Building an Effective Learning Ecosystem

Welcome this afternoon. We're so excited to have you here, and I think we'll, we'll go ahead and get started. So welcome, everyone. We're so happy to have you here today, where we're gonna get to talk to, several leaders about some amazing things that they are doing, in their, in their school districts. And I'm really, really excited to to get to hear and learn from each of them today, about lessons that they have learned through, you know, by enduring this, pandemic and and all of the shifts that have taken place. We'll take a little bit of time to get to know about the ecosystem each of them has put together, cobbled together in many ways, some during the pandemic.

And and, actually, you'll find that, actually, some of them got things started even before, and and it made for a nice transition. We'll talk a little bit about addressing learning loss and also maybe a little prognosticating, and looking forward, looking ahead. I am excited to have and I'm gonna have each of them tell you a little bit more about their school systems in just a moment. But I am excited to welcome Sherry Abel, who is, from the Charleston County Schools in South Carolina, which, fun fact, is the last place I went before the pandemic hit. We also have doctor Jason Gardner, who, is the, is from the Rowan Salisbury Schools here in my home state of North Carolina.

We've got got doctor Greg Pazak, from Madison County Schools in missus in Mississippi, which I didn't tell you, Greg. See, I'm gonna connect with all of you. My parents both grew up in Mississippi. I've been there many, many times in Columbus. And then we've also got Jenny Watson here, not from Boone, North Carolina, but instead from Boone County Schools in Kentucky.

So welcome to all of you. So glad to have you here today and and to learn from each of you. So I'm gonna take just a moment and let, each of our leaders kind of just tell you a little bit about their school system, and then we'll we'll have a little bit of a dialogue and and get to know more about all the great things that they're doing. So, Sherry, I'll let you kick it off. Alright.

Alright. Great. Thanks, Tracy. Welcome to Charleston County Schools. First of all, who doesn't love some Charleston? We have a thousand square miles of coastal lands.

Who doesn't love that? We are also the oldest and largest city in our state, but we're the second largest school district in the state. We're home to the Port of Charleston, which is one of the nation's largest ports, and we're growing. So we have Boeing, we have Volvo, Mercedes, Amazon. All of these companies have moved into this area because of our port, and because of that, we have a high influx of international people and influences, so we have to keep pace with all of that. So welcome to our actual school district.

It helps to know we have the number one school in our state, which is also the number two school in the whole nation. Pretty cool. But yet, on the flip side, we have the lowest performing elementary, middle, and high school in our state, so we have one extreme to the other. Clemson did a study on diversity and equity, which resulted in us being awarded a twelve million dollar EIR grant for cultural competency. We were designated as one of the most economically stratified district in the state.

So when we say a river runs through it, a river does, it's the Cooper River. And we have Mount Pleasant on one side of the Cooper River, and that is where we tend to have an influx of the haves, people with lots of lots of things, lots of money to do things with, and people on the other side of the river that don't have as much. So we have a lot of equity issues that we are facing here in Charleston. So welcome to Charleston, South Carolina. Thanks so much, Sherry.

Okay. Next, we'll hand it over to Jason. Tell us a little bit about Rowan Salisbury. Hey. Good afternoon, everyone.

Just some basic demographics about Rowan Salisbury schools. We we serve about nineteen thousand students, and we have thirty five schools. We serve a diverse student population of around fifty six percent white, seventeen percent black, and twenty percent Hispanic. Our Hispanic student population has actually doubled in the past seven years. So that's a growing population for us, as we're moving forward.

And, we do have a lot of poverty, in our in our county, in our system. We're at about sixty five percent of our students, qualifying for free and reduced lunch status. Some of the things that we are focused on, we are actually in year seven of a a one to one, digital conversion, k twelve. So that is definitely something we're proud of. We I have were awarded as a renewal school district, three years ago, which actually it gives us charter like flexibilities and allows us to to be innovative in some of our things with finance and personnel, structures within the school system.

We have a directional system that's focused on three areas, all driving towards the engaged learner in the center. So we believe that students are more than a test score, that there are other things that we should focus on in a whole child approach. So we are focused on developing our personal skills, connecting learning to unique life goals and passions of students, as well as going deep into fundamental or key standards in each grade level. We believe in deep learning, as opposed to just surface level covering of content. To help us promote some of that work, we were just awarded in the fall a twenty six million dollar, teacher and school leadership grant that will promote a lot of that work and help us move towards, one of those key elements is a competency based, framework that we hope to to further grow and develop moving forward.

Excellent. Thanks, Jason. And then, Jenny, let's talk about Boone County Schools. Alright. Awesome.

Well, welcome, everybody. My name is Jenny Watson. Watson. I'm assistant superintendent in Boone County, Kentucky. There's the Kentucky, state there.

So you can see, we get a lot we get a lot of the North Carolina, mix up. So we're the third largest district in the state following the Lexington and Louisville areas with Fayette and Jefferson counties. We have about just under twenty one thousand students. You can see our data there, forty five percent free and reduced lunch. We're adding our twenty seventh school coming open this fall, another elementary school, bringing our total elementaries to fifteen.

