the research on best practices is clear: In order for high

schools to transform and sustain that new culture, they need

district leadership that supports the restructuring by removing

bureaucratic barriers and also plays a visible role in the reform

process. There is just no substitute for having a powerful

advocate leading the charge.

In addition to district-level support, schools need a clear

understanding about the practices that can make SLCs effective and sustainable. That’s where NWREL’s The Core &

More program is ready to help.

THE STORY BEHIND THE CORE & MORE 

Since 2001, the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education has contracted with NWREL’s Recreating Secondary

Schools (RSS) Program to coordinate the national partnership that has provided SLC technical assistance to more than

1,200 high schools nationwide so far (including 91 in the

Northwest).

The federal grantees are required to send teams composed

of district and school staff to a leadership institute where they

learn about the complexity of SLC implementation. Frequently, leadership teams ask for additional assistance tailored

to their sites. In response, the RSS Program has developed

The Core & More for Small Learning Communities. This

fee-for-service professional development and support program is designed to help large comprehensive high schools

restructure into a variety of smaller units (career academies,

houses, autonomous small schools, and small learning communities) to create a more personalized, rigorous, and relevant

environment for optimal learning.

To meet the growing demand, RSS has added new staff

members who are providing training to sites such as the

Atlanta (Georgia) School District, Davis (Utah) School 

District, and Miami-Dade (Florida) School District. The

NWREL staff has found that when the workshop series is

conducted “on location,” district leaders and central office

staff are more likely to be integral participants, which results

in a systemwide understanding of this transformative work.

At the same time, NWREL staff can emphasize the importance of aligning multiple initiatives and securing vocal 

support from the superintendent.

THE WORKSHOP SERIES

In the program, “The Core” consists of two implementation

workshops tightly focused on key components to implement

SLCs. In the first workshop, leadership teams begin to

review current structures, look at research on SLC best practices, and learn strategies for designing and improving SLCs.

The second implementation workshop, Creating Systemwide Support for SLCs, guides teams in aligning school

policies and practices with SLC goals. School teams build a

five-year plan to shift staff, curriculum offerings, academic

departments, and governance to support SLC implementation. There’s follow-up facilitation with additional workshops (as needed) so that teams engage in a continuous

improvement process. 

The “More” is geared to supporting the leadership team

as it works with the entire staff. Workshop topics—including

increasing equity across SLCs, differentiated and interdisciplinary instruction, and supporting instructional change—are

tailored to meet specific needs of the district and its schools.

The trainings help “position teams of teachers across subject

areas to create more coherent and challenging programs for

students,” notes Oxley.

BUILDING DISTRICT CAPACITY

After working with several megasized districts, the RSS Program is developing a strategy to address the issue of ensuring

sustainability. Since one of the major deterrents to effectively

maintaining an SLC program is staff turnover, RSS now recommends building on-site training capacity so the district

can continue to not only support the work but also adapt it

over time. The goal is to train individuals who understand

how to access available resources to meet the unique needs of

each high school. 

Districts or schools interested in The Core & More for

small learning communities can contact Francie Lindner

(lindnerf@nwrel.org or 800-547-6339, ext. 602) or Diana

Oxley (oxleyd@nwrel.org or 800-547-6339, ext. 613). ■

When It Comes to SLCs, District Support Is Key
NWREL NEWS

What’s New on the Web

In spring 2006, 10 new five-year contracts were awarded by the Institute of

Education Sciences to fund the

national Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Network, including a contract with the Northwest Regional

Educational Laboratory to operate

“REL Northwest.” Now educators can

learn about the work of all 10 RELs at a

comprehensive new Web site, http://

ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/.

According to the Web site, the main

priority for the RELs during this

2006–2010 contract period is to help

education practitioners and policymakers “interpret the latest findings from

scientifically valid research that pertain

to requirements that they must meet

most relevant to their research by using

the Interactive Project Selector. For

instance, educators interested in

projects designed to assist Schools in

Need of Improvement (under the

Implementing NCLB heading), will

find an experimental study being conducted by NWREL on the effectiveness

of Project CRISS (CReating Independence through Student-owned Strategies), a reading intervention program.

The Web site also features related

links to various U.S. Department of

Education sites and a calendar of REL

events. ■

under the No Child Left Behind

(NCLB) Act.” When scientific evidence is not available, RELs are

responsible for delivering assistance to

schools through “Fast Response

Projects and Rigorous Studies.” 

The applied research and development activities conducted by the RELs

are organized under three main headings: Implementing NCLB, Improving

Schools, and Raising Student Achievement. Users have two searching

options. They can read about the educational needs of a particular region and

how the activities of the REL respond

to those needs by visiting the REL

home page (just click on the dynamic

map). Visitors can also find projects

Conference Call

This spring, NWREL will host two of its

most popular workshops—one for elementary educators and one for those at

the secondary level. See descriptions

below for these two-day workshops

that will take place at NWREL headquarters in downtown Portland, Oregon. To learn more and register, visit

NWREL’s event database: www.nwrel.

org/comm/database/events.asp

APRIL 5–6, 2007

WEE CAN WRITE

Learn NWREL’s 6+1 Trait® Writing

model using renowned children’s literature that young students (upper preschool–primary) know and love.

