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UW-Roxhill CSIS Progress Report

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UW – Roxhill Collaborative Schools for Innovation and Success

Implementation Report #1 – November 1, 2013

Executive Summary

This report, which includes an introduction and nine topical “sections,” addresses a broad range

of issues related to the last 16 months of work (one year of planning, and approximately 4 months of

implementation) on the UW – Roxhill Collaborative Schools for Innovation and Success project. The

report includes implementation highlights and anecdotal evidence of progress on outcomes while also re-

establishing the research base and the Innovative Practices approved in the Innovation Plan. Finally, the

report identifies the project structure, participants, and the evolving framework for the baseline data that

is guiding the implementation. Ultimately, it reflects the efforts all of us on the project have put into

clarifying the goals, outcomes, structures, roles and responsibilities, and common commitments that will

guide the implementation of this ambitious and unique partnership as we strive to close the achievement

gap and better prepare teachers to work in high needs schools and communities.

Introduction: context and anecdotes

Sometimes, in a report of this type, the parts do not necessarily add up to an enhanced

understanding of the whole, so we thought we would provide some broader context by highlighting the

largest pieces of work, complete with anecdotes from project participants:

Full Service Community School implementation, with specific attention to new family

engagement strategies and initiatives:

Roxhill has already made significant strides towards becoming a full serve community school (defined

more fully below): implementing a weekly parent coffee hour, creating a family resource room, opening a

new on-site health clinic, and launching a Positive Discipline class in Spanish to name just a few. Much

of this work is being led in partnership with Roxhill parent Alejandra Diaz. Alejandra has two students at

Roxhill and participated in a site visit during the planning year to see other full service community

schools in Oakland and San Francisco. According to Alejandra, those visits really changed her

understanding of how she could participate at Roxhill. At Hillcrest Elementary School in San Francisco,

she saw some parents having a bake sale for after school programs. When she tried to ask one of the

parents questions about the school, she realized the woman didn’t speak English. A native Spanish

speaker, Alejandra says, “My English always kept me from doing more at school, but this woman didn’t

speak any English and she was involved. That made me want to do more. I told my kids that this kind of

school, a community school, is like a dream that I have and I want to work to make it happen.” Alejandra


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has since become the President of the PTA at Roxhill and is working hard to create a community of

parents supporting their kids’ learning. She credits the CSIS project and the site visits with giving her

“the courage for where I’m standing right now.”

Innovative, collaborative, practice-based professional learning in math:

These unique, job-embedded events developed by the UW’s Dr. Kazemi are called Math Labs (and are

described in more detail below). These Labs provide opportunities for all the adults working at Roxhill

to develop a shared vision of instruction, identify common instructional routines, build knowledge, and

apply new knowledge in their classrooms with kids. The school completed two rounds of Math Labs last

year, and has done one of four Math Labs so far this year. During the Labs, grade level teams are

released from their classrooms and spending a day collaboratively learning and using the core practices of

ambitious instruction in mathematics. They dig into the Common Core Standards for a future math unit;

they plan a lesson; teach it in someone’s classroom; debrief that instruction, and repeat this cycle two to

three times throughout the day. So far, facilitators and leaders are observing changes for teachers and

students alike. Teachers are establishing trusting, collaborative relationships with teammates, making

their practice public, and deepening their instructional practices together. According to Assistant

Principal Frances Coppa, teachers are excited and challenged by this different approach to professional

learning. She notes that on a day teachers were working on developing backwards planning units, each

team spent several hours digging into the main ideas of the unit. Time seemed to fly, and it was hard to

break people away from all the great work that was happening in their small groups. Teacher, she says,

are “transferring the discussion norms for math to all subject areas so it is building a culture of discussion

in our school.”

Similarly, students across the grade levels are engaging in mathematical discourse where their ideas

are elicited. When you walk into teachers’ classrooms it is clear that math talk is rich. Chart paper and

anchor charts around the room make public the big ideas that students are working on. Students are eager

to share their ideas with one another. Students are learning common ways of listening to and responding

to each other’s ideas with guided instruction by teachers. “Kids are excited to see teachers as learners,”

says Coppa.

Extensive look at ways to strengthen the Teacher Education Preparation (TEP) curriculum and

teacher candidate experience to prepare “community” teachers:

The UW's TEP programs are linking directly with the work at Roxhill to expand pre-service teachers'

knowledge and skills related to family engagement and community oriented teaching. The teacher


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candidates placed at Roxhill this year are actively involved in the family engagement work. According to

Juan Cordova, one of the teacher candidates placed at Roxhill for his student teaching, “I am excited

about the opportunity to work with teachers, staff, parents, students, and the supporting community

because they believe in the school. It's wonderful to see in action all of the ideas and theories we have

talked about at the UW. Seeing people of different backgrounds working together to educate and

empower students and their families is awesome!”

Further, six Roxhill parents will be coming to talk with teacher candidates at UW during one of

their classes - a Teaching and Learning course which focuses on the psychological foundations of

learning. Parents will talk about what their role is within the community school model that Roxhill is

embracing and how they are both leading and learning through the community school effort. This will

help students understand the broader context of what it means to choose a school community to work in

and how parents understand themselves as part of a community school.

Another important contextual note is that there were delays in implementation and changes to first year

scope of work due to the delay in funding from the legislature. While some budget neutral activities were

able to move ahead according to schedule, other activities were put on hold until next year. Further, some

of the momentum gained around infrastructure building and organization were lost as we waited to hear

whether groups should continue to convene. This fall has been a time of re-organization and

infrastructure building for long-term project implementation.

Part of that re-organization entails adjusting the project structure from the Innovation Plan to be

more closely aligned with school-level implementation of full service community schools. The new

teams are Academic Excellence, Extended Learning, Holistic Health, Family Engagement, and Teacher

Educator Preparation. These teams, along with the Leadership Team, oversee implementation of the

project activities in line with its goals and outcomes.

Each of this report’s 9 main sections are broken out into categories based on 1) the overall aims

of the project: student achievement and teacher preparation; 2) the teams working within each of those

two overall project areas.

