work such as vertical articulation, and said that more instructional and content support personnel are needed to effectively meet district needs. Educators at all levels said that there has been a loosening of previously tight and efficient networks for the support of teaching and learning. B. The district has not identified a process for identifying effective school practices in teaching and learning so that these practices can be vetted, modeled, and implemented among and, as appropriate, across levels. Some school-based instructional best practices are shared at administrative meetings. While school personnel are invited to observe these practices and bring strategies back to schools, the process for piloting and implementing these practices in schools has slowed down and schools are encouraged to implement at their own pace. The district often reallocates support personnel from a higher “capacity” school to one with a lesser “capacity” rating. While this practice is intended to place assets where needed, it may compromise the higher achieving school’s capacity by reducing the support that contributed to its improved level of performance. C. The district has not established a clearly articulated model for effective instructional practice for all educators in the Fall River Public Schools. District leaders and teachers use a variety of instructional models/resources to inform instructional best practice. Elements are pulled from each but common threads have not been identified among these resources to assist in defining a more comprehensive model of best practice and district non-negotiables. Administrators and teacher leaders cited several resources used to frame instructional expectations noting their use may vary by level and content area. Examples of common resources include the Rigorous Planning Cycle (visual chart), blended learning experiences, the educator evaluation rubric, and Understanding by Design. The SOTEL model (student centered, objectives, teacher as facilitator, engaging, learning outcomes), Context for Learning, New Perspectives, and Landscapes for Learning are some additional instructional resources available in the district. When asked to describe the district’s instructional model, district administrators and teacher leaders commonly identified the workshop model, accountable talk, and complex questions as components of that model. Other instructional expectations mentioned but not common included teacher as coach, students “grappling” with work, text-based questions, and use of the rigorous planning cycle (scaffold, objective, accountability, engagement, results).
C. Central office administrators told the review team that until the 2016-2017 school year certain instructional leadership team members from the elementary-, middle-, and high-school levels representing the content areas of literacy, mathematics, and social-emotional learning had been meeting biweekly in vertical groups known as networks. Each group was facilitated by a central office representative with expertise in the content area. 1. Administrators said that the district wanted to build a great schools culture by moving responsibility to the schools, but this depended on the viability of the network meetings which were intended to coordinate the curriculum and organize and standardize assessment practices. 2. Central office administrators, department heads, and teachers told the review team that although the social-emotional learning network continues to meet regularly, the literacy and mathematics networks are meeting less frequently because there are fewer facilitators. They added that this has slowed the pace of progress. a. Teachers and department heads described many ad hoc vertical planning meetings in literacy and mathematics held outside of school hours; however, these meetings are voluntary, irregular, and unreliable as a consistent means of coordination. D. Central office administrators and principals said that the schools were mostly on their own in interpreting data, leaving the least data proficient schools at a disadvantage. The principals said that they always received support from the central office whenever they requested it, noting that the district no longer is able to provide continuous guidance and monitoring. 1. Central office administrators and teachers cited schools they considered proficient in using data. Typically, these schools were led by principals who were trained in data analysis. 2. The district has six new principals. Central office administrators told the review team that the new principals would likely have to learn about assessment practices from their own instructional leadership teams. 3. Teachers and principals told the review team that some of the most data proficient teachers were among the 46 teachers who left the district at the end of the 2015-2016 school year. They added that without department heads and content area specialists in the schools, data analysis “would not be done.” E. The district share data on progress and outcome measures efficiently. 1. The 2016-2017 School Committee/Superintendent Goals include the development of a performance management dashboard to track and monitor strategic-plan progress and outcomes. a. A data dashboard is an information management tool that visually tracks, analyzes, and displays key performance metrics and key data points to monitor the health of an