Case Study: District Turnaround

Teacher and student at desk

When Randolph Public Schools was identified as one of the state’s lowest-performing school districts, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education required the district to create an accelerated improvement plan, providing a plan manager from SchoolWorks to support district leadership in creating and implementing the plan in ways that would immediately impact student learning.

The Challenge
  • Help Randolph’s district leadership create the state-mandated accelerated improvement plan
  • Monitor its implementation using the process developed by the state department
SchoolWorks Approach
  • Work with district leadership to develop a high-quality supervision and evaluation process to support the accelerated plan, including a requirement that principals conduct at least five classroom observations weekly with written formative feedback to teachers
  • Provide professional development to school leaders, calibrating their collective understanding of the new expectations and strengthening their ability to provide specific and timely feedback to teachers
  • Conduct co-observations with principals to support them and ensure fidelity of implementation
  • Introduce a new professional learning community for the district’s four elementary principals, meeting monthly to provide support as they work collaboratively on implementing a workshop model in their schools
  • Hold regular meetings with other plan managers working with under-performing districts across the state to share learnings and promote professional development
The Results
  • Each year the District has enhanced the accelerated improvement plan, which has led to continuous improvement of the targeted areas of weakness highlighted in the initial District Review
Dates: 2010-2014

 

"SchoolWorks has done an amazing job of supporting Randolph Public Schools in creating and implementing the accelerated plan. The plan manger’s insights, energy, and support have been invaluable to our work."
- Oscar Santos, Randolph Public Schools Superintendent

 

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