The year before that we opened up a new regional high school school called the Ignite Institute, which is, basically a Toyota grant that we, received along with the workforce readiness grant through the state of Kentucky. And we partner with neighboring districts up to sixteen districts are, the students could apply to attend that regional high school. Interesting in Kentucky, we're a school based decision making state that does influence kind of how schools operate within the system of the district. And that whole alignment, conversation is always something that we're working towards and how we use the power of influence to help with decision making there. Our focus areas over the last couple years, we are a big PLC, professional learning community district.

That's the vehicle that drives all of our work. Working to be highly aligned, always revisiting the assessment system. Are we balanced? What does that look like? What is some assessment literacy training that needs to happen? We are moving and all of our schools towards mastery learning, standards based learning, and again the goal is to become competency based learning within the next six years as we're currently building a new strategic plan. So welcome to Boone County, Kentucky. Excellent.

Thank you. And actually, I skipped over. Sorry, Greg. I must have clicked too fast. Let's talk about Madison County Schools.

Hey. Good afternoon, Tracy. Appreciate the opportunity to to join y'all today, and, my name is Greg Pazak. I'm the director of research and development for Madison County Schools. We're located in Central Mississippi, just north of the capital Jackson.

Have the picture there of our district. Like my fellow panelists, we do have a number of, zones and, also a lot of diversity. We have zones that are anywhere from extremely rural that are a hundred percent, free and reduced lunch and minority students to, schools that would be urban to schools that are suburban. And so, that's part of what really makes it interesting in Madison County is trying to support all of our students, regardless of the demographics. And so size wise, thirteen thousand students, which makes us the fifth largest in Mississippi.

And then performance wise, we are the fourth highest in Mississippi, and we are the, number one performing school district in Mississippi that has multiple, high schools. And so, we greatly appreciate the partnership that we have, with Instructure. As, Tracy had mentioned, some of what I'll share today has been a journey that's been actually about a decade. We've been very blessed. Some of my peers here in the district and particularly in the technology departments and in curriculum, have introduced some things in conjunction with our assessment team that I think it helped us get a little bit ahead of the curve when the pandemic hit.

And so, between t e twenty one case benchmarks, Canvas, and MasterConnect, we've been utilizing, that suite of products for about six years now and some of those almost close to a decade. So appreciate the opportunity to be here, Tracy. Thanks so much. Alright. So, you know, as as we transitioned, you know, from face to face into remote learning across the country and, I think school districts around the country started to, you know, take an assessment of what they had available to support their teachers and their students, as they made the transition.

There are things that that became, I think, very clear in many places. You know, learning management systems used to be, you know, this luxury item that, you know, districts that had a visionary leader might have in place, but it's now become, in my opinion, and I think that of others, a must have. I mean, really, in order to be able to to really fully support teachers and students, you need a fully functional learning management system. And we are also seeing, especially as as we think about how to address learning loss, that having an assessment management system. And we're not talking about your summative end of year test.

We're talking about those that day to day check-in that you need with your students to give teachers actionable data. Having an assessment management system is critical, and then having the content there, having those high quality assessments that are valid and reliable to help support, really understanding what what kiddos know and, and how to sort of shape the instructional strategies around it. So thinking through that, I wanna take a minute to to think through, you all four of you have what, what we might think of as an integrated learning ecosystem. Right? And so, you know, during the pandemic, you know, districts like yours, you know, had to either create one or maybe upgrade what they had. Some of you actually already had many of these pieces in place, both looking at the infrastructure and the digital learning environments for teachers and students.

So I'd love to hear more about the the integrated learning system that you've put together in your district, and and sort of why, like, why you have those components, together. So, why don't we start Sherry, I'll just start with you. We'll go in the same order we had, or we don't have to go in the same order, but we'll start with Sherry. Let her kick it off. Okay.

That's awesome. Thanks for that. I figured I'd be first. Let's see. So where to begin? We were on the cusp of bringing in a learning management system about the time that COVID hit.

So we had had some preliminary trainings and meetings with certain groups of people prior to, being out for COVID, around Canvas. We would had already been using our t e twenty one case benchmarks, and we're getting great results with that. We were super excited about being able to bring everything on in a timely manner for the following year, and then COVID happened. So here we were in the midst of COVID bringing in a brand new learning management system for our teachers while we're all being remoted and still continue continuing on with everything. So when I tell you that the learning curve was not a curve, it was a vertical line.

That was a shoot like a rocket straight up into the air. There was just absolutely, as a math teacher, no curve to it. So we as a group of people like myself, I'm the math specialist for my district, we created all of our math courses in Canvas over the summer because if we knew if we built it, they would come. And we were also at the same time transitioning to a brand new high school math curriculum that we had implemented prior to COVID, that I needed to make sure that the flock would flock towards it more. So we built it in Canvas over the summer, which, again, was a vertical straight up learning curve because we were doing it I was learning it as I went.