Section I: Innovative Practices

Broadly, the Innovative Practices in this collaboration can be broken down into four main

“innovations.” Because the Plan itself described these practices in detail, we have provided only

summaries below, with details of activities and progress described throughout the rest of the report.


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Student Achievement

1) Implementing a Full Service Community Schools (FSCS) model at Roxhill that integrates

academic excellence, family engagement, extended learning, holistic health.

A Full Service Community School (FSCS) embraces a holistic model of learning that revolves around

student success, broadly defined. A FSCS provides a range of services to children and families in

partnership with community based organizations (CBO); and serves as a hub for all sorts of activities and

services, including health/mental health, after-school recreational, and family support. The logic of the

FSCS model is that for kids to do well academically their basic needs of health and nutrition, mental

health, and safety need to be met and continually supported. The model also emphasizes the integration

of social-emotional and academic learning such that students are exposed to holistic models of classroom

instruction that provide them with a broad skill base, which research has shown to predict much later

gains in educational achievement and successes in other life domains (Heckman, 2000). Moreover, the

model offers a deep appreciation for the social and cultural strengths brought to schools by families and

members of the larger community, as well as a commitment to seeing families and community partners as

instrumental in promoting children’s successes in education. FSCS models can be implemented in a

variety of ways, and the Roxhill community has chosen to have a four-pronged approach: integrating

family engagement, extended learning opportunities, holistic (social, emotional, and physical) health, and

academic excellence. More about this model is included in the research base section below.

2) Conducting collaborative, job-embedded professional learning focused (in year one) on

mathematics (these events are known as Math Labs).

During Math Labs, grade-level teams of teachers collaborate on learning and using the core practices of

ambitious instruction in mathematics. They plan for and observe intellectually rigorous tasks being

enacted with students, and rehearse and receive guided feedback from peers and co-facilitators. Teachers

then enact the task with a small group of students, and, finally, debrief the experience through discussion

or review of video clips. In the debriefing, facilitators guide teachers through questions directed at better

understanding how students were or were not learning and the implications for their own practice and

knowledge. Applying these new insights, teachers develop their own instructional plans in grade-level

teams. Each Math Lab includes teachers’ engagement with disciplinary content to deepen their

knowledge for teaching and data review when teachers share samples of student work or summaries of

student performance from their classrooms. At Roxhill, Math Labs include all adults providing

instruction in the building: bilingual IAs, special education teachers, special education IAs, City Year

volunteers, and teacher candidates. The core elements of instruction are explored and discussed as they

relate to application with different populations of students. These experiences help ALL teachers build a

coherent vision of instruction and shared understandings about the mathematics demanded of children in


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the Common Core. In years three – five of the project, the instructional focus may move from math to

another area identified through data and with school leadership, but the job-embedded, collaborative,

professional development model will remain the same.

Teacher Preparation

3) Enhancing the Community, Family, Politics (CFP) of the Teacher Education Program to ensure

teacher candidates are prepared to be “community” teachers.

A community teacher is defined as “one who possesses the contextualized knowledge of the culture,

community, and identity of the children and families he or she serves and draws on this knowledge to

create the core teaching practices necessary for effectiveness in diverse settings” (Murrell 2001, p. 52).

The CFP strand of the Elementary Teacher Preparation program has historically been a strand woven

through course work that brings together the holistic approach to education and ambitious practices: the

dual process of gaining contextualized knowledge of children, families, and schooling and using this

knowledge to improve educational opportunities and outcomes has become an essential element of both

state and national teacher policy documents.

With UW faculty and staff, the Teacher Education Preparation Team is planning explicit ways for

teacher candidates to deepen their ability to communicate and connect with families, including those of

difficult to reach groups like mobile and homeless students, by connecting them directly with the ongoing

work at Roxhill. The evolution of the FSCS model provides opportunities for teacher candidates to

understand the connection between the social, emotional and physical well being of students and enhance

their ability to engage students and families and foster a positive learning environment using an asset-

based orientation.

4) Exploring ways to change the current one-on-one mentoring model used for student teachers.

Guided by the project’s commitment to innovative collaborative models, the TEP Team – with program

faculty and staff - will be working to redefine the “mentoring” model. An idea currently under

consideration within UW’s College of Education is to pilot a model that moves away from the traditional

dyadic one candidate – one mentor teacher model. Instead, an entire school would sign on to supporting

the preparation of the teacher candidates by opening up practice and creating innovative collaborative

arrangements that allow candidates to learn from multiple teachers and to engage in ongoing dialogue

with all professionals in the building, including ELL and special education teachers as well as community

service providers. Piloting such arrangements also serves to bring together university coaches and

instructors with mentor teachers and teacher candidates. The planning and implementation of this work

will be taken up in year two of the project, with Roxhill as a potential pilot site.


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Section II: Research-based model

The original proposal for this Collaborative School partnership used a research based theory of

action that called for taking a deeply clinical, problem-centered approach to creating networks of

professional learning to build an effective model for developing skills and capacity among the wide

range of participating educators and begin to erase the learning opportunity and achievement gap

among students.

This “networked” based approach was based on a belief that to date the the higher-education

community has failed to deliver these solutions, in part because “our current educational research and

development (R&D) infrastructure fails to connect to enduring problems of improvement in our nation’s

schools" (Bryk and Gomez 2008). In fact, a "small but growing cadre of scholars and policy

organizations have coalesced around an argument that the social organization of the research

infrastructure is badly broken and a very different alternative is needed (e.g., Burkhardt and Schoenfeld

2003; Coburn and Stein 2010; Committee on a Strategic Education Research Partnership 2003; Hiebert et

al. 2002; Kelly 2006; National Academy of Education Report 1999)” (Bryk, et al., 2011, p.

