 The 2022 Continuous Improvement Summit was held at the Central Bank Center in Lexington on Sept. 26-27. More than 800 educators from across the Commonwealth attended. Photo by Audrie Lamb
Dear Colleagues:
Last week I had the honor of helping recognize nine schools and three districts for best practices during the 2022 Continuous Improvement Summit, held at the Central Bank Center in Lexington on Sept. 26-27. More than 800 educators from across the Commonwealth attended the summit.
The summit provided attendees with the opportunity to invest in their own growth as a leader and a teacher and offered strategies to make a difference in their work and in their students’ experiences.
The schools and districts recognized included:
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Jacob Elementary (Jefferson County), Regulators, Mount Up 2.0!: This project created an identity in Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports that helps staff develop a basic understanding of brain science and its impact in the classroom for students and teachers.
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Wellington Elementary (Jefferson County), Powerful Practice: PDSA to Coaching Protocol: Wellington Elementary engaged in a Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) journey that led to a schoolwide coaching protocol that is continuing to evolve.
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Whitney Young Elementary (Jefferson County), Implementing a Weekly Continuous Improvement Loop to Support Teacher Development and Student Success: The school’s leadership team applied Carnegie Improvement Science protocols and inquiry cycles to professional learning community (PLC) work to create a system of teacher support.
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Fern Creek High School (Jefferson County), Laundry and Loot: Meeting Basic Needs to Improve Overall Student Outcomes: Laundry and Loot provides pick-up laundry services to students, as well as clothing and food assistance to students and their families. In spring 2022, Fern Creek Laundry and Loot offered the inaugural Prom Glow Up where students were able to select dresses, suits and accessories for senior prom, as well as receive hair and makeup services on prom day.
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Doss High School (Jefferson County), Accelerating Student Achievement: The high school uses PLC systems to analyze a variety of data sources and identify students in need of Tier 3 support in core content classes. Identified students are grouped and assigned to content-specific teachers for a 45-minute block on alternating days for 3-week rotations, where highly skilled teachers focus on standards recovery.
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Fairview Independent School District, Strategic Planning: Strategic Thinking Process: Fairview Independent adopted the Strategic Planning Process from the National Institute for School Leadership Strategic Thinking Framework, encompassing the PDSA from Jim Shipley and Associates (JSA), with the focus on the JSA Systems Approach to Continuous Improvement.
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James A. Farmer Elementary (Jefferson County), Say Goodbye Word Wall and Hello Sound Wall: The sound wall is an instructional tool that aligns to the structured literacy methodology by promoting explicit, systematic teaching that is good for all children, but necessary for struggling readers. The sound wall promotes phonemic awareness, phonics and a clear organization to address student usability of this instructional tool.
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Jessamine County School District, Elevating Student Growth During the Summer: In 2021, Jessamine County leaders launched a targeted summer program that resulted in summer progress from spring to fall 2021.
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Jessamine County School District, Teacher Leader Networks – A Continuous Improvement Powerhouse: Identifying and partnering with teacher leaders across the district has been a key to developing a system of strong professional learning communities. These teachers work with district and school administrators to lead their peers in implementing high-yield practices, effective learning communities and classroom learning systems.
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Camargo Elementary (Montgomery County), Vertical Planning: Vertical Planning is a purposeful planning process between grade levels that addresses instructional gaps, repetition of standards, resources, vocabulary and the overall quality of instruction.
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Rowan County School District, Keep Your Eye on the Prize: Learning Intentions and Success Criteria in the Elementary Classroom: Students took the lead in their learning, focusing on learning intentions and success criteria. The idea focuses on learning intentions aligned to the standards, success criteria designed to allow students to assess their understanding and teachers collecting formative data to inform instructional decisions.
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Martha Layne Collins High School (Shelby County), Establishing a Culture of Growth Through Full Staff Feedback: The administrative team made a commitment to provide every teacher with feedback they would find useful. They developed expectations, documents and protocols that could prove useful at any school with a few adjustments.
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Atkinson Academy (Jefferson County), Improving Writing Instruction with Improvement Science: This project focuses on using improvement science to improve writing instruction in all classrooms. Their journey included the use of a writing improvement committee and multiple improvement science tools to foster overwhelming teacher efficacy.
I am proud of our educators’ dedication to providing Kentucky students with vibrant learning experiences, one of the three big ideas in United We Learn, Kentucky’s vision for public education in the Commonwealth.
If you want to read more about these or other innovative practices, visit KDE’s Best Practices and Sustainability website, which was created in 2013 to serve as a clearinghouse to promote practices that motivate, engage and provide measurable results in student learning, achievement and school/district processes.
I also wanted to point out that last week and this week are fall break for most of our districts. I encourage you all to take a break and refresh yourself during this time off. The fall is always hectic as we rush toward the holidays and the end of the semester. While our schedules all may seem hopelessly busy, please remember that you need to take care of yourself before you can take care of others.
Kind regards,
Jason E. Glass, Ed.D.
Commissioner and Chief Learner
School Report Card – Public Release Prep
The School Report Card (SRC) data entry and approval tasks were due by the end of last week. Please pass along our thanks from the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) to all the district and school staff that completed this work. Most districts have completed and approved their SRC domains. KDE will follow up with superintendents and SRC contacts that have not to encourage completion of the review process.
The SRC data will become public in accordance with the schedule below, regardless of the approval status. The review process ensures districts have the opportunity to verify the accuracy of the data before public release.
The Kentucky SRC Data Approval and Collection Tool can still be accessed to update or review refreshed data in the Overview, Education Opportunity and Transition to Adult Life domains. KDE will continue to refresh data through the end of this week if districts advise there is a need, and data has been updated in the source system. If changes are needed to the superintendent message or collection items, those items can still be updated by district staff in this tool.
A signed School Profile Report for each school should now be available in the local board office. The due date for this was Oct. 1.
Public release dates for the 2022 School Report Card, including assessment, accountability and federal classification data, are:
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Thursday, Oct. 13: District embargo opens
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Friday, Oct. 14: Media embargo opens
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Monday, Oct. 17: KDE media opportunity mid-day; embargo ends 11:59 p.m. ET
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Tuesday, Oct. 18: Public release
Previous communications and SRC resources are available on KDE’s SRC Resource webpage.
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