1

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Catalyzing change.

FOCUS ON ACHIEVEMENT SESSION PRE-READ

Great Teachers & Leaders Coaching & Leadership in Service

of Best First InstructionApril 23, 2018

22

Content Flow of Pre-Read

1. Overview of Great Teachers & Leaders Core Priorities: Educator Diversity, Strategic Retention & Leadership Development

2. Update on Educator Diversity Priority

3. Update on New Teacher Pathways (as a core strategy to drive retention)

4. Deeper dive on Leadership Development, specifically Coaching & Leadership in Service of Best First Instruction

Brief background on evolution of distributive leadership & Instructional Leadership Teams

Update on implementation and impact of work

33

We have prioritized three efforts in service of meeting the goal of great teachers & leaders for all students.

Denver Plan 2020Every Child Succeeds

Great Schools

in Every

Neighborhood

A Foundation

for Success in

school

Ready for

College and

Career

Support for the

Whole Child

Close the

Opportunity

Gap

Ensure great teachers and leaders

Prioritized human capital

levers

Educator DiversityDriving recruitment and retention efforts to ensure out teacher &

school leader population represents our student population

Strategic RetentionRetaining and maximizing the impact of our strong and high-

potential educators, especially those in our intensive-tier schools

Leadership Capacity BuildingFacilitate the creation of strong systems and structure to support

the capacity building of our school-based leaders

4

EDUCATOR DIVERSITY

Please reference the attached memo for updates on progress in recruiting, cultivating,

hiring and retaining diverse teachers and leaders.

5

NEW TEACHER PATHWAYS

UPDATE

By more intentionally supporting our pre-service and novice teachers, we will increase their

effectiveness and retention, particularly in our most highly-impacted schools.

6

CURRENT CHALLENGES WITH TEACHER PATHWAYS & DEVELOPMENT

• DPS hires nearly 900 new teachers each year,

about 30% of which are brand new to the

profession.

• More than 80% of those novice teachers

arrive with limited clinical practice experience.

• Few of these clinical practice experiences

occur in highly impacted schools, yet many

novice teachers secure roles in these schools.

• Once in their classrooms, novice teacher

support resources are not targeted to highest-

need classrooms, schools, and subjects.

• Over 40% of novice teachers in DPS leave

within four years.

The bottom line:

There is opportunity to

be more intentional

about the preservice

experience to set up

future success and

sustainability.

6

OUR VISION AND STRATEGY IS DRIVEN NOT ONLY BY CURRENT CHALLENGES, BUT ALSO BY STAKEHOLDER NEEDS

DPS students need excellent teachers in every classroom who…

• Reflect our school communities

• Are ready on day one

• Feel efficacious and are excited to stay

Teacher candidates need…

• Multiple pathways to enter the classroom

• Affordable preparation options

• Practice opportunities with successful teachers

Partner Institutions need…

• Access to high-quality clinical practice experiences for their candidates

• Feedback from DPS on how candidates are doing in order to drive continuous improvement

7

Strategies Short-term Outcomes Intermediate Outcomes Impact

Deeper, well

prepared DPS

teacher pipeline

Increased

diversity of

teacher pipeline

Effectiveness

and retention of

novice teachers

increases

All students are taught by

effective teachers

Every

Child

Succeeds

Theory of Action: New teachers are more likely to get better faster, stay longer, and have a greater

impact on student outcomes when they are immersed in DPS culture with DPS students, partnered

with successful mentor teachers, prior to leading a classroom of their own.

ADDRESSING CURRENT CHALLENGES AND NEEDS –FROM THEORY OF ACTION TO IMPACT

High-quality

training experiences

in high-poverty schools

Cultivate deeper preparation

partner relationships

Establish Teaching

Academies as “talent hubs”

focused on developing talent

for high-poverty schools

Homegrown talent initiatives

(EdConnect, para-to-teacher)

Provide targeted novice

teacher support in most

impacted schools

Select and train mentors

in alignment

with TLC

8

STRATEGY OVERVIEW: WE ARE PURSUING MULTIPLE STRATEGIES TO WORK TOWARD THE TEACHER PATHWAYS VISION BEGINNING IN 2018-19

Offer Multiple Pathways to Teaching in DPS

Build School-Based Capacity to Offer High-

Quality Preservice Experiences

Strengthen New Teacher Supports

• Launch and pilot Teaching Academies that provide focused preservice

and new teacher development in highly impacted schools.