128). Something is needed to bridge the divide between researcher and practitioner in a way that makes

practice more central and research more accessible. In the case of this project that divide is being bridged

by the formation of networks of learners across Roxhill staff, parents, community organizations and UW

faculty working together to create new social arrangements for practicing teachers, new teachers, and

students. An essential component of creating these social arrangements for collaborative work was the

co-creation of both the vision and the strategies of that collaboration (Ball & Forzani, 2011; Horn &

Little, 2010; NCATE, 2010; Wilson & Berne, 1999). That co-creation happened during the planning year

and is reflected in the Innovation Plan. Each area of Innovative Practice (named above) is also guided by

research on how the rearrangement of social networks and increased collaboration can lead to significant

change for students and teachers.

Student Achievement

Instructional Quality

The most powerful predictor of student learning is quality of instruction (Haycock, 1998; Peske

& Haycock, 2006; National Academy of Education, 2009). Efforts to improve instruction – to get

teachers to what is sometimes termed “ambitious instruction” – have often focused on a single element of

teaching and learning or the content knowledge of individual teachers. While these elements matter, the


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theory of action and research driving this project suggest that the persistence of poor performance is

rooted in the need to build individual and organizational capacity to provide high-quality

instruction; therefore improved teacher instruction and student achievement will be a result of a systemic

re-arrangement of the relationships between and among teachers, leaders, students, and the

university. This collaboration therefore seeks to break down the pervasive norm of private, individualized

practice whereby each teacher struggles alone to choose and master the right instructional practices to

meet the remarkable heterogeneity of student needs she faces each day. This will be replaced by a

network of education professionals that leads to organizational learning.

The Math Lab construct referenced throughout this document is built on research about

Networked Improvement Communities - spaces that arrange “human and technical resources so that the

community is capable of getting better at getting better (Englebart 2003)” (Bryk, et., al, 2011, p. 130).

The job-embedded nature of the Math Labs reflect recent studies (see Ball & Cohen, 1999; Borko, 2004;

Grossman et al., 2009) demonstrating the limits of improving instructional practice through external

coursework alone. Building professional communities removed from close interaction with students can

lead to simplistic or overused ideas such as cooperative learning. What is required is the ability and

disposition to use knowledge of content and knowledge of students in flexible ways in order to learn how

to teach in a particular situation. In order to respond to a student who asks a question while the class is

working independently, for example, one must know how to observe that particular student’s work,

interpret that work, elicit elaborations, and intervene in a way that makes it possible for the student to

move on (Franke, Kazemi, & Battey, 2007; Lampert, 2001). To improve teachers’ practice, the project

must help them acquire (1) the interactive skills required to engage students in serious academic work and

(2) the ability and willingness to use knowledge in particular moments of practice.

Full Service Community Schools

While developing proficient students by increasing instructional quality is a primary aim of this

project, studies consistently find students make greater gains academically when programs attend to social

and emotional skill building. Substantial evidence links students’ health and emotional wellness to

improved academic achievement (Durak, et. al., 2011); therefore, there is increasing awareness of the

need for schools to integrate educational, medical and support services for students. Indeed, the provision

of integrated - highly collaborative, holistic, process-oriented - student services are central to a variety of

evidence-based school, organization, and community-change theories (Bandura, 1977; Goodman et al,

1990; McLeroy et al, 1988; Parcel et al, 1988).

For these reasons, another essential focus for the re-arrangement of social relationships that

enable organizational learning is in the realm of social and emotional development. The co-creation of the


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Innovation and Success Plan did not include just teachers and researchers, but also families and

community based organizations. During the planning year, this joint Advisory Group helped the school

consider the Full Service Scommunity School model.

The model of “full-service” schools (Dryfoos, 1994) recognizes that children, particularly those

from low-income families and disadvantaged backgrounds, are best served by schools that blend high

quality education with academic supports with health and wellness programs developed in collaboration

with community partners. Research on full-service schools show that comprehensive programming that

attends holistically to the needs of children and their families hold promise for improving academic

outcomes for students, reducing conduct and mental health problems, and improving school-family

partnerships (Dryfoos, 1994, Warger, 2002).

The full-service schools model builds on the foundations of positive youth development (Lerner

et al., 2005) and prevention science (Coie et al. 1993 IOM, 1994; Botvin, 2004), which seek to integrate

knowledge on the developmental etiology of problem behaviors with that of rigorous evaluation studies.

Prevention science is a field devoted to studying and reducing risk factors and enhancing protective

factors for a range of youth problems, including bullying and school dropout, substance use/abuse, and

mental disorders (IOM, 1994, 2009). The field has adopted a public health framework in which risk and

protective factors are systematically targeted in planned intervention efforts.

Schools are recognized as ideal settings in which to implement innovative, research-based prevention

programs (National National Academies, 2009; Hawkins & Herrenkohl, 2003; Monahan, Oesterle, &

Hawkins, 2010; D. B. Wilson, Gottfredson, & Najaka, 2001; S. J. Wilson & Lipsey, 2007) because all

youth, including those at highest risk of problems, are required to attend. The full-schools model

capitalizes on momentum over the past several decades to broaden the mission of public schooling to

bring prevention more fully into the domain of schools. It also serves as another model through which to

re-arrange social relationships in support of academic achievement and student growth. Instead of

individual organizations – schools, mental health clinics, CBOs – maintaining a siloed approach to their

piece of a child’s well being, they come together in a mindful, collaborative way to build processes and

systems to support children and families.

Research has also consistently shown that students whose families are more involved in schools

experience greater academic success, better attendance, better grades, and better motivation (Caspe, et al.,

2007; Watson, et al., 1983; Griffith, 1986; Henderson and Berla, 1995; Levine and Lezotte, 1995).

Moreover a recent longitudinal study shows that 1) increases in family involvement predict increases in

literacy achievement, and that 2) family involvement in school matters most for children at greatest risk

(Dearing et. al, 2004). The prevention literature features various examples of school-based programs in

which parents are engaged as active partners in efforts to reduce behaviors or issues of concern, as in


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multi-component classroom interventions that include family-support staff or parenting workshops

(Hawkins & Herrenkohl, 2003). The full-service schools model emphasizes parent involvement and goes

beyond that of other programs by including, for example, counseling and family planning services,

welfare services, and parent education along with home visitations.

