What Do We Do?

by Lynn K. McMullin

I decided to use the BLOG this week to introduce our new Business Manager, Ed Hoyt, but also to let you know what jobs happen in the district’s Central Services Office.  Superintendent Kevin Case’s role is prominent and public, so you’re probably very familiar with his presence; but that’s not true for Ed or me. We’re not in the least offended that sometimes people ask us, “What exactly is it you do?”

Superintendent Kevin Case divides his time among three key roles:
1. Educational Leadership: Working with the Board of Education, school community, and staff to define a comprehensive vision for the district; creating a culture that nurtures and capitalizes on the talents and skills of the staff; setting high performance expectations; sustaining and improving high-quality research-based programs to enhance teaching and learning.

2. Organizational Management: Overseeing the daily operation of the school district and its programs; planning and organizing; hiring, evaluating, and supervising staff; evaluating the district’s operations and programs; reporting regularly to the Board of Education and implementing Board Policy; preparing and managing the District's Budget; ensuring the health and safety of students and staff

3. Community and Board of Education Relations: Working with the Board of Education and the community to establish a vision and set goals; representing the District by attending school and community events; communicating regularly with all members; preparing meeting agendas and providing data and information to the Board; maintaining positive working relationships with local, regional, and state organizations and agencies

As Assistant Superintendent, I (Lynn McMullin) also wear many hats, but key among them are my responsibilities for:
1. Improving Teaching and Learning: Developing programs, curriculum, instructional strategies, and assessment tools with teachers; researching and implementing new technology products; writing grants to support programs and new initiatives; researching and providing current resources to teachers and conducting professional development; analyzing and communicating the District’s standardized assessment data for CMT, CAPT, SAT, and AP to the Board and community; conducting program pilots; proposing new courses, textbooks, and programs; chairing district-wide committees.

2. District-wide Communications: Writing communications for the webpage, Friday Blog, newsletters, and area newspapers; preparing reports for the Board about curriculum, test results, and initiatives; completing state reports, such as for new teacher induction, technology planning, and grant spending; managing the AlertNow Early Notification System; liaising with the EAC (teacher’s union) on new initiatives; conducting surveys and analyzing results; writing and communicating policies, such as Acceptable Use Policy for Technology, Sexual Harassment and Title IX, and Annex O Emergency Procedures; representing the District at school, state, and community events.

3. Program Management: Supervising CMT and CAPT testing; writing mandated State plans, such as the 2009 – 2012 Technology Plan; developing the District’s program for TEAM (new teacher induction and support); designing and implementing the new Teacher Evaluation and Growth Plan; implementing SRBI (Tier 1, 2, and 3 interventions for students not meeting grade level expectations); setting a vision for 21st century learning, including Virtual High School and Odyssey; working with the Board, Superintendent, and Administrators to develop the annual budget.

Business Manager, Edward Hoyt joined us from the Orange School District in late January of 2010, just as we entered the most difficult stages of the budget preparation. He was quickly absorbed into the Canton Public Schools’ community as a valued member of the Central Office team. Ed is responsible for:
1. Operational Management: Overseeing the school district’s operations such as transportation, food services, and facilities, assuring the full compliance with State and Federal requirements, as well as assuring both cost effectiveness and efficiency; negotiating the terms for these contracted services; evaluating these operations for quality of service; reporting regularly to the Board of Education; and ensuring the health and safety of students and staff while in the District’s jurisdiction. Within transportation, specifically, Ed is responsible for: ensuring the safety of students on buses; establishing bus routes; and addressing parent concerns in cooperation with the principals and the bus contractor.

2. Human Resource Coordination: Overseeing all non-certified staff from recruitment to hiring to evaluating their performance; maintaining all current personnel records; assuring accurate and fiscally sound payroll processing; participating as the primary liaison for the Board and Superintendent in negotiations with all collective bargaining groups.

3. Facilities Maintenance and Planning: Coordinating building repairs and maintenance; conducting regular inspections of school buildings and contracting for repairs and/or replacement of facilities and equipment; developing specifications for contract bids and evaluating all bids and/or cost estimates for facilities maintenance.

