Riverside County Office of Education

Riverside County Office of Education Information

Name:  Riverside County Office of Education, Division of Educational Leadership Services
Address: 3939 13th Street, Riverside, CA  92501
Phone: 951.826.6388
Fax: 951.826.6954
Contact: Terry Wilhelm (Director II)
Emails: twilhelm@rcoe.us
Web Address: http://www.rcoe.k12.ca.us/

Demographics

The PLC School Leadership Team (SLT) program coordinated by the Riverside County Office of Education, Division of Educational Leadership Services (ELS) supports schools in becoming highly-functioning professional learning communities.  This is a two-year program consisting of ten training sessions and interim school site work focused on developing leadership capacity, implementing structures and processes of a PLC and increasing student academic achievement.  In addition to the program Directors, ELS employs a core group of consultants to facilitate the SLT program.  The program description has been provided by Terry Wilhelm and the evidence of effectiveness is representative of the elementary, middle, and high schools that have completed the two-year program since 2003.  41 schools from nine districts in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties in California are represented: Moreno Valley Unified School District, Lake Elsinore Unified School District, Jurupa Unified, Corona-Norco Unified, Hemet Unified, Alvord Unified, San Jacinto Unified, Perris Union High School District, and Fontana Unified.

Table 1. 2008-2009 Demographic Data

	2008-2009 Demographic Data
Subgroup	SLT Schools	Riverside County	State of CA
Hispanic	64%	56%	49%
White	17%	27%	28%
Free/Reduced Lunch	66%	54%	54%
Students with Disabilities	12%	10%	10%
English Learners	30%	23%	24%

Table 2. Academic Performance Index (API) Score

	Academic Performance Index (API) Score
SLT Cohort*	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
Cohort 1 (Served in 2003-2005)	629	637	659	667	689	701	717
Cohort 2 (Served in 2004-2006)		667	686	688	704	727	741
Cohort 3 (Served in 2005-2007)			640	668	672	711	719
Cohort 4 (Served in 2006-2008)				714	716	753	764
Cohort 5 (Served in 2007-2009)					695	734	750
Cohorts 1-5 SLT Schools					692	723	736

Table 3. Academic Performance Index (API) Score Change

SLT Cohort*	2003-09 API Change	2004-09 API Change	2005-09 API Change	2006-09 API Change	2007-09 API Change
Cohort 1 (Served in 2003-2005)	88	80	58	50	28
Cohort 2 (Served in 2004-2006)		74	55	53	37
Cohort 3 (Served in 2005-2007)			79	51	47
Cohort 4 (Served in 2006-2008)				50	48
Cohort 5 (Served in 2007-2009)					55
Cohorts 1-5 SLT Schools					44
Riverside County	80	75	61	48	33
State of CA	55	53	38	26	20

Table 4. English Language Arts Proficient Rate

	English Language Arts Proficient Rate
SLT Cohort*	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
Cohort 1 (Served in 2003-2005)	21.1%	21.8%	27.4%	28.8%	32.6%	34.7%	38.3%
Cohort 2 (Served in 2004-2006)		28.9%	32.6%	33.9%	35.7%	40.5%	42.5%
Cohort 3 (Served in 2005-2007)			32.2%	34.4%	36.2%	39.8%	47.1%
Cohort 4 (Served in 2006-2008)				33.1%	34.7%	37.3%	43.8%
Cohort 5 (Served in 2007-2009)					41.3%	47.6%	50.9%
Cohorts 1-5 SLT Schools					36.8%	40.9%	45.4%

Table 5. Mathematics Proficient Rate

	Mathematics Proficient Rate
SLT Cohort*	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
Cohort 1 (Served in 2003-2005)	20.4%	19.8%	26.8%	28.0%	29.7%	33.6%	34.4%
Cohort 2 (Served in 2004-2006)		30.2%	32.2%	31.6%	36.5%	41.1%	43.5%
Cohort 3 (Served in 2005-2007)			32.3%	35.3%	37.5%	39.8%	43.3%
Cohort 4 (Served in 2006-2008)				46.9%	44.6%	50.6%	52.4%
Cohort 5 (Served in 2007-2009)					38.1%	44.2%	45.7%
Cohorts 1-5 SLT Schools					36.4%	40.7%	42.8%

Table 6. Percent Change in English Language Arts Proficient Rate

	English Language Arts Proficient Rate
Year	2003-09 Percent Change	2004-09 Percent Change	2005-09 Percent Change	2006-09 Percent Change	2007-09 Percent Change
Cohort 1 (Served in 2003-2005)	81.5%	75.7%	39.8%	33.0%	17.5%
Cohort 2 (Served in 2004-2006)		47.1%	30.4%	25.4%	19.0%
Cohort 3 (Served in 2005-2007)			46.3%	36.9%	30.1%
Cohort 4 (Served in 2006-2008)				32.3%	26.2%
Cohort 5 (Served in 2007-2009)					23.2%
Cohorts 1-5 SLT Schools					23.4%
Riverside County	51.8%	49.1%	30.5%	23.0%	20.1%
State of CA	42.5%	39.0%	24.1%	16.1%	14.3%

Table 7. Percent Change in Mathematics Proficient Rate

	Mathematics Proficient Rate
Year	2003-09 Percent Change	2004-09 Percent Change	2005-09 Percent Change	2006-09 Percent Change	2007-09 Percent Change
Cohort 1 (Served in 2003-2005)	68.6%	73.7%	28.4%	22.9%	15.8%
Cohort 2 (Served in 2004-2006)		44.0%	35.1%	37.7%	19.2%
Cohort 3 (Served in 2005-2007)			34.1%	22.7%	15.5%
Cohort 4 (Served in 2006-2008)				11.7%	17.5%
Cohort 5 (Served in 2007-2009)					19.9%
Cohorts 1-5 SLT Schools					17.6%
Riverside County	46.6%	42.7%	26.8%	18.4%	15.8%
State of CA	39.7%	34.8%	20.4%	12.9%	11.8%