Teachers will get comfortable with the

6+1 Trait® Writing vocabulary so they

can share with their students a common

language to talk about writing each day,

and provide them with a solid foundation for writing throughout their school

lives. Taught by one of the authors of

the popular Wee Can Write guidebook,

6+1 Trait® Writing assessment events

currently scheduled for 2007 are: 

6+1 TRAIT® WRITING ASSESSMENT FOR

TRAINERS INSTITUTES:

February 21–23, Portland, Oregon

July 18–20, Welches, Oregon

6+1 TRAIT® WRITING ASSESSMENT

INTRODUCTORY INSTITUTES: 

May 22–25, Stevenson, Washington 

October 9–12, Cannon Beach, Oregon

December 11–15, Portland, Oregon

Contact Sharon Northern—800-547-

6339, ext. 572; northers@nwrel.org—for

more information about these events or to

arrange a customized 6+1 Trait® Writing

workshop at your site. ■

this workshop offers a variety of practical activities that are flexible, creative,

take no more than a few minutes to

prepare, and can be implemented in the

classroom the next day.

APRIL 12–13, 2007

IMPROVING ADOLESCENT READING AND

MATHEMATICS: PROFESSIONAL LEARNING

TEAMS IN ACTION

Get the latest research on best practices

related to teaching reading and mathematics to middle and high school students. This workshop is designed for

district and building staff in leadership

roles, teachers, and teacher-leaders

who need to boost adolescents’

achievement in these two content

areas. Workshop facilitators will assist

participants in assessing their district’s

and school’s approaches to meeting

adolescents’ learning needs. They’ll

offer strategies for implementing professional learning teams to improve

student learning.

50 nwrel.org/nwedu/
Flashback

1. NWREL CEO HONORED BY NATIONAL ASSOCIATION

At the November board meeting, Carol Thomas received a

plaque honoring her year of service as chair of the board of

directors of the National Education Knowledge Industry

Association (NEKIA). The plaque was presented by Jim

Kohlmoos, NEKIA president and chief executive officer.

Founded in 1997 as a nonprofit, nonpartisan trade association, NEKIA is a dynamic community of highly successful

education organizations and agencies whose common cause

is to actively promote and advocate for the expanded use of

knowledge-based solutions in K–12 education. According to

Kohlmoos, “The association is constantly looking for new

and better ways to support high-quality education research,

dissemination, technical assistance, and evaluation at the 

federal, regional, state, tribal, and local levels.”

Thomas has been elected to serve as NEKIA board chair

for a second term.

2. ANOTHER SCHOOL IN PARADISE LEARNS SLC BEST PRACTICES

The SLC leadership team from Kalaheo High School on

Oahu traveled to NWREL in December to learn the basics of

transforming their high school into small learning communities (SLCs). The team began the SLC process by assessing

current conditions, studying best practices, and developing

implementation and professional learning plans. The next

step for this team will be to create systemwide support for

SLCs and build consensus around a five-year plan. 

3. USE OF NWREL’S

WRITING MODEL

GROWS

Participants from

eight states plus

Canada and Venezuela attended

December’s 6+1

Trait® Writing Institute to learn how to

implement trait-based instruction

and evaluate student writing

across seven dimensions of performance—ideas, organization,

voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions, and presentation. The institute was divided by

grade ranges—the first couple of

days introduced the writing

model to teachers of grades 4–12, followed by two days dedicated to teachers of grades K–3. Teachers of grades 4–12 who

attended the entire four-day institute deepened their understanding of the model by developing curriculum maps and

writing lesson plans based on the traits.

4. NWREL “PRESENT” AT EVALUATION 2006 CONFERENCE

The American Evaluation Association held its annual 

conference in Portland in November, drawing more than

2,200 evaluators from around the globe. NWREL staff presented several sessions including: 

• What’s the Score: Disentangling Qualitative Data by

Building Scoring Rubrics

• Tacking Toward High-Quality Evaluation: Lessons

Learned From the Title IIB Mathematics and Science

Partnerships in the Northwest

• Better Evaluation Designs for Educational Technology

Projects

• Challenges and Innovations in the Evaluation of Reading

First

NWREL presenters were (from left to right) Ann Davis,

Elizabeth Autio, Phyllis Ault, Edith Gummer, Michael Coe,

Angela Roccograndi, Kari Nelsestuen, and Matt Lewis. ■

2

4

1

3

NORTHWEST EDUCATION / WINTER 2007 51
View NWREL’s complete product catalog and check out our easy and secure online ordering system at www.nwrel.org/comm/catalog/

NWREL PRODUCTS

The Schooling Practices That Matter Most

What combination of schooling conditions and practices holds the greatest

promise for improving student learning? A booklet published in 2000 by

the late NWREL researcher Kathleen

Cotton identifies key factors that

enable virtually all students to learn

successfully. Cotton’s work has proven

so popular that it’s been reissued. 