Teacher Preparation

Educator Preparation

As noted earlier, the Community, Family, and Politics (CFP) Strand of UW’s TEP program is the

result of ongoing work to prepare “community teachers.” In this case, a community teacher is defined as

“one who possesses the contextualized knowledge of the culture, community, and identity of the children

and families he or she serves and draws on this knowledge to create the core teaching practices necessary

for effectiveness in diverse settings” (Murrell 2001, p. 52). Washington State requires that its teacher

preparation programs are designed to provide teacher candidates opportunities to interact with ‘diverse

populations in order to integrate professional growth in cultural competency as a habit of practice’ (PESB,

2012). On a national level, the theme of ‘family/communities’ appears nineteen (19) times in the most

recent publication of InTASC’s ‘Model Core Teaching Standards,’ and while ‘politics’ is not an explicit

theme in the document, we argue that it is a significant component of the InTASC standards related to

‘professional learning and ethical practice’ and ‘leadership and collaboration’ (CCSSO, 2011).

The CFP work is guided by the belief and the research that suggests "Family involvement is more

than a school program. It is a way of thinking and doing business that recognizes the central role families

play in their children's education and the power of working together" (OSPI, Nine Characteristics of High

Performing Schools, 2003) and an understanding that teachers need to build trust and allyship with

parents and communities (Bryk & Schneider, 2002; Meier, 2002). Engaging with families and

communities allows teachers to bring local knowledge, joys, and social struggles into curriculum and

ultimately, teacher-family connections can increase student achievement (Henderson & Mapp, 2002 and

OSPI, 2003 for research synthesis)

Home visits, a research-based intervention that provides an opportunity to bridge the - often wide

- cultural divide between school and home, are an integral part of the CFP curriculum. Programs, like

home visits, focused on improving students’ academic and social-emotional learning are developed from

a social-ecological framework that emphasizes the interconnection between schools and families. What

happens in one context influences the other. When communication between teachers and parents is poor

or inconsistent, children can receive conflicting messages about their work and what to prioritize in


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school. They can also be exposed to norms and values that do not align, undermining efforts to enhance

students’ academic performance.

Re-arrangement of Mentor Model

The ongoing work in the TEP program related to rethinking the mentor model is similarly guided

by the rearrangement of social relationships. In this case, the specific focus for these social arrangements

is around the university-novice teacher-school relationships as well as the relationships between teachers

in the school. While the UW TEP has always strived to evolve based on the needs of the educator

workforce and evidence from the schools and communities for which it prepares teachers, the use of

intentional Networked Improvement Communities (described above) in a clinical or practice-based context

will provide the space for the coming together of novice teachers, SPS District Staff, and UW COE

researchers to more fully explore innovation and knowledge production.

The creation of these relationships will foment a fundamental shift in the way participants view

and use different kinds of expertise. Unlike traditional professional development models in which outside

expertise (university, district, etc.) brings a specific method or intervention to a set of educators (school,

grade band, classroom) with the intent of changing practice, this model values the network of expertise.

Thus classroom practitioners, university faculty, teacher candidates, etc. rely on one another to provide, or

co-create, the expertise necessary to address the learning and opportunity gaps in a specific school setting.

There is growing recognition of the “importance of context, local development activity…school culture

and leadership in promoting increased professionalism and encouraging learning” (Lewis, 2012, p. 480)

for teachers and teacher candidates alike.

Rearranging the social relationships creates a new paradigm for the ways in which teacher

educators learn in practice-based settings. This new paradigm builds on other research-based notions

about effective educator preparation including “making inquiry an integral part of the professional lives of

teachers” (Cochran-smith & Lytle, 1992) and the importance of cooperating teachers. CSIS is supporting

the TEP to continue its efforts to evolve and strengthen the quality of the practice-based components of its

educator preparation in keeping with research that indicates “prospective teachers who report better

quality student teaching experiences feel more prepared to teach, more efficacious, and plan more years in

teaching and in the district than peers who report lower quality experiences” (Ronfeldt & Reininger,

forthcoming, p. 28).

The network model also allows the development of what Cochran-Smith and Lytle (2009) call

inquiry as stance among the teacher candidates involved in the CSIS Networked Improvement

Communities. Cochran-Smith and Lytle build this idea on their concept of developing educators’

“knowledge of practice.” That is, developing teacher expertise depends on simultaneously learning formal


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knowledge and learning from investigating the experience of teaching in real classrooms. CSIS learning

communities will focus their attention on deepening and improving teaching as they “…generate local

knowledge, envision and theorize their practice, and interpret and interrogate the theory and research of

others” (2009, p. 289). This is a particularly significant experience for TEP candidates. It is important that

candidates develop a view of themselves as continuous learners, as active participants in expanding the

expertise of a group of educators with a wide range and length of teaching experience. Developing an

inquiry stance as part of Networked Improvement Communities will help candidates acquire the habits and

skills they will need to learn and inform their practice throughout their careers.

Section III: Partnerships

At its core, this project is about partnerships: the partnership between UW and Roxhill and the

multiple partnerships that have begun and are evolving between school, university, families, and

community-based organizations are what will link this work to broader educational aims and position its

effects to be maintained by the community. Below, we highlight some of the important partnerships that

have started and are evolving in the planning year and first year of CSIS.

Roxhill has myriad partnerships with community organizations. A major component of the

Innovation Plan is the management and integration of partners into the life of the school with a common

vision for students and families. Existing partners who have played and will continue to play a major role

at Roxhill are

Communities in Schools Seattle - a non-profit with a mission of surrounding students with a

community of support, empowering them to stay in school and achieve in life. The heart of the

CIS program is placement of a full-time School Success Coordinator at each partner school site

who delivers both school-wide enrichment activities and targeted individualized interventions. At

Roxhill the Coordinator partners with staff, administrators, and other CBOs to provide

interventions vary from arranging tutors or mentors to helping families connect to housing,

transportation, or other social services. She also leads or contributes to all-school activities,

events, or resources such as a Seahawks Family Fitness Night, school supplies, holiday food

baskets, a winter coat giveaway, and a variety of family engagement nights.