Table 8. 2007-2009 Percent Change in English Language Arts Proficient Rate

2007-2009 Percent Change in English Language Arts Proficient Rate
Year	SLT Schools	Riverside County	State of CA
All Students	23.4%	20.1%	14.3%
Hispanic	35.4%	31.3%	25.1%
White	13.2%	12.7%	8.7%
Socioeconomically Disadvantaged	31.8%	34.7%	26.3%
English Learners	48.9%	42.1%	29.1%
Students with Disabilities	81.5%	74.1%	44.9%

Table 9. 2007-2009 Percent Change in Mathematics Proficient Rate

2007-2009 Percent Change in Mathematics Proficient Rate
Year	SLT Schools	Riverside County	State of CA
All Students	17.6%	15.8%	11.8%
Hispanic	24.0%	22.6%	18.4%
White	10.1%	9.7%	7.3%
Socioeconomically Disadvantaged	23.6%	24.9%	18.8%
English Learners	29.9%	28.0%	19.6%
Students with Disabilities	52.4%	51.4%	31.5%

Please comment on any aspect of the data that you believe is particularly significant.
In addition to the comparatively larger gains of participating schools as compared to other schools in the county and state, evidence of sustainability is compelling.  Schools that have completed the two-year program have continued to show significant gains in student achievement – up to five years later for the first cohort of 2003-05.
Overall, schools that have participated in the SLT program had significantly higher populations of at-risk students as compared to the representative districts and the state.  Yet, SLT schools showed greater gains in almost all student subgroups for both English language arts and math standards proficiency.  In addition, SLT schools had a significantly greater increase in California’s Academic Performance Index (a state-specific measure of academic performance and growth) as compared to similar schools in the county and state.

Please present additional information that indicates your efforts to build a professional learning community have had a positive impact on students and/or teachers.

The SLT program is a proven process for schools to become professional learning communities.  Training is delivered to a cohort of schools, with facilitators serving as coaches for the design and implementation of strategic interim school site work.  Each session focuses on two strands, school leadership and student academic achievement, which are connected to the Cultural Shifts found within Learning by Doing.  Throughout the sessions, schools create SMART goals for their interim work that focus on supporting the implementation of a PLC, increasing student achievement, enhancing the capacity of teacher teams, and propelling the Cultural Shifts at their school site. 

Please elaborate on strategies you have found to be effective in the following areas:

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

A component of the SLT program is for school leadership teams to assess the extent to which critical foundations of a PLC exist at their sites: a focus on learning, a collaborative culture, collective inquiry into best practice, action orientation, commitment to continuous improvement and school improvement planning, and a results orientation.  School leadership teams accomplish this by administering a rating scale survey to all staff to discern the degree to which it is perceived that a collaborative culture focused on results and learning exists at each school.  This sets the stage for the continuous monitoring of student achievement and the collective development of best practices to ensure all students learn.  The expectation of the SLT program is that schools establish structures that provide teacher teams a minimum of two hours - and preferably four hours - of collaboration time per month.  The Critical Issues for Team Consideration in Learning by Doing is used as a framework to ensure that school leadership teams are strategic in supporting their teacher teams in the effective use of collaboration time.  As part of the training, school leadership teams are provided tools and routines in the form of data- and focus-walk-protocols which have been proven to be high leverage processes to maintain a continuous focus on student learning results and collective development of best practices.

2. Creating systems of intervention to provide students with additional time and support for learning.

The SLT program uses the California Department of Education’s Academic Program Survey (APS), and Response to Intervention model (RtI) - a pyramid of interventions concept that provides systems of interventions that support the learning of all students.  The APS provides a structural framework for aligning the bell schedule and/or master schedule with appropriate core academic interventions (benchmark, strategic and intensive) for all students.  The concept of a system of interventions is effectively conveyed using the video “Through New Eyes,” which provides the school leadership teams with a mental model from which to discern the extent that their schools’ structures and culture affords additional time and support for student learning.  Again, the Critical Issues for Team Consideration in Learning by Doing is used as a framework to ensure that school leadership teams are strategic in designing and implementing systems of student interventions.  School leadership teams also receive training in cultural proficiency, and the culture of poverty, to enhance their ability to meet the learning needs of at-risk student populations and collectively develop best practices.

3.  Providing leadership development and support for principals.

The program provides customized support for participating principals, based on the needs of the schools and the cohort.  This may include intersession site visits, advance orientation meetings for the principals with their district superintendents and district office staff, intersession principal breakfast meetings, and principal-only meetings prior to team meetings.  In the case of in-house cohorts delivered within a single district setting, the facilitators hold advance planning meetings with district leaders, and maintain regular contact with them in order to ensure that the program is providing cohesive support for district initiatives.  For all-high-school groups, team “mentors” are provided through the program.  These are retired high school administrators or academic coaches, who attend all team sessions with their assigned team, and conduct intersession visits to help ensure that the plans developed during each session’s Time to Design segment are successfully carried out.

4. Building teacher capacity to work as members of high performing collaborative teams that focus efforts on improved learning for all students.

The goal of the SLT program is to develop the school leadership team’s capacity to support their respective schools in making the Cultural Shifts in Learning by Doing.  To this end, school leadership teams are provided tools, routines and leadership practices that enhance their ability to directly empowering teacher teams to focus on results and learning.  This includes a process for developing a school-wide shared vision by clarifying core beliefs and establishing collective commitments.  A foundational component of this work is the creation and maintenance of norms for all teams at the school.  In addition, training is provided on how to effectively