Right? So all of those good things. Then we had to get teachers into it. Well, we built all of our PD for our teachers at the beginning of the year into Canvas. So it would force them to enter through that platform, get used to that platform, and begin to see how it could work for them, their classes, and their students. And so we hook them in that manner.

We force them into the product in a way by aligning all of our PD through it. And, again, if you build it, they will come. And now our teachers are just well versed in it. They love the platform, and it really was a result of what our parents were screaming for and teachers. One platform.

I have five children spread out, you know, among elementary, middle, and high school, and they're each using some different platform, you know, whether it was seesaw and then maybe Google Classroom and then something else. So this was an answer to the prayers of our our parents really saying, please, can we pick one platform? And then how lucky were we, right, when we were looking at Canvas anyway, and then all of a sudden, here's Mastery Connect inside of the Canvas. What? I can click a button and we're there? And then, of course, we were already using Mastery Connect to house the TE twenty one case benchmark, you know, platforms. And I was like, oh my gosh. Now it's a one stop shop.

So that was a big huge hit for our teachers knowing I'm one click away from literally everything that I need for my students. My students are one click away from everything that they need to access. Parents were super excited going, oh my gosh. I have one platform I get to know, and I only have to know it. And it's gonna look the same whether it's elementary or middle or high school.

I can help my child. So that's a little bit about how it has transpired here in Charleston County to where we are today. And we've gone from some very bare bones looking courses to things that look a lot better now because we know more now. So we're, you know, again, tweaking what we've done, but we're super excited to have gone on this journey. And our teachers are now that they've come through it.

They're on the other side of it. Sherry, I'm glad you mentioned that about the parents asking for the for just one resource. That's something that we heard loud and clear as well. We have been using Canvas for, a number of years, so that wasn't you know, we were very fortunate as the pandemic hit that we felt like as a one to one school system, a school system that had an LMS, in place that we were in a a spot to really leverage that. We had actually been dabbling with, what we call remote learning days or virtual learning days.

Actually, I think we coined it elearning days at first. We were trying to dabble with that, for the past couple years as a replacement for snow days or a replacement if we wanted to do a professional development day. So we had done a little bit of that work, but then doing it, where you don't have the kids coming back the next day, it really, screamed the need for communication and consistency. And and we do have a lot of autonomy and and we give our teachers, voice and choice with some flexibility. So we did have teachers dabbling in other tools that they were using and our parents said very early on, like, no.

That's that's not gonna work for me. You know, we really need the consistency of one LMS, kind of like a one stop shop where they know where to look for each of their kids when they have multiple kids. So we quickly pivoted to make sure that it was uniform across the district, and we were fortunate to have the tools and resources to make that happen. And I think that if you were to poll our parents, that was the number one thing that made this, feasible for them is, you know, we sometimes take for granted as educators that everyone understands the same jargon and the same, all the resources that we have out there, but we needed to make it very parent friendly, and and Canvas made that possible for us. Yeah.

And our journey began with, Canvas and coincided with implementation of part testing back in, twenty fourteen, fifteen. Now what we did, though, to not overwhelm everyone is we started at the high school level. And so over the course of six or seven years since fourteen, fifteen, we had been playing in a in the LMS, but it had been primarily with our secondary students. And so after working some with our high schools, we're rolling it down into middle school. So when the pandemic hit last spring, the last frontier for us that we had not played in was our elementaries.

And so we actually added Canvas in k five at the beginning of the school year. And so, you know, as the other folks have mentioned, being consistent really for the parents who have multiple kids in our system, that's been huge. And also this spring or I should say last spring and then into the fall, the other adjustment was not only adding Canvas k five, but we finally became a complete one to one school system adding, devices for our k two students. So it has forced us to finally complete, us all the way through, and so now we're one to one. And like Jason had mentioned, y'all may have experienced some of the same issues here recently.

We had Icemageddon twenty twenty one, which, of course, people make fun of us in Mississippi. You know, you get just a little bit of ice on the road, but this is pretty serious. This is the most ice we've had in at least thirty years on top of a hundred year pandemic. And so it really came into play for us because we were able to go ahead and continue learning instead of losing an entire week to the ice, except for when, of course, you lose power. But, otherwise, yeah, it's it's given us even thoughts of what we can do beyond the pandemic as far as allowing us some flexibility and allowing learning to, never stop.

Fantastic. Jenny? Okay. Well, in Boone, we're we have a similar journey to what Greg was talking about. We've been Canvas users at our secondary level six through twelve. We did a multi year implementation plan and then let schools kind of come on board as they were ready and with the expectation that by by twenty nineteen everybody was in.