City Year - an education-focused, nonprofit that unites young people of all backgrounds for a year

of full-time service to keep students in school and on track to graduation. At Roxhill, City Year

Corps Members and a Site Coordinator provide 1:1 and small group tutoring and support

achievement efforts in Reading and Math for Tier 2 ELL students, grades 3-5 in math and grade 3

in reading; provide before and after-school programs for K-5 students; strengthen family

engagement; and provide assistance during Saturday Academy.


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Neighborcare Health - the largest provider of primary medical, dental and behavioral health care

services in Seattle focusing on low-income and uninsured families and individuals, seniors on

fixed incomes, immigrants, and the homeless, provides primary care medical and mental health

services to Roxhill through the operation of an on-site School-based Health Center. All students

enrolled in the school are eligible for services, and Neighborcare does not turn anyone away

because of inability to pay. Neighborcare integrates with the school environment, working closely

with school administration, families, intervention and prevention teams, the school nurse and

other service providers to ensure care is well coordinated. In addition to comprehensive primary

care services, Neighborcare providers navigate support, insurance enrollment assistance and on-

site dental services.

Center for Leadership in Athletics - a UW Center that – through academic programs and

community outreach - develops effective leaders and leadership practices, that maximize the

positive, educational impact of athletics. The Center supports the success of community-based

organizations and schools that educate and develop youth through physical education and

athletics. CLA is developing a collaborative network of community organizations, facilitating

access to University resources, and identifying potential strategies for making athletics and

physical education a winning experience. CLA is playing a role on the CSIS Holistic Health

team helping to develop experiences and opportunities for Roxhill students to access and engage

in quality physical activities.

Multicultural Education Rights Alliance – a grassroots group that connects community members

(parents, caregivers, spiritual leaders, professionals, teachers, and elected officials) as advocates

and actors working to achieve effective, inspired, racially and socially just public education. In

partnership with Seattle Public Schools, we offer connecting and cultural coaching. This includes

convening issue-driven meetings with multicultural context coaching and connecting to interrupt

ineffective status quo policies, practices or investments in support of community-building

collaborations to support socially and racially just action. The founders of McERA serve on the

TEP team and are highly engaged in the CFP curricular work.

Section IV: Stakeholder Equity

As evidenced by the list of partners above, we are including a wide range of community members

and community organizations in this, many of whom are represented in the collaborative Teams that

guide the CSIS work. Each of the Teams went through its own process to create a representative group

and ensure all essential stakeholders are connected to and invested in each aspect of the project.


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Leadership Team

The Leadership Team consists of the staff and faculty most integral to the implementation of the CSIS

project. The Team has the following members:

Sahnica Washington, Roxhill Principal

Frances Coppa, Roxhill Assistant Principal and Project Manager

Jonathan Aldenese, Roxhill Danforth Intern and Community Schools Coordinator

Beth Graves, Community in Schools Site Coordinator

Leslie Herrenkohl, Professor UW College of Education

Todd Herrenkohl, Professor UW School of Social Work

Elham Kazemi, UW Associate Dean for Professional Learning

Kate Napolitan, UW Coach of Roxhill Teacher Candidates, CFP Instructor

Academic Excellence

The Academic Excellence Team is comprised of three UW Math Education Project teacher educators:

Elham Kazemi, Ruth Balf, and Emily Shahan. Roxhill staff across the grade levels and role groups are

also guiding the work of this group: Peter Weschler (3rd grade teacher), Addie Harrington (intervention

support), Hollis Hernandez (2nd year teacher, UACT graduate), Cara Christensen (new elTEP graduate

and teacher); Jonathan Aldanese (Danforth Intern); Frances Coppa & Sahnica Washington (School

assistant principal and principal).

Extended Learning

In order to ensure that the Extended Learning Team is in alignment with Roxhill’s school goals for

intervention, the Extended Learning team has merged with the the Multi-tiered Systems of Support

(MTSS) team that meets bi-weekly. Team members were selected to ensure that different groups in the

school were included. Members include administration, classroom teachers, intervention teachers, special

education teachers, Communities in Schools, and City Year. Professor Leslie Herrenkohl represents the

UW on this team, At the beginning of the school year, this team met three times to coordinate program

design, philosophy, and logistics such as transportation and start and end times. They also met to create a

common set of after school expectations for behavior and attendance. The team continues to meet bi-

weekly to make adjustments to Extended Learning needs.

The Extended Learning Team also convenes the broader group of community based organizations

with whom Roxhill partners. These meetings help align the practice of the CBOs with the school’s goals

and vision.


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Family Engagement

This team is made up of 5 family members, each of whom are also on the Roxhill PTA; school

administration; 4 Roxhill teachers, 2 general education classroom teachers, 1 Special Education teacher,

and a bilingual Instructional Assistant; Communities in Schools Site Coordinator; the House

Administrator responsible for our attendance campaign; a City Year Americorps member; and our 3

University of Washington ELTEP Teacher Candidates.

Holistic Health

The Holistic Health team consists of Roxhill teachers (a first grade teacher, third grade teacher, and the

physical education teacher), the school’s assistant principal, a staff member from Neighborcare, and UW

partners (a student and two staff members of the UW Center for Leadership in Athletics and a professor

from the school of social work. Teachers at Roxhill voluntarily joined the team in response to a request

that went out to the school community; other members (e.g., Neighborcare) were asked to join the team

because of their roles at the school and areas of expertise.

Teacher Preparation

The Teacher Preparation Team extended invitations to all affiliated faculty and staff in ELTEP and the

Seattle Teacher Residency who could join the effort. We also included our community partners, the

Multicultural Education Rights Alliance, to represent community and family perspectives on teacher

learning. Finally, we have CTs from Roxhill who have volunteered to participate. The current team

involves 20 people, including six professors and 4 staff members.

Section V: Cultural Responsiveness

Student Achievement

The FSCS model is, as described above, a culturally responsive model. The voices and desires of

parents and community are integral to the success of an effective community school. Roxhill’s

intentional move towards this model has already yielded some specific results:

• We have a Positive Discipline training currently in session and it is being held in Spanish and

translated to English. There are 23 families participating and 4 Roxhill staff members.

