Official DESE Communications

Districts play a critical role in supporting and facilitating school improvement efforts and ensuring conditions are in place for schools to sustain that improvement.

District supports include actions such as:

• Adjusting district policies that contribute to the root cause challenges of their schools;
• Negotiating, facilitating, and supporting autonomies for their schools as necessary;
• Assigning a district team or administrator responsible for the management and coordination of sustainable improvement plan activities;
• Assigning district staff that work directly with schools with sustainable improvement plans on a weekly basis (to monitor, provide support, facilitate communication, and support implementation);
• Securing necessary resources for schools with sustainable improvement plans and ensuring that resource inequities are addressed; and
• Developing and implementing specific processes for monitoring the progress of schools with sustainable improvement plans that allows for quick, real-time response.

Important Note: Districts should carefully read DESE's District Standards and Indicators , revised in 2018, while engaging in this part of the sustainable improvement planning process. Also, a thorough review of the vast district strategic planning resources through DESE's Planning for Success Initiative will benefit districts as they engage in selecting strategies to support their lowest-performing schools.

Policies and Autonomies

When a school is designated as underperforming, state law requires districts consider changes to policy and strategies. The law also provides districts with statutory flexibilities to negotiate for policy and strategy changes in underperforming schools. While not currently provided for under state law, all districts with a school performing in the lowest 10 percentiles could benefit from actively pursuing similar changes to policy and strategies outlined in the law, regardless of whether its lowest performing schools have been formally designated as underperforming. Potential policy areas to consider include, but are not limited to, curriculum and instruction, financial and asset management, human resources, professional development and collaboration, and leadership and governance.

Districts should identify the key changes in policy necessary for successful implementation of the school's selected strategies, and address how they will directly support school-level improvement efforts by considering:

1. Current district policies and practices that may promote or impede the implementation of proposed plans. What structural barriers exist at the district level (from the needs assessment) and what will the district do to eliminate those barriers?;
2. Modifications and changes in district policies, strategies, and use of resources that will enable the school(s) to fully implement the sustainable improvement plan;
3. Potential implications of the changes in district policy on low-performing schools and how the district will ensure that other district schools are not adversely impacted by changes to the policies and practices;
4. A process for how the district will track which policies, strategies, and use of resources contribute to building the capacity of the district and its schools to sustain improvement efforts as low-performing schools move out of requiring assistance or intervention.

Supporting English Learners

In addition, all schools with a significant population of students who are English learners (EL) are encouraged to consider the strategies that underperforming schools with substantial EL populations are required to incorporate to address EL achievement gaps.

• Required Actions Relative to English Learners (EL) - Guidance for Schools with EL Populations

District Strategies to Support the Sustainable Improvement Plan

District systems that actively and meaningfully support the implementation of the school's sustainable improvement plan are essential to each school's success in achieving improved academic outcomes for students. Districts should identify the district-level teaming structures and other mechanisms, such as the use of coordinators, liaisons, coaches, or networking opportunities, to be used to support the implementation of school-level sustainable improvement efforts within the district. These structures should be focused on providing differentiated assistance and support to schools engaged in sustainable improvement. This section of the sustainable improvement plan should include details of how the district will differentiate its support to schools implementing sustainable improvement plans, and what those specific supports will look like. Also, a district should describe both its human capital and external partnership strategies to support schools in implementing sustainable improvement plans. In section VII, the district will be prompted to describe its system of monitoring the impact of each school's sustainable improvement plan.

Leadership and Staffing

One critical area where districts can provide high-impact support to school-level improvement efforts is by taking deliberate actions to recruit, screen, select, and place effective principals, teacher leaders, and teachers who have the experience, skill, and expertise needed to implement the sustainable improvement plan. District leaders should take stock of the effectiveness of current hiring and development processes in the district and identify specific strategies to improve these systems to support schools engaged in the sustainable improvement plan process, ensuring each school has the most effective leaders and teachers in their buildings. DESE has several initiatives to support human capital investments in districts and schools: Teach Massachusetts and Diversity in Education.

District leaders have a responsibility to ensure the principal of each school going through the sustainable improvement plan process has the necessary competencies and experience to lead a successful redesign effort. When deciding on who should serve in a principal role in a school engaged in sustainable improvement, districts should assess data that demonstrates that the new or current principal has a successful and demonstrated track record of improvement in other schools or in another district, including student performance data from previous schools. If a new principal has yet to be chosen, the district should describe how it will recruit, screen, and select a school leader that has a proven track record of rapidly advancing student achievement in a low-performing school.

Once leaders are in place, districts should identify specific systems and structures to support the continued development of effective leaders, including but not limited to use of the district's educator evaluation system, professional development, coaching, mentoring, and networking. See the Additional Resources section below for resources on turnaround leadership competencies and district support and development.