So we were blessed to have had that already already finished as our work really centered around PLCs and trying to live that as a professional learning community mindset. In Boone County that's our theory of action is that PLCs are the vehicle that drives if we operate as a strong professional learning community then student achievement will improve in every classroom every day and we basically I was I came up through our system and I was one of those educators that I was like hold on when did we really learn how to do PLCs well? Like when was that training? Because it was asked of us to do it, but there wasn't a formal process. We didn't really live by the default questions. So we really, through the PLC process, was when we really got introduced to, TE21 because we wanted that to be a mindset that goes up and down our ecosystem of learners so that at the classroom level my assessment and how I utilize that data to the team to the school and then on up through district administrators so everybody is living and breathing through consistent data that is valid and reliable and then that then transcends decisions for what do we do with this information. You know and I'm a big believer that data is the starting point not the end point And if you have that mindset of continuous improvement, you really internalize that, then that should be that should be kind of the the mantra that we that we utilize.

And that's how we've basically, come on board and then Mastery Connect and the item banks and all of that was just like teachers eyes wide open like what I can use these dot these tools to you know reteach and then reassess my students and so we really capitalized on that piece of it just right as going in right as we're going into the pandemic And I'm very grateful, you know, that we had gone down that journey prior to all of this happening. Very exciting to hear all of all of these different setups. I'm wondering and and we can answer kind of both of these, you know, to kind of share with our guests today. What have been some of the challenges that you faced during implementation? And then what have been some of the wins for your teachers and students? Jason, why don't we start with you this time? Yeah. I think that one of the big challenges for us was just supporting folks at home during the pandemic.

So it's are definitely from the technology standpoint and talking with our chief technology officer, it's that service model changing to trying to serve in all the different locations that kids are and that teachers were. Connectivity is an issue for us, so we really had to think differently about our funding to do things like, wireless hotspots or USB devices that we could send work back and forth to kids. We instituted a call center that, we put in place. We actually had that pre pandemic, but we went from about twenty calls a day to about five hundred calls a day. So we really had to think about how to staff that and handle that differently.

And we also had to think about, video conferencing tools, and and we were dabbling in some of that for professional development or professional meetings. So we really had to kinda scale that up and make sure that we had the systems and supports in place, for our teachers and for our students for that. Again, though, the biggest win for us is that we were already using an LMS. Our students and staff were already really comfortable on that. So where other districts around us were spending a lot of time training, folks on how to use an LMS, and training their kids and their adults, we were ready to go and and being in a digital environment really, benefited that for us.

We also learned, we were not sending devices home with our k through two students, and we were not sending devices home in the summer at all, because we felt like that was a a risky proposition for us, but we learned that it it wasn't as risky as we thought it maybe was. So our k two students handled that very well, and handled, being able to be connected at home. And then we were able to get a lot of wins out of keeping our students connected over the summer with optional, supportive summer programs that were virtual in nature to try to mitigate learning loss. Who else wants to share? I'll let y'all just hop in. I'll share.

Some of our challenges that we had initially when we first went out was, much like what we've already heard. We have barrier islands that have zero Internet, and so we had to look at ways how could we bring the Internet to those students who live out on those barrier islands. And so we ended up with buses with hot spots in them that we could park and, you know, have children have access, you know, close enough access, buildings that where we ramped up the the broadband on it so they could sit in the parking lot if they had to and and have access to to the Internet. I think some of our real challenges came with much like others where the one to one issue sending initially not sending home, the technology with our younger students for the same reasons, the fear that, you know, what might we not get back. But like others, it's not as bad as what we had envisioned.

But moving into this year with our teachers having to pick up so much and our students having to pick up so much so very quickly, some of our challenges were overcoming that overwhelming feeling for our teachers, having to learn a brand new, learning management system, knowing that this was the way that we were gonna go, having kids adapt to that. The kids are so resilient. They are so easy to put in a into a system, and they all meant they almost knew it way better than our teachers from the first day on. They they are not afraid to click. So they you know, getting our kids into it our challenges were really getting our teachers ramped up, making them feel comfortable enough to have their information loaded into the LMS, and Canvas was great with that.

I know that we probably were the bulk of all of the tech help calls that Canvas received Instructure received. Probably from, you know, August to probably late November, it was probably all Charleston, South Carolina, making those calls. I have no doubt. So just really getting our our teachers into it. But once we did, some of the successes is our teachers had the ability then to trust the system and know that they could put things out there that could be done asynchronously, versus while they're in class.

So really leveraging all of the bits and pieces of Canvas to make the environment thrive so they could have a group of students doing this, you know, asynchronously. This other group is working over here and making the most of all things. And in our district, it's very difficult because we've been back five days a week since September eight. We're currently running at about eighty percent capacity, and there's plexiglass everywhere. I hope we can get a refund or melt that stuff down and make something out of it when we're all done with it.