• Our PTA has become more diverse, representing the cultural and economic backgrounds of the

families at Roxhill. The new PTA President, a Latina mother who joined Roxhill staff and

community partners on the Advisory Team last year and visited Oakland with us, recruited 7

other parents as VPs who are from different cultural and language groups. The PTA has


15

prioritized school community, creating a staff wall with pictures of staff and info about them to

create some familiarity with many new staff every year.

• Parent Leaders - The 7 Vice Presidents from the PTA are also our Parent Leaders. This team

decided to distribute Parent Leader Stipends to these people and the team will be establishing the

expectations and responsibilities for these stipends.

The CSIS project is structured so that it will continue to be aligned with and responsive to family and

community cultural needs.

Teacher Preparation

The UW’s TEP program is continually engaged in process improvement in response to the

community’s needs and its desire to attract a teaching workforce reflective of the region it serves. To this

end, the program has made changes to its course work and field work and recently conducted a

recruitment audit, making both short and long term plans to strengthen the recruitment efforts. Using

these guidelines, TEP has started identifying strategies for attracting teacher candidates from

underrepresented populations within the UW. These efforts have largely focused on reducing barriers.

Also, as noted above, the TEP CSIS team includes the founders of the Multicultural Education

Rights Alliance, a group whose work involves multicultural context coaching to interrupt ineffective

status quo policies. They will provide support for the TEP work, around both the CFP strand and

recruitment to be connected and responsive community needs.

Section VI: Assessment

In the Innovation Plan, we identified project goals and project outcomes. Progress on these project goals

is being monitored by each of the teams and overall by the Leadership Team using work plans developed

by each team. In the first few months of the project implementation, each team has been responsible for

mapping out the strategies and activities associated with those goals that will lead to the intended

outcomes. Another part of that process has been clarifying the outcomes towards which each team is

working and identifying and collecting necessary baseline data for each team to use to guide its work.

Below are reports from each team on their work to date discussing outcomes, aligning strategies, and

collecting and reviewing baseline data.

Student Achievement

Academic Excellence


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We aim to develop more coherent, rigorous, and aligned instructional practice across the school,

making thoughtful and intentional use of the instructional supports available at Roxhill. We are also co-

planning units of instruction aligned to Common Core. We have collected base line student data to inform

the math content of our work together by using a formative assessment tool development by UW to gauge

students’ accuracy and strategy use when solving a range of word problems. Attitude items were also

included in this tool to assess students’ interest and identification with mathematics. This tool will be part

of pre-post data that we will collect and will be triangulated with MAP and MSP data. We are also

collecting video records from each classroom that will be repeated at the end of the year as a way of

documenting student engagement and participation with math content. We will be able to evaluate

changes in classroom discourse from the beginning to the end of the year.

Proposed Outcome Measures Existing Baseline Data

School-wide impacts (assessment of school

culture/climate, school improvement; new

instructional practices implemented)

• District climate survey

• BERC Needs Assessment: (see original

Innovation plan)

• Documentation of school wide PD from

planning year

• Video records being collected for baseline

Appropriate student growth on MSP based on

student growth percentiles (OSPI to issue

Spring 2013, and in subsequent years, and

individual student scores over time).

• 62.8 % of 3rd – 5th grade students met

standard on the 2012-13 Reading MSP.

• 41.3% of 3rd – 5th grade students met

standard on the 2012-13 Math MSP.

• 49% of ELL students in grades 1-5 made

annual typical growth on the Reading MAP

assessment in the 2012-13 school year.

Appropriate grade level growth for individual,

classroom assessments

o (Measures of above: Formative

assessments such as: School/district

benchmarks (MAP, WA Kids),

formative assessments developed or

adapted (e.g., TC), student attendance)

• In process of aggregating baseline data in

for MAP, WA Kids, and TC.

• Have collected baseline data on students’

conceptual understanding and strategies in

mathematics using the Cognitive Growth

Inventory (see appendix A for an example).

• See below for attendance.


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Growth in English language development on

WELPA for ELL students.

• In process of aggregating baseline data in

this data.

Family Engagement

The outcomes proposed as part of the Innovation Plan only partially measure the ways in which

we hope families become involved at Roxhill. The Family Engagement Team is currently collecting and

reviewing the necessary baseline data in order to assign ambitious targets to track progress.


Improved student attendance and reduced

consecutive days absences – Target: 71%

of students will have fewer than 5 absences

in the first semester; 75% of students will

have fewer than 5 absences in the second

semester.

• 67% of K-5th grade students had fewer than

5 absences (excused or unexcused) in the

first semester of the 2012-13 school year.



second semester of the 2012-13 school

year.

Reduced disciplinary incidence and

referrals.

• Incomplete data from last year.

Increasing student and family use of social

services.

• Collecting data from Communities in

Schools (CIS) reporting (and Neighborcare

as appropriate).

• Adopting/Revising CIS reporting for

tracking progress (see Appendix B).

Increasing number and type of activities to

support social-emotional health and

wellness for students and families.

• Collecting data from CIS reporting (and

Neighborcare as appropriate).


tracking progress.

Increasing number/percent of parents who

communicate interest in school activities

and events; increasing number/percent

volunteers at school activities and events

• Collecting data from CIS reporting and

adopting.

• First year Family Coffee Hour averaged 5

families.

Holistic Health


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The Holistic Health group is looking closely at data and assessment as it begins its work, in part

because assessments of this type would be new to the school and because privacy issues play into the

ways in which partners can share information in this realm. The outcomes listed below are serving as a

starting point for this work, but one of the first steps around data for this team is of looking at how

students and parents “define” holistic health. Students will be assigned the task of drawing or describing

in words their images of health and wellness. Parents will be asked in small groups to elaborate on their

perceptions of health and wellness for their children and to explain how they see the school as playing a

role in this area. The team is also look at the current services provided in the school and investigating

ways to leverage those efforts and account for their “services” to students and families.


Report of indicators of students’ social-

emotional health and wellness (including

health and safety, sense of belonging,

interpersonal and relationship skills) and

development of progress monitoring

system

• Parent survey done during needs

assessment provides some indicators of

“community” health and wellness.