Supporting Partnerships

Districts also have a responsibility to coordinate and align external partners engaged in supporting improvement efforts in low-performing schools. In this section, districts should describe how the district will recruit, screen, and select external providers with the requisite quality and expertise necessary to support and provide assistance to the district or to schools in implementing redesign plans. If the district has identified external providers who will assist in implementing sustainable improvement efforts, this section should include a description of the credentials, experiences, and qualifications of the selected providers for the relevant tasks. Once partners are onboarded, districts should provide detail on the systems and structures it will put into place for the coordination and alignment of partners to district and school sustainable improvement strategies, and for holding external providers accountable for meeting agreed-upon performance benchmarks.

To support districts in this effort, the Department has established a system to vet partners engaging with districts and schools in Massachusetts called the Priority Partners for Turnaround Initiative. This initiative is aimed at qualifying organizations from a pre-approved list of DESE vendors to support district and school improvement in districts with low-performing schools. Having been vetted through a rigorous review process as having a demonstrated record of effectiveness in accelerating school improvement, Priority Partners are familiar with the context and requirements of Massachusetts school sustainable improvement planning and implementation work.

DESE conducted research on successful partnerships in exited underperforming schools and developed a set of resources to support effective management of partnerships called the Conditions and Habits of Successful Partnership Guidance. This guidance is grounded in the theory of action where districts and partners establish conditions for success and monitor these over time, then partnerships will be more likely to have greater academic return on investment, thereby increasing student achievement in high-need districts.

Curriculum Support

Districts should refer to DESE's Curriculum and Instruction tools for support in ensuring curriculum through the district is high-quality and evidenced-based.

Equitable Resource Allocation and Resource Plan for the School

Districts play a key role in ensuring that resources are equitably distributed to address student needs. New ESSA requirements direct low performing schools to "identify resource inequities, which may include a review of local education agency and school level budgeting, to be addressed through implementation of a sustainable improvement plan. Districts should consider using DESE's Resource Allocation and District Action Reports (RADAR) and EDWIN Student Learning Experience Reports as key resources to assess if inequities in access to resources for students in the district's lowest performing schools exist, and to inform the strategies included in the sustainable improvement plan. DESE also has a wealth of resources available through the Massachusetts Plan for Equitable Access to Excellent Educators, 2015-2019 that can be useful in this process. Districts should make connections to the data analysis and strategies identified in the Equitable Access to Excellent Educators section of the district's Consolidated Federal Grant Application.

Districts are also expected to develop a plan to resource each school with a sustainable improvement plan. Both finances and staff should be considered as resources to support the school(s). There is no guarantee that additional funds will be provided to implement sustainable improvement strategies identified in school plans, so districts should begin the process early of aligning resources to support the school's plan implementation, and plan how it may provide sustainable support and resources to the school in the future.

When deciding how to resource a school's sustainable improvement efforts, districts should consider:

• Utilizing a process to review local district and school level budgeting data to identify existing resource inequities, as required by ESSA, and how the implementation of the sustainable improvement plan will address these inequities.
• How additional funds that may be provided by the district, commonwealth, federal government or other sources will support the implementation of the sustainable improvement plan;
• How the district will align other fiscal resources (e.g., Title I Part A, Title II Part D, TItle III, Title IV, state, community, etc.) or human resources (existing or new staff) with the proposed interventions at the school;
• How the district anticipates it will fiscally sustain the improvements after three years;
• How the district and school demonstrate capacity to use School Redesign Grant (SRG) funds (if available) to implement interventions; and,
• Whether the budget contains sufficient funds to implement interventions described in the sustainable improvement plan with fidelity.

District Monitoring

The district's role in monitoring the impact of the sustainable improvement plan will be addressed in the Monitor Progress section.

Examples of some of the resources and protocols that SSoS Regional Assistance Teams frequently use with districts and schools they support appear in the Additional Resources at the end of this section.

Initial Sustainable Improvement Plan Requirements:

Flexible Format Submission

• Articulate changes in policies and autonomies, including support for English learners
• Describe district systems that will be in place to support the school(s), including human capital strategy, partnership management, and curriculum
• Define the resource plan (financial and staff) for the school, including an analysis of equitable resource allocation

Additional Resources Relative to District Systems

While not required, these resources may be helpful as you engage in this step of the sustainable improvement planning process:

District Systems

• Massachusetts District Standards and Indicators

• School Turnaround Leaders: Competencies for Success (Public Impact)

• Turnaround Competencies and Actions — Principals and Teachers (Public Impact)

• Leader Competencies and Turnaround Actions Shown to Influence Student Achievement: A Model to Inform Talent Management and Development in Schools (Darden Institute)

• District Readiness to Support School Turnaround: A Users' Guide to Inform the Work of SEA and Districts (Darden Institute)

• DESE District Review Information

• Title II-A: Preparing, Training, and Recruiting High Quality Teachers, Principals or Other School Leaders

Equitable Resource Allocation and Financial Plan

• State Equity Plan

• Student Learning Experience Report (Edwin)

• Resource Allocation and District Action Reports (RADAR)

• Staffing and Finance District Analysis Review Tool (DART)