But we have plates of glass everywhere to, you know, provide the safe environment for our students. So just knowing that when you have to do that and your kids are already stumbling and scared and everything's in a mask and they're walking into a place, a glass city, that they have something that they can count on, something that is going to be the same and procedural and consistent every single day, and the same for our parents and the same for our teachers. So just knowing that we can provide that kind of consistency through an environment like Instructure has provided with that one stop shop with Canvas, you know, supporting all of our content needs and our and for us, our professional development needs for it to house MasteryConnect, and we have the access to our item banks, through Certica navigate and the t e twenty one case item banks. Just knowing that we have all of that, and I think, Jenny, you mentioned it, just the resources to know that we can check for understanding on the fly using those things and have it right out there instantaneously so we can get in the moment, you know, where are our students. And I think one of the biggest things that we had to overcome with our benchmark testing was it's not a gotcha.

Because at first, you know, they had tried some benchmark testing prior to my coming to Charleston, and it was a gotcha tool. It was like you were brought in. Why are your kids not performing where they, you know, where we think they should be? And all of that. So it was resetting that mindset. This is not a gotcha tool.

This is a tool so we can really determine where students are versus where we would like them to be so we can make a plan to get each child to where they need to be. And so once we were able to flip the switch on that mindset, you know, everything starts to run a lot more smoothly because, Jenny, like you, our PLCs are the driving force of everything that we do, and that data is critical, you know, for the PLC to work. We have to have that data so we can make decisions around that data and and support our students and our teachers moving forward. So that's just a little bit about our our challenges upfront, you know, getting everybody into the system and everybody, you know, accepting it. And our wins are just it's just become commonplace now.

Everybody expects it, and our teachers and students and our parents know where to go to get the information they need. Greg or Jenny, any any big challenges or whims that you wanna call out? Alright. So Sherry had talked a little bit about some of the challenges surrounding benchmarking and how the focus is supposed to be on, you know, how are we doing more with the standards? Where is this leading us as far as with our instructional plan? And I mentioned we're very blessed here that we really started on this journey about a decade ago with Instructure products, and it began with t e twenty one case benchmarks. And just to show how far we've come in just a decade, when we began using the t e twenty one case benchmarks, we were paper pencil testing students just a decade ago. And so when we first were utilized, and Sherry had mentioned it as well, before I transitioned into this role as well as, one of my coworkers, and we were the ones that were kinda tasked by our former superintendent of checking this out in a, another district in the state.

Our district had attempted to construct benchmarks in house, and so we were having our teachers to write those. And even though our own folks were writing them locally, they were still complaining about those assessments. And so then here we are looking at utilizing a third party to create the benchmarks. And so, initially, if some districts are thinking about going to a third party benchmark, partner or just in the infancy stages of that partnership, even now, because we still have new folks coming into the district, it's still a challenge sometimes to get buy in that these are providing us tools that will give us valid and reliable data to serve kind of as a guide where to go. And so this year, when we were on the we were talking earlier this morning getting ready for this afternoon.

I think somebody else had mentioned that maybe they had started school later as well, maybe after Labor Day. Well, in Mississippi, typically, we start school the first week of August. Well, our district this year was just trying to see how the pandemic was gonna play out. Some of y'all had mentioned about training of your teachers. In particular, I'd already mentioned about how we expanded Canvas usage to k five, And so we ended up making a decision to push back the start of school after Labor Day so that we could spend an extra month in particular preparing our elementary school teachers on Canvas.

But what it also did was it pushed our learning that we typically have about four weeks. And so we've been having to all year kind of tinker with our benchmark system, which typically we give our benchmarks, which we do three a year. We do one at the end of the first nine weeks, second nine weeks, end of the third nine weeks. And so as we're approaching now, what is typically the end of the third nine weeks, which is us going into spring break in a week and a half, we have teachers who are really struggling right now because they're three to four weeks behind where they typically are. And so just that reassurance that, look, our culture is using these benchmarks not as a gotcha, as Sherry had mentioned, but it's it's to be a tool to help you figure out how to maximize your last six weeks or so before it's game day, which is the state assessments.

And so it's still a challenge. And so, if there's some of you, again, who are either thinking about going this route to a third party benchmark provider or in the infancy stages, A decade later for us, it's still something that you're really having to work with your teachers on and trying to help them to have a comfort level with. So, I would say the wins again. We're very blessed. Got a fabulous technology and curriculum departments.

And I think what they've laid over the last five to ten years too, already going toward one to one and then having Canvas now for a number of years, those were some of our wins, and we're very thankful for those. So so, this is a perfect segue, Greg, that you just provided, you know, as we talk about, you know, different types of assessment. And, you know, the big buzzword right now and the the thing that everybody's worried about, including congress and the president is, you know, how we determine, learning loss for students. So I'm curious if if your districts are already wrapping your brains around it because, again, all four of your districts both have access to an assessment management system as well as, you know, quality assessments that you use and the ability to customize and make your own as as Greg mentioned as well. So, like, how do you how do you plan to determine learning loss moving forward? And and how are you using student assessment data, you know, to build your plans around how you address? You know, People wanna talk about address.