4. Fiscal Management: Overseeing all the fiscal operations of the school district -- payroll, purchasing, and internal accounting; overseeing funds received under federal and state grants; reporting monthly to the Superintendent and the Board of Education on expenditures, allocations, balances, and anticipated over or under expenditures; working with the Board, Superintendent, and Administrators to develop the annual budget; establishing standards and procedures for accounting; working with appropriate town committees and employees regarding facilities, maintenance, and business; representing the District at school, state, and community events.

Teacher Evaluation Broke New Ground

by Lynn K. McMullin

This past Wednesday, a committee of 7 teachers, 3 administrators, and 2 Board members reunited to review the year-long implementation of a new Teacher Evaluation and Continuous Growth Plan which the BOE voted into effect and implemented last fall.  This wouldn’t be exciting except for the fact that the teacher evaluation portion of the plan was a radical departure from what had been done in the past. And, it worked!!

Five Rubrics for Teacher Evaluation

When our committee first convened in the winter of 2008, we began with a solid bank of nationwide research which showed that despite the fact principals averaged 13 hours per year per teacher writing narrative evaluations, this typical teacher evaluation process did little to impact a teacher’s performance and had no impact on building or culture change.  Armed with that research, and our own combined years of practical experience, we sought something very different.  As a result, we developed five different teacher performance rubrics, one for each of these five domains:
1. Planning and Preparation for Learning
2. Classroom Management (briefly detailed below)
3. Instruction
4. Monitoring and Assessment
5. Professional Responsibilities

Each of these five rubrics is divided into four ratings: “Exceeds Standards” (which is reserved for exceptional performance and should be what all teachers aspire to reach); “Meets Standards” (the norm for most teachers); “Needs Improvement;” and “Does Not Meet Standards.”  We used four standards, rather than three or five, because with four there is no middle ground.  Every teacher ends the year either above the line in the top two bands… or, below the line in the bottom two bands. 

Within each different rubric, we wrote very specific indicators. For example, in the Classroom Management rubric, a teacher who “Meets Standards” would “build positive relationships with students, create a climate of respect; and handle disruption well,” as well as “develop positive interactions among students and reinforce cooperation for all students.”  In contrast, a teacher who “Needs Improvement” has attributes we described as “builds positive relationships with some students, but has regular disruptions in the classroom” and “lectures students about ‘good’ behavior and makes an example of ‘bad’ students.”   A teacher who "Does Not Meet Standards," would "come up with ad hoc rules and consequences as events unfold," and "be sometimes disrespectful to students and create a chaotic climate."  At the very top of the four-point scale, a teacher who "Exceeds Standards" creates a collaborative community of mutual respect in which disruptions are handled seamlessly and students are overtly taught key social skiils.  Within each of the five rubrics listed above, there are six or more indicators written as specifically as these examples.

The plan combines the teacher's self-evaluation using the rubrics with the supervisor’s evaluation.  The supervisor also has a classroom observation sheet which is very tightly aligned to the rubrics.  In brief, what used to be amorphous and subjective has become significantly more directed and objective.  Supervisors used bullet points this year, where in the past they used paragraphs.  As a result, both the administrative team and the teachers reported that they have never had such productive discussions about teaching as they had this year.
Next Steps

On Wednesday afternoon, when we met to review the plan and suggest revisions, the excitement and satisfaction with a job extremely well done was obvious among the committee members.  We did have some changes to make – some of the forms were glitchy, the timelines needed tweaking, and our forms for the Continuous Professional Growth portion of the plan are too cumbersome -- but the problems were minor and easy to fix. 

Everyone agreed, however, that the new plan has so much potential we should provide administrators and teachers with additional opportunities to discuss the rubrics and exemplars of best practices. The belief is our conversations about the indicators will continue to refine our district-wide vision of excellent teaching. The plan should also be incorporated into each building’s strategic planning and professional development, and the administrative team should continue to work together to create a common set of standards for excellence.

If you would like to read the full Teacher Evaluation and Continuous Professional Growth Plan, back up your browser and click on “Curriculum” on the District’s webpage, then click on the Evaluation document… or click the title at the beginning of this paragraph.