When launching school improvement projects, schools and districts

face the daunting task of sifting

through hundreds of schooling practices and making choices based on

locally determined goals, state standards, and a host of other factors. The

Schooling Practices That Matter Most

makes this task more manageable by

synthesizing and translating complex

material into 15 attributes that “pack

the greatest punch.” Cotton drew upon

the general research base of effective

educational practices to identify 10

contextual attributes and five instructional attributes that are critical for student success.

36 pages

Year published: 2000

Author: Cotton, Kathleen

Code: S001

Nonmember price: $7.95

Member price: $6.95

Improving Student Performance by

Maximizing Learning Time

Maximizing learning time is one of the

most effective means for increasing student achievement. Use NWREL’s

informative poster to remind staff

members of the practical ways they can

ensure that students’ time is optimally

spent. Strategies are displayed in two

columns: There are schoolwide practices such as “hold inservice activities to

improve staff skills in managing classrooms and increasing student time-ontask” and classroom practices like

“present learning activities at an appropriate level of difficulty for the majority

of students, and make adaptations to

serve the needs of faster and slower students.” Maximizing student learning

time is one of 10 contextual attributes—identified in The Schooling Practices That Matter Most—that together

may hold the greatest promise for educating all students to high standards.

24 x 36-inch poster

Year published: 2006

Code: E088

Nonmember price: $10.75

Member price: $9.50

Receive a free poster with your purchase

of 20 copies of The Schooling Practices

That Matter Most

Improving Instruction Through

Professional Learning Teams: 

A Guide for School Leaders

Extensive research has been conducted

on the value of professional learning

teams (PLTs), but little has been written on how to develop, implement, and

sustain PLTs. This guide fills the gap by

helping school leaders create and support PLTs, which are described as

teams of four to six teachers who come

together to reflect on improving student learning by changing classroom

instruction. The book provides a rich

research base and concrete advice from

practitioners in the field.

125 pages

Year published: 2005

Author: Sather, Susan

Code: S002

Nonmember price: $30.75

Member price: $28.30

52 To order: nwrel.org/comm/catalog/ or call 800-547-6339, ext. 519
Leadership in the Collaborative School: 

A Research-Based Process Guide for

Present and Future School Leaders

This practical handbook for school

improvement is designed for school

leaders with limited time and

resources. Leadership in the Collaborative

School identifies six research-based

essential steps that a leadership team

can take to facilitate the school

improvement process. Accompanying

each of the six steps is a “toolbox” containing short research syntheses, discussion questions, sample agendas,

consensus- and team-building materials, tips for data use, and recommended

reading and Web sites. Sample activities

are also included to help staff understand how to apply research to classroom practice. 

260 pages

Year published: 2005

Author: Woods, Deanna

Code: S003

Nonmember price: $23.10

Member price: $21.10

Assessing School Preparation for New &

Diverse Students

Assessing School Preparation for New &

Diverse Students offers a step-by-step

guide to implementing the SchoolPASS (School Practices for All Students’ Success) Survey and planning

process. The publication details how to

obtain schoolwide staff buy-in to the

process. It also explains how to collect

and analyze student data; complete the

survey; discuss and analyze survey

results; and develop action items with

schoolwide consensus. The survey—

with 87 items that address key areas of

student development and influence—

is included in the manual, along with

sample results from field-test sites,

research, and resources focusing on

student developmental needs.

106 pages

Year published: 2004

Authors: Nave, Gary, and Ko, Lena

Code: E050

Nonmember price: $13

Member price: $11

Wee Can Write: Using 6+1 Trait®

Writing Strategies With Renowned

Children’s Literature

This practical guidebook shows

kindergarten, primary, and upper-preschool teachers how to apply the 6+1

Trait® Writing model with beginning

writers. Developed collaboratively by

kindergarten teachers and NWREL

experts, the book ties the literacy needs

of very young writers to instructional

strategies. It features creative and

developmentally appropriate activities,

along with assessment of student

understanding.

This bestseller is organized around

36 renowned and readily available picture books that teachers can use to

introduce the traits of effective writing.

Its flexible lessons continuously blend

connections among reading, writing,

speaking, and creative artwork, supporting an integrated approach to the

writing activities. Each lesson includes

a supply list, as well as short instructional scripts that identify each writing

trait within the story.

135 pages

Year published: 2005

Authors: McMahon, Carolyn, and Warrick,

Peggy

Code: E009

Nonmember price: $25.70

Member price: $22.65

To order: nwrel.org/comm/catalog/ or call 800-547-6339, ext. 519 53

Coming soon—

Wee Can Count
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Northwest Education

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Up next in the spring issue:

The New Role of Parent/Community Involvement