I I like to talk about assess and address. So how are you going to assess and then use that to address learning loss moving forward? Greg, why don't we continue with you? Yeah. One of the things that I I mentioned earlier is we've had a relationship with Instructure products, and I've talked a little bit about the benchmarks, and I mentioned Canvas multiple times. But we also started using MasteryConnect back in fifteen, sixteen, which that was the year that after PARC, we then transitioned into basically PARC, but they were assessments that were created by the state of Mississippi. And they're next generation assessments, so they have your technology enhanced items.

They have your, more difficult multiple choice, being that they're they have multiple answers to them. You also have items that are a and b part. And so what we realized is it was not gonna be enough just to have benchmarks. And so we've shifted toward again, after about five years, we've had benchmarks. This is fifteen, sixteen now.

How can we take to the next level? How can our benchmarks instead of those being as much formative, how can we even have a more often formative system? And so instead of MasteryConnect just being the platform to administer benchmarks, why not utilize the tools in there for weekly, biweekly, monthly assessments as well? And so, you know, Jenny had mentioned about DeForest work with PLCs. And so in conjunction with that, that's when I think our district really took the next step. One of my colleagues and myself was blessed to be able to go to Mastery Connect Institute in Salt Lake a couple years later in the summer of eighteen, and so we learned a lot of things there about five question quizzes, even some shorter, just some, real quick check ins on a daily basis. And so over the last few years, really about the last two to three years, we've seen a huge jump in our achievement as a district because no longer have we gone from back a decade ago, here are the results of a state assessment. Great.

And then put them up on a shelf. To then using three benchmarks, oh, these are great. Okay. But now daily and weekly, teachers looking at data to get a starting place. And that's the key.

It isn't just a starting place. It's not the end all to be all. It's great quantitative data, but then we go to find the qualitative, the why. What's going on? Why are these trends the way they are? And so, again, when you take the benchmarks with MasterConnect and then you combine them with Canvas, it is a true learning ecosystem that's just an all in one shop. And so, very very blessed again over the last decade to be able to utilize these three partners.

It's been great. Hey, Tracy. If I can tag on to what Greg was saying. So one of the things that I I really you're looking at national research and everything and reading up on learning loss is is semantics and words matter specifically for teachers. So, I try to flip the switch on that and say really work we want to call it unfinished learning.

They didn't lose it. It may or may not have ever happened. So it's either disrupted, interrupted, unfinished, you know, whatever. And I have all my case data right here on my lap because I've got I've got our winter, winter benchmarking data. And really we're using that to kind of build internally what we're calling an accelerating learning plan.

And then really clearly with a task force working on this, multiple principles at all levels, us in learning support services. And really we're crafting kind of a framework that we expect to be kind of duplicated in each individual PLC at the building level. But really it starts with this data and kind of looking at again multiple measures, but but really starting with that case data. Because if you all are not in benchmarks, you don't you may not know this, but that that assessment is customized to your not only to your state blueprint, but also to your own district's pacing guides or curriculum maps. So really if we're really going to answer those to four questions of what do we need kids to know and be able to do and how do we know, you know, the case is really what gives us that exact information is granular, is by student, by standard, by DOK level, but then also is broad as holistically looking at the system at the district.

So we're again, that drives our whole PLC process. So then from there, we're basically saying, let's think about this from three buckets. One bucket is fourth quarter. You know we really are our district we start fourth quarter March twenty second. What needs to happen based on this data dive between now and then to accelerate learning? And really that's a lot of just we're a district that's just getting our kids back four or five days a week.

So really that's, you know, that's taking care of itself kind of thing. I'm just really being strategic with the data dive. And then we've got summer. And we're really trying to build some processes to incentivize teachers to want to work over the summer to kind of look at that unfinished learning. And then we'll talk about next year, which really is kind of a modified curriculum map for a while until we really dive into what do kids know and not know and what do we deem is most essential, going forward.

But really the mastery connect and all that our teachers have taken that and are owning those short formative constant rechecks five question quizzes. So they're constantly able in their own PLCs to build that and to reassess what's really happening with teaching and learning. Couple other tools. One is we're really looking at what what it's been taught. I'm not gonna say learned.

That's what I have right here. But really it's what has been taught because our teachers did it and yours probably did the same thing. They might have made some strategic decisions around units of study where they might have moved some things around. So really that's kind of we built a template to say here this is what your school needs to do. What has been taught and not taught? And then we kind of correlate that to what's been learned which we've got the case to help us do that.

You know and then we're also looking at are we did we choose the correct priority standards as a district and kind of overlay that with Achieve the Core, you know, some national research from, from our state department and all of that. But, really, that's the framework of how we're basically saying is gonna take us fourth quarter into the summer, into beginning next school year, and then really, really kind of the now it's just the scaling up and out and communication, effectively that has to happen to move that work forward. Yeah. I'd like to piggyback a little bit on what Greg was talking about about taking some of those assessments to the next level. We've been doing some of the same work, as we wanna dive into competency based education.

