Learn how one principal leveraged the Focused Schools data inquiry cycle to combat chronic absenteeism and bolster teacher efficacy.
BACKGROUND
Athol-Royalston Regional School District is a small rural school district in northwestern Massachusetts that serves approximately 1600 PK-12 students across four schools. Just over two-thirds of the student population are considered “high needs.”
Royalston Community School (RCS) is one of the district’s two elementary schools, serving approximately 150 students in grades PreK-6. Slightly more than half of the student population is considered “high needs.” RCS Principal Carrie Charette took on the principalship after serving in secondary administrative roles for seven years in New Hampshire. RCS is her first experience in elementary leadership.
THE CHALLENGE
Districtwide, Athol-Royalston faced challenges with high rates of chronic absenteeism and low accountability performance. RCS also battled high rates of chronic absenteeism and low accountability metrics. At the start of Principal Charette’s tenure, RCS was demonstrating “Limited or no progress toward targets” and earning 13% of its possible accountability points. It was ranked in the 31st percentile among similar schools statewide.
OUR SOLUTION
Focused Schools partnered with the district to provide leadership development support to all school leaders and educator development support to instructional coaches. At RCS, this work began with Principal Carrie Charette during her first year as the building leader and included:
Leadership Development for Principals:
This approach was designed to expand Principal Charette’s instructional leadership toolkit with a focus on leveraging her instructional leadership team and effectively using data to drive continuous improvement. She utilized these tools and strategies to implement regular “Data Chats,” focusing on individual classroom data with each teacher to improve outcomes and increase teacher ownership.
Educator Development for Instructional Coaches:
Support for coaches aimed to expand the district’s instructional coaches’ impact by building their capacity to develop and implement tiered coaching models at their schools. Including building leaders in this work helped ensure that the necessary systems and structures were in place to optimize their coaches’ efforts.
THE IMPACT
After one year of implementing the Focused Leadership Framework and data inquiry cycles under Principal Charette’s leadership, RCS saw significant results.
Cutting Chronic Absenteeism:
RCS cut its chronic absenteeism rate by 83% and earned recognition from the state for being one of the top ten schools in the state in improving student attendance.
In one year of implementing the Focused Leadership Framework and Data Inquiry Cycles under Principal Charette’s leadership, RCS nearly eliminated chronic absenteeism, far outpacing the state’s reduction in chronic absenteeism.
Improved Accountability Outcomes:
RCS did not just improve student attendance: the team ensured that once students were in school, they consistently received high-quality Tier 1 instruction, delivered with high-quality instructional materials aligned to state standards, including targeted support to improve learning outcomes. According to state accountability measures, these efforts improved student achievement and growth. After just one year, RCS improved its accountability status to “Moderate progress toward targets,” earning 65% of its possible accountability points. It improved to the 43rd percentile among similar schools statewide and was named one of the top 20% of elementary schools in the state, according to US News.
Systems and Strategies for Sustainable Growth:
In addition to the immediate impact on attendance and accountability, Principal Charette and her team have established systems and structures to guarantee continuous improvement. She credits the “Data Chat” model with the greatest impact on both immediate outcomes and setting the foundation for sustainable growth.
When she launched this process, which combined looking at data alongside analyzing classroom strategies and needed support, many teachers were “terrified” to participate. Principal Charette and the elementary instructional coaches pulled together the data to analyze with the support of her Focused Schools coach and shared it one-on-one with each teacher. The conversations began around the “glows” from the data, and many teachers could not find good news in the data they reviewed, so Principal Charette and the coaches found it for them. “Administration needs to prove that data is not a ‘gotcha,’” she said. The conversations continued with identifying “grows” and designing targeted interventions.
Now, teachers input their own data into their digital data wall to share at their Data Chats. They look forward to these opportunities to dive into data, focusing on where students are and how to move them forward. They identify their own good news and celebrate progress. Based on staff feedback, Data Chats now include not just Principal Charette, an instructional coach, and the teacher but also the school’s interventionist and the Special Education teacher who supports the classroom. Principal Charette also used staff feedback on the process to directly inform the creation of Team Time for the next school year.
“When you have teachers who feel comfortable looking at the data, that is when you move the needle for students. We need to build in the supports. When they see their team is wrapping their supports around them, they are willing to try the hard stuff,” she reported.
RCS continues to implement its Data Chat model and leverages its building ILT for school wide data analysis and decision-making.
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LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT, EDUCATOR DEVELOPMENT, AND TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