Evidence of staffing appropriate for need

(e.g., social worker, nurse, counselor,

psychologist)

• Conducting audit to identify current

services and “load.”

Reduced grade retentions • Collecting data

Improved student attendance and reduced

consecutive days absence



first semester of the 2012-13 school year.



second semester of the 2012-13 school

year.

Increasing number and type of activities to

support social-emotional health and

wellness for students and families

• Taking inventory of students’ and families’

baseline perceptions of health and well

being.

Reduced disciplinary incidence and

referrals

• Incomplete data from last year


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Increasing student and family use of social

services

• Collecting data from Communities in

Schools (CIS) reporting (and Neighborcare

as appropriate)


tracking progress

Teacher Preparation

The TEP Team has used its goals and target outcomes to define its working subgroups (described

below). While much of the data below exists with the College of Education, the Team is just now

beginning to collect and look at the baselines.


Opportunities for candidates to plan,

conduct and lead small and whole group

lessons; feedback from mentor teacher

and/or field supervisor

• Looking at syllabi, coursework.

Opportunities for TCs to serve on CSIS

Working Group and/or participation in

PLC

• No opportunities prior to CSIS project.

TC Attendance at school staff meetings,

participation in parent-teacher conferences,

family engagement activities, community

service, participation in home visits

• Past TC’s at Roxhill participated in home

visits and parent teacher conferences.

Review of course syllabi for connections to

field experience; alignment of course

assignments with goals of field experiences

• Starting in TEP team.

Principal satisfaction with first year

teachers (TEP graduates)

• Data being collected.

Increasing number of candidates of color

recruited from local community

• Data being collected.

Strong passing scores on ed TPA, WEST-E

and WEST-B, increasing number of

endorsements in literacy, math, ELL, SpED

or other fields needed in urban school

• See attached for baseline (Appendix C).


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setting.

Principal interns’ demonstrated ability to

lead discussion of student data for learning

improvement or social-emotional and

wellness

• No intern last year.

High rates of employment in urban, high-

need WA school settings – depending on

regional workforce factors

• See attached for baseline (Appendix D).

UW faculty engagement • No engagement before start of project.

Extended Learning

The Extended Learning outcomes currently overlap completely with those of the Academic Excellence

Team, so no separate chart is necessary. However, the Extended Learning Team will take up the need for

goals and outcomes specific to its programming in the next few months.

Section VII: Implementation Progress

What follows are the highlights from the progress reports of for each Team.

Academic Excellence

The Academic Excellence Team is guided by the following Project Goals:

• Enhancing the pedagogical knowledge and instructional skills of Roxhill teachers, including the

ability to address social-emotional learning, and the organizational and leadership capacity of the

school. (Also listed under Leadership, Holistic Health)

• Supporting high quality instruction for all Roxhill students and increasing student learning. (Also

listed under Extended Learning)

• Providing high quality field experiences for teacher candidates who complete their training

prepared to work with diverse student populations and in full service community school settings.

(Also listed under TEP)

All the activities Roxhill engages in, day-to-day, are oriented around academic excellence. The CSIS

project provides support in specific areas towards the above goals. To date, we have done the following:

• Conducted two whole-school PD days to (1) establish the shared norms and

discourse/participations practices that will be developed school wide to support productive


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engagement with schools (2) learn and use backwards planning to develop Common-Core aligned

units of instruction.

• Launched math labs at each grade level (described above).

• Collected baseline data of student learning and attitudes towards mathematics using a UW

assessment tool.

• Visited classroom in between math lab sessions to provide support for instructional growth.

• Integrated work with resource teachers into math labs and planning.

• Involved teacher candidates in planning sessions, enactment of common instructional activities,

and using video to reflect on practice.

Extended Learning

The Extended Learning team is guided by the following project goal:

• Supporting high quality instruction for all Roxhill students and increasing student learning.

To date we have done the following:

• Combined the Extended Learning Team with the school intervention team (MTSS) and met on a

bi-weekly basis to oversee the alignment with Extended Learning programming is overseeing the

Extended Learning program to be aligned with school goals. They meet on a bi-weekly basis.

• Collected baseline data against which to monitor student progress.

• Hosted professional development for extended learning providers based on student needs and

school wide intervention goals.

• Appointed an Extended Learning Curriculum Coordinator to oversee extended learning

curriculum.

• Met in data teams to prioritize Extended Learning student rosters.

• Designed specific extended learning programs based on student data.

• Launched the 2013-14 Extended Learning Program.

o Team Read

o Invest in Youth Tutoring

o Math All-Stars

o City Year programs: Horizon and Stargazers

Family Engagement

The Family Engagement Team is guided by the following project goals:


22

• Increasing family engagement in children’s learning, and involvement in the school community.

• Integrating the social-emotional health and wellness services at Roxhill, and increasing student

access as a result of school-community partnerships. (Also listed under Health & Wellness)

The group’s progress to date includes

• Collecting and reviewing the necessary baseline data in order to assign ambitious targets to track

progress (see above).

• Continuing Family Coffee Hours. This year, we have measured an increase in participation at

Family Coffee Hours, from an average of 5 families on a weekly basis to 12. In addition, the

topics and focus of those sessions are driven by families.

• Launching a Positive Discipline training currently in session and it is being held in Spanish and

translated to English. There are 23 families participating and 4 Roxhill staff members.

• Re-structuring the PTA: Our PTA has become more diverse, representing the cultural and

economic backgrounds of the families at Roxhill. The new PTA President, a Latina mother who

joined Roxhill staff and community partners on the CSIS Advisory Team last year and visited

Oakland with us, recruited 7 other parents as VPs who are from different cultural and language

groups. The PTA has prioritized school community, creating a staff wall with pictures of staff

and info about them to create some familiarity with many new staff every year.

• Recruiting new Parent Leaders - The 7 Vice Presidents from the PTA are also our Parent

Leaders. This team decided to distribute Parent Leader Stipends to these people and the team will

be establishing the expectations and responsibilities for these stipends.