We wanna move away from a standardized benchmark, which which we still do have in place. I think it helps us gauge, learning and and calibrate our learning experiences. But, we've been working in partnership with MasteryConnect on building what we're calling mini verifiers. So what we wanna do is when a student is ready to demonstrate mastery on a standard, give them an opportunity to demonstrate that mastery and let them move. So what we wanna do is make learning the constant that everybody gets and time should not be the constant.

So in our present system, everyone takes their standardized test at the same time. You do you serve your two hundred days in fourth grade no matter what. But we wanna flip that around and make the the, the mastery learning the constant that everyone does and and realize that just like everything else, when you think about, when your kids if you have kids learn to walk, they they all learn to walk at a little bit of a different time. They all learn to say their first word a little bit of a different time. So we wanna honor that, and we wanna be able to move students along our trajectory or learning progression once they demonstrate mastery.

We don't wanna waste that time. If they're ready two weeks early or two weeks late, we wanna move and be fluid with them. So we've been, a year into a partnership with MasteryConnect to try to rethink the way we do student assessment, offer our teachers, verifiers that they can use to get real time actionable data on a student. They feel like the student is ready to demonstrate mastery on a standard or a set of standards. They use that verifier assessment to verify what they think that they've seen in the classroom, that that student's been demonstrating mastery, and then that allows that student to move along a trajectory.

We are still absolutely in our infancy of that because, our systems and structures aren't built that way, as a school system. So we are really pushing back and challenging our thinking, from everything, from grade spans to to the fact that we, right now, we cluster students based on age, and that's really it. And, you know, there's a saying that, well, we have to do that because of socialization. But I don't know about you guys, but my kids play with other kids at different ages, in the neighborhood. I I don't think that's necessarily the case.

We want learning and mastery of learning to be the constant, the driver, the thing that we guarantee that every kid gets. I don't wanna guarantee that every kid gets two hundred days of seat time in fourth grade. I wanna guarantee that they master those standards. So, a trusted assessment is a key part to that. So we are very, blessed and fortunate to have that relationship with MasteryConnect to try to drive some of that forward.

Yes, Jason. I mean, yes. Yes. Yes. I just wanted to chant that the whole time you were talking because that's something that we are definitely, looking to move towards here as well.

We're behind the eight ball on where you are, but it's something that is definitely on the forefront for us in progressing towards competency based grading. I love that. Love, love, love it. I just wanted to piggyback on some of the uses, that we've done with ours. Our teachers do have common unit assessments, that we use that is to help provide consistency and rigor throughout our district, to ensure that the curriculum is being taught at the level it should be taught and and then learned at the level that it should be learned so they can exhibit mastery on those standards when they are presented with them.

The other thing that we're doing are are in the interim, the short checks would be we're doing, bell ringers that we have created that are consistent as well across our district where there's a past, present, and future question, past to get the spiral review in, present to gauge where we are right now, in a future question, and we do that to typically mimic when a student goes to take one of our standardized high stakes, test for the state, that they go blank on a question, and this mimics going blank. So you've gone blank. How can we still, you know, get through this question and and get to the right answer even though we may have gone blank on the algorithm? So that's intentional for that. We have exit tickets for every lesson because we wanna gauge immediately where is the student right now with today's lesson. Is the student showing mastery of what we've taught today? Have they learned? And if not, what are we gonna do tomorrow to ensure that that mastery has occurred? So we're trying to stop gap that immediately and not wait until some high stakes test to tell us that the kid doesn't have it.

So those are some things that we're doing right now as we forge ahead to get to where Jason is, and I'm totally totally excited about that. Makes me wanna move, Jason. You can come to North Carolina, Sherry. We let people from South Carolina come come to North Carolina. Let me back.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this this has been so fascinating. And I know I had another question kind of prepped, but I wanna make sure that that our guests have an opportunity to ask questions, and they have already been doing that in in the chat.

So I wanna hit on a couple of these, while we have a few minutes left. And this one, I I I really love this question. How have you gained buy in from teachers for assessments? Like, there there's this negative perception by some teachers, you know, for assessment, and and some places have engaged in in pushback about common assessments. What what is your guidance and your words of advice to sort of have get to a point where in an ideal world where they're embraced, but at least that you're not getting a ton of pushback? Who who has any great thoughts there? Sure. I'll jump in with a couple thoughts.

I think you should start with a growth mindset, philosophy, and culture across your system. So everything we do is in service of continuous improvement and growth. It is not a gotcha. It has to be a safe environment. But I think that you can model that as a leader and make sure that you're modeling that we're using this data to drive improvement, and it is not a gotcha situation.

And then push teachers to model that with their kids and remind them that they use data to inform next steps, in the classroom on a daily basis. And so we should do that at all levels. But I do think some some professional development around growth mindset to start, is a good place to start. I'll add to that because we're only in our second year of the case t twenty one assessments, which means we have seventeen hundred teachers in our system. And I can tell you not all seventeen hundred are bought in still, because as much as we try to promote collaboration, the team approach, I feel like I could tattoo continuous improvement on my forehead and people would still be questionable of that.