• Establish EdConnect and expand the Para-to-Teacher pipeline.

• Pilot an Associate Teacher Role to extend the novice teacher

developmental runway.

• Provide targeted financial and human capital resources to highly

impacted schools.

• Collaborate with preparation partner programs to ensure their

programming is data-driven and aligned to DPS’ teaching and learning

standards.

• Support schools in selecting, hiring and training exceptional mentors.

• Provide funding to cover mentor stipends in high poverty schools.

• Broker school/prep program partnerships in service of increasing the

number and quality of pre-service experiences in high poverty schools.

• Clearly define critical areas of learning and development and

benchmark measures of success for novice teachers in DPS.

• Collaborate across departments to review and revise professional

learning for early career teachers.

9

2018-19 TEACHER PATHWAY KEY ACTIONS

2018-19Goal is to have ~250 teacher candidates training across DPS

• % candidates of color in training will outpace % teachers of color in DPS

• >70% in highly impacted schools

Rollout unified strategy for mentor teacher selection and professional learning

Launch 7 Teaching Academies

• Goldrick, Greenlee, Gust, Trevista

• McAuliffe @ Manual, MLK, North

Engage with key preparation partners to align on new expectations and

roles/responsibilities in partnership, focusing on:

• Candidate placement in high poverty schools

• Mentor match

Work in close collaboration with CareerConnect to support on EdConnect and ensure

streamlined approach with pipeline strategy

Continue capacity-building of school-based ILT members and other teacher leaders to

support the growth and development of strong early career teachers

Our long-term goal is to have 300 preservice candidates training in DPS annually. More

than 90% of those candidates will train in our high poverty schools* by 2020.

*NOTE: For the purposes of training 300 preservice teachers, we have defined “high poverty” as our Title I

schools in order to distribute preservice teachers and ensure schools have capacity to support. 10

11

COACHING AND LEADERSHIP IN SERVICE OF

BEST FIRST INSTRUCTION

How has this work evolved with the increase of distributive leadership

structures in our schools?

1212

Coaching & Leadership in Service of Best First Instruction

A focus on Coaching & Leadership in service of Best First Instruction, including strengthening teacher leaders (with a focus on culturally responsive education and pedagogical content knowledge), instructional leadership teams, and our school leadership pipelines.

2017-18 Instructional Priority

Key Definitions:

Best First Instruction: Culturally responsive, data-driven teaching and learning that provides all students with joyful, rigorous, and personalized learning scaffolded to meet learners where they are and accelerate them to grade-level and beyond.

Instructional Leadership Team: A group of school-based leaders who establish and maintain instructional systems in service of increasing student achievement and improving teacher effectiveness

1313

A Short History of Teacher Leadership & Instructional Leadership Teams 13

P R E T L C

T O P - D O W N

L E A D E R S H I P

• Teachers take

leadership roles as

grade-level leaders

or department

chairs.

• Coaching provided

by administrators.

• LEAP evaluations

completed by

admin and Peer

Observers.