• Hearing from parents that they feel a significant increase in family engagement this year.

Holistic Health

The main goal of the Holistic Health Team is

• Integrating the social-emotional health and wellness services at Roxhill, and increasing student

access as a result of school-community partnerships.

This team has just begun meeting and as identified the following initial activities:

• Create a committee name will resonate with staff, parents, and staff

• Define holistic health to guide our work going forward

• Ask students to provide an image or explain in text what it means to be healthy (assignment to go

home with students over the next several weeks)


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• Find contexts to have conversations with parents about the same; also ask what they would

prioritize as activities at the school around holistic health and wellness.

• Determine what opportunities exist for professional development with staff at Roxhill?

• Identify particular areas for enrichment that align with holistic health.

• Capitalize on what we already know about parents’ interests in enrichment to set the groundwork

for activities in areas like art and physical education?

• Establish a plan for service coordination, with input from the Extended Learning Team.

Teacher Preparation

The Teacher Preparation Team is a large group that has divvied up its work to align with the project’s

goals for Teacher Education. Below is a description of the initial scope of work for the three teacher

education subgroups.

Subgroup 1: Links between courses, CFP, school experience, and community experience

Relevant CSIS Goals:

• Providing high quality field experiences for teacher candidates who complete their training

prepared to work with diverse student populations and in full service community school settings

• Engaging the work of UW faculty through research, teaching and service opportunities, and

enhancing cross-disciplinary collaboration

Possible subgroup scope

• Investigate goals of field experience: What are the program’s goals for field experiences? To

what extent do we place TCs in similar schools/contexts?

• Review TEP Syllabi to determine:

1) To what extent does each course connect to field/community experiences through

readings, assignments, class activities? What are connections, overlaps, redundancies

between courses?

2) To what extent does each course give TCs opportunities or tools to participate in family-

community engagement activities? How are these opportunities mediated?

3) To what extent do courses provide opportunities for school and community professionals

and/or families to participate in University coursework?

4) To what extent do courses provide opportunities or tools that connect to programmatic

assessments (edTPA, Capstone)?


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Subgroup 2: Community connections and relationships

Relevant CSIS Goals

• Proving high quality field experiences for teacher candidates who complete their training


• Recruiting teacher education candidates (including under-represented students) interested in

working in diverse urban settings.

Possible subgroup work:

• Review syllabi to determine

1) What are the goals of the field-based seminar?

2) Where do these goals appear in other courses?

3) To what extent does the field seminar actually connect TCs to their work in

schools/communities?

4) To what extent does the community-family-politics work provide opportunities or tools

that connect to programmatic assessments (edTPA, Capstone)?

• Determine of how (EL)TEP communicate the family and community work (as well as other

programmatic features) to wider publics?

• Determine how can (EL)TEP can create opportunities for families and communities to

communicate with UW about their hopes and desires for their children and their children’s

teachers?

• Determine how systems can be created to respond to family and community input? That is, how

can (EL)TEP develop trust with families and communities who may have negative historical

relationships with TEPs, UW, and/or universities in general?

Subgroup 3: Integration across Professional Programs

Relevant CSIS Goals

• Proving high quality field experiences for teacher candidates who complete their training


• Recruiting teacher education candidates (including under-represented students) interested in

working in diverse urban settings. (NOTE: As discussed, recruitment is a larger programmatic


25

responsibility, but we can think about the communication of our work to broader publics as an

aspect of recruitment.)

• Engaging the work of UW faculty through research, teaching and service opportunities, and

enhancing cross-disciplinary collaboration

Possible subgroup work/guiding questions:

• Look across the professional programs to explore the What are each program’s goals for field

experiences? To what extent are placements of TCs guided by similar philosophies? To what

extent do program structures (e.g. number of candidates; recruitment; financial supports) inform

the goals for field experiences? What can we learn from each other?

• Compare and contrast programs in order to learn from each one:

1) To what extent do programs connect to field/community experiences through readings,

assignments, class activities? What can we learn from each other?

2) To what extent does each program give TCs opportunities or tools to participate in family-

community engagement activities? How are these opportunities mediated?

3) To what extent do courses provide opportunities for school and community professionals and/or

families to participate in each program’s coursework?

4) To what extent do courses provide opportunities or tools that connect to programmatic

assessments (edTPA, Capstone)?

Section VIII: Scalability

Scalability is not something the leadership team has had a chance to address at this early stage. However,

because of the site visits last year, we are aware that FSCS is a model that is thriving nationally and

Roxhill is potentially in a position to be a springboard or a platform for other schools in the district or

region to follow suit. Race to the Top funds will be providing money for some “Deep Dive” schools in

the Road Map region to invest in a wrap around partnership model similar to Roxhill’s. Ideally Roxhill

will become connected with these like-minded schools and together they can think about ways to scale

this work to others.

On the UW side, the Math Labs work is part of a broader effort to re-design the way we think

about and enact professional learning for teachers regionally. The College of Education is in the process

of designing a broader initiative, called INSPIRE, that would bring these types of learning experiences to

other schools and districts. This work would be based on the needs and demands of the region. Roxhill


26

provides a space for others to see and learn about the work, as well as a place to refine ideas and

collaborate with teachers and get their feedback on how these types of professional learning are changing

practice and impacting students.

Section IX: Sustainability

One of the most important characteristics of this project – and the one that makes it the most enduring - is

that it is built upon a theory of action that seeks to make deep and lasting changes in the culture and

organizational capacity of the institutions engaged in the work. The types of relationships and networks

that evolve because of this work are what will sustain the project beyond the life of CSIS funding. A Full

Service Community School, for example, re-organizes the way a school supports and engages the children

and families that it serves. As a school becomes more a part of a fabric of the community and vice versa,

the school and community are both changed for good. Similarly, the work at the UW TEP program is

asking deep and fundamental questions about how all of those who interact with teacher candidates and

novice teachers engage with them. The work is building a set of common commitments and expectations

that will be sustained beyond the programmatic adjustments that arise. The CSIS work is becoming

embedded into the curriculum and structure of the the ELTEP program.

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