Committee Members
Teachers:  Shelley Lloyd (Co-Chair and EAC Representative), Linda Caraher, Jan Schley, Melissa Cook, John Duffy, Lisa Deltano, and Laurie Burrill
Administrators: Mary Dorpalen, Nancy Bean, and myself
Board of Education Members: Susan Crowe and Sue Saidel

What is Lexia?

by Lynn K. McMullin

In brief, Lexia is a reading software support program with a strong research base behind it.  In fact it’s an award-winner - recognized by several organizations, including Scholastic and EdNet for being the best in reading technology, RTI, and assessment.  Lexia helps students ages 4 and up acquire and improve the most essential reading skills from phonics to Latin roots.  At the same time, it allows the teacher or the tutor to monitor the student’s progress and target very specific and informed instruction to meet his or her needs.

There are three programs in Lexia: Early Reading, Primary Reading and Strategies for Older Students (SOS). Each program has multiple levels within it.  We’re using it in grades K – 9 in a variety of scheduling options, including before and after school tutoring sessions.  Some parents have even asked to be trained and are using Lexia at home. Research shows that fidelity yields results; success with Lexia requires 20 – 30 minutes a session, 3 – 5 times a week (depending upon the child’s needs).  The teacher or tutor also must take a backseat and not help students answer the questions.  When on the computer, the student must be working independently 100% of the time for the program to correctly diagnose and assign skills.

Canton’s reports are showing this level of fidelity is giving us results, and some students have moved up four or more Lexia levels since we began in November.  Lexia Reading begins with an auto placement tool in which a student completes a game-like assessment on the computer, using a headset to listen to instructions and to the sounds and words being taught.  Based on the results of several different diagnostics, such as short and long vowels, segmentation of words, beginning and ending sounds, etc., Lexia seamlessly levels the student and then creates a program specifically targeted to the student’s needs.  The Lexia dashboard below is an example of a program a student might be assigned.  I was working from a student’s screenshot, so it’s not the best clarity; but you can see that the student has been assigned to five activities in Early Reading, Level 2: Consonant Tree I, II, and II, Short Vowel Crate, and Consonant Pairs.  The yellow progress bar shows the child has almost completed the Short Vowel Crate, including all of the looping that Lexia might have done within that activity.  In the meantime, the tutor’s dashboard shows the amount of time each child has spent on Lexia, each child's progress through the activities, and the trouble spots he or she might be having.

When a student bumps into a skill he or she can’t master in Lexia, a yellow exclamation point shows up in both the teacher’s dashboard report and at the bottom left corner of the child’s screen. This indicates the child needs one-to-one instruction to get over this hurdle.

Using “long vowel, silent e” as an example of a skill-based activity, Lexia might begin by assigning a game in which the student sorts words with “long a, silent e” into a barrel while a clown descends onto the screen. The student would click on “lake, maze, name, gate,” and so on.  Next Lexia will add “long i, silent e” and the student will find “bike, dime, kite, pipe,” etc.  If the student is successful and can move on to “long o, silent e,” Lexia will mix all three patterns together, "name, bike, note, tape, home" etc.  If the child is unsuccessful, the Lexia program will back up and isolate the skill where the student was last successful. Furthermore, the teacher's report will show all of this by charting the long vowels.  This type of pinpoint accuracy has amazed all of us, as while a teacher or tutor will know a child is struggling with reading, it takes a good amount of trial and error to know that “long vowel, silent e” is the immediate culprit.

In the screenshot below, the child is working in Consonant Castle; and as he or she answers correctly, the pieces of the castle are coming together.  When this child selects the “b” to complete the word “bow,” the castle will be complete.  If the child didn’t hear the word "bow" clearly, clicking on the ear in the upper right corner will repeat it as many times as necessary.

This is a very brief description of a very involved tool.  Lexia obviously cannot teach reading and replace the teacher’s multi-faceted classroom instruction… nor will it replace our very successful DIBELS program… or Wilson Reading for significantly struggling readers... or "Soar to Success."  It is simply another successful tool in our toolkit.