2 0 1 3 - 1 4

D I F F E R E N T I A T E D

R O L E S P I L O T

• Cohort 1 begins

• 14 Schools

• 51 Teacher Leaders

• 35 Cohort 2

schools design

• Shift in terminology

from DR to Team

Lead and Senior

Team Lead for 2014-

15

2 0 1 4 - 1 5

C O H O R T 2• Cohort 2 begins

• 41 Schools

• 136 Senior/Team

Leads

• 30 Cohort 3

schools design

2 0 1 5 -

1 6

C O H O R T 3• Cohort 3 begins

• 71 Schools

• 256 Senior/Team

Leads

• 42 New Designs

• Addition of Team

Specialist and New

Teacher Ambassador

roles for 2016-17

2 0 1 6 - 1 7

C O H O R T 4• Cohort 4 begins

• 113 Schools

• 363 Senior/Team

Leads

• 25 Cohort 5 schools

design

• Introduction of

shared definition of

Instructional

Leadership Teams

2 0 1 7 - 1 8

C O H O R T 5• Cohort 5 begins

• 138 Schools

• 463 Senior/Team Leads

2 0 1 9 - 2 0

C O N T I N U O U S

I M P R O V E M E N T

2 0 1 8 - 1 9

“ N E A R L Y A L L ”

• Focus on expansion in highest-need schools

• Projected ~523 roles with 17 100% school-

funded

1414

Video Overview of Teacher Leadership & Collaboration

If additional context and information on Teacher Leadership & Collaboration would be helpful, click the link below for a short (10 minute) video:

http://teacherleader.dpsk12.org/about-us/tlc101/

1515

Coaching & Leadership Theory of Action

We adopt an aligned vision of distributive leadership in our schools in which the principal shifts from the sole person driving change at a school to leading an Instructional Leadership Team of other leaders in this work.

Through the opportunity to work as teacher leaders and as part of the Instructional Leadership Team, we elevate teachers from implementers of a school’s vision to leaders in creating and enacting that vision.

The Instructional Leadership Team establishes and maintains instructional systems and becomes the vehicle through which the vision of the school and all other instructional priorities are realized.

We collectively support the development of strong leaders (inclusive of teacher leaders) to lead toward best first instruction.

As a result of high-quality and frequent coaching and feedback and high-quality collaborative and data-driven planning, the quality of instruction delivered by all teachers dramatically increases.

As a result of improved instruction, students will make greater academic gains, putting us on track to hit our Denver 2020 goals.

16

COACHING AND LEADERSHIP IN SERVICE OF

BEST FIRST INSTRUCTION

What do we currently know about the implementation and impact of this work?

1717

The number of years supported by a Senior/Team Lead appears associated with improved student outcomes

*SIGNIFICANT AT THE 0.05 LEVEL. T-TEST ANALYSIS RESTRICTED TO ONLY TEACHERS WITH OFFICIAL AND ATTRIBUTABLE STUDENT GROWTH SCORES IN LEAP. DOES NOT INCLUDE DATA FOR SENIOR/TEAM LEADS.

54 5254 5254 5456 56

CMAS ELA CMAS Math

Never team teacher 1 year support

2 years support 3+ years support

Average Teacher CMAS MGP by Number of Years

Supported by Senior/Team Lead

Teachers supported by Senior/Team Leads for two or more years have statistically significant higher student growth scores compared to other teachers.*

These findings are similar to previous year analysis of 2016-17 student growth scores.

1818

What do we know about teacher perceptions of ILT members and perceptions of teacher leaders?

89%

74%

79%

82%

Senior/Team Leads

LEAD: Leader of

Others

AP

Principal

“Overall, is an effective leader”

of Senior/Team Leads are involved in decisions that affect their work

(65% other teachers)

91%

of teachers report that their team lead is successful at both evaluating teaching and coaching to help improve practice

79%

of Senior/Team Leads believe that they have the opportunity for growth and

development (75% for other teachers)

87%

1919

Lessons Learned Over the Past 5 Years

We started with… We realized…

A focus on building out the structural design and implementation of teacher leadership

The importance of also building the capacity of principals as leaders of leaders

A focus on the design and implementation of teacher teams

The importance of an equal focus on Instructional Leadership Teams

A focus on teacher leadership as a talent strategy

The need to also attend to distributive leadership as an instructional strategy

An emphasis on increased responsibility for teacher leaders

The need to ensure sustainability of these roles and to balance teaching and leadership expectations

Tightly defined and extensive design expectations

The need to be integrated into the school’s Universal Improvement Plan and have flexibilities for schools to use given their context

Narrowly defined required professional development for teacher leaders

The need for differentiation and a flexible scope and sequence of learning across multiple years