You know, I think at the end of the day you as the leader has to make decisions on what's best for kids and and as long as that I agree with with, what Jason said too about, you know, that mindset, that culture, that trust, all of that, you know, matters but at the end of the day the leader is making decisions for kids and and we do owe it to our kids parents and community that we're assuring them that learning has happened and here's what we know. Just from a a plug a little bit for, your teachers too with the benchmarks is what sold several of my teachers were the reports. The reports that are so clean and clear especially for parents at the end of this school year. You You know our superintendent is expecting that all every single student our twenty one thousand students gets a one pager that says here's where your child is in his or her learning and here's what we're going to do about it as a system and and so wherever that falls. But it's those reports and they don't have to do anything with the reports they literally just get those reports handed to them.

Really really gave clarity around wow this is this is our goal. This is why we do PLCs. It's truly clear for the parent, the student, and the teacher. So I think that that's just a plug there, but I think that really helped. Well Jenny had mentioned earlier about how the benchmarks are customized, and that's not just on a state level.

That's at the district level as well. And so one of the things that we did early on back in twenty twelve is we brought a representative from each of the schools for each grade level, for each of the subjects, and had them to get around the table and to break the benchmarks down and really take a look at what is this product that we're now partnering with this third party on. And so over the course of the last decade that we've been utilizing, the t e twenty one case benchmarks, our teachers are saying there's not any anything that's, we're trying to hide from them and all of a sudden throw on them and the kids. So even though we do have the opportunity to structure our assessments based on our pacing, we still are allowed to get a preview of them. And if there's some things they have concerns about, we're allowed to actually share with t e twenty one and say, hey.

Look. Have y'all kinda thought about this? And so that's gotten a lot of buy in, but what's really cool is it's now moved us from just past talking about assessments. But the conversation around the tables when we come together three times a year to preview the assessments has now shifted to, well, in my classroom, here's how I instruct x, which then makes this question maybe not as hard as somebody around the table thought it was. And so and I'll just say this too, and I'm gonna because I hadn't had an opportunity yet. The shift the next shift we had was on MasterConnect was then it allowed us to start creating formative assessments, true formative assessments, not just every nine weeks, but weekly or daily that actually mirror the rigor of the benchmarks.

It's great to be given rigorous tests that reflect that of the state assessments three times a year, but what if you could do it on a weekly basis? And so that has been really the next big shift for us is high creating high quality formative assessments through MasteryConnect on a weekly basis that match the DOK and the item types of those on the benchmarks and the state assessments. That's fantastic. And let me reshare my screen here. I did a little glitchy thing there. You know, we often use this particular phrase when we think about assessments and data that if you solicit data from students, you have a moral obligation to use that data to benefit the students from whom you solicited it.

So we have just a moment or two left. Thirty to sixty seconds from each of you, reflections on this and and the this moral obligation to use the data for the good. Because we wanna be data users, not data consumers, and data is the starting point, not the endpoint. So that starting point is really essential to say, so what? Now what? And, again, I try to live and breathe those four to four questions. What do we want them to know? How do we know if they know it? What do we do when they've learned it? What do we do when they not learn it? It becomes about the instruction, and that assessment is just part of that instructional cycle.

Awesome. I was gonna say so what now what as well. So I think that that's gotta drive those discussions, and data should be a part of our everyday life, to promote giving our students the best real time instructional moves that they need to promote growth and improvement in their lives. So we owe it to all of our students to make sure that we put the right things in front of them instructionally so that they can grow and learn. I would agree with that.

I think the so what, now what, the data is something that has always been tabled, and I think that's what happens with teachers. And you talked about them, you know, being against assessment, why another assessment. But it's because for far too long, the data has been swept under the rug. It's like we get this data. Okay.

Great. Let's shelve it. Moving on. Next lesson, we're going. And then we're we're wondering why we get the same results the next time.

It's because we're now taking that data and we're doing that deep dive into it, and it's about the numbers, and it's about what the analysis says. So it's taking the personalization out of, you know, oh, well, you must have really sucked at teaching this, you know, because it look at this data. And and it's not about that. It's more about here's where we are. So let where can we go from here and how are we gonna get there? And so it's making sure we're using that data and not just shelving it.

That changes the teacher's mindset more than anything else. There's a purpose. I think it comes down to simply equity. I mean, having common assessments provides a level playing field for all of our students. I love it.

Thank you all for being here today. I have learned so much, and I know that you all have been sort of geeking out, learning from one another. You've talked so much about the ecosystem. I'm just gonna leave this slide up as as we wrap things up to to kind of highlight the the different quivers sort of in our ecosystem, that many of you have. Thank you all who joined us today to listen, and you can always go to instructure dot com slash canvas slash resources to find more information. So thank you all, and have an excellent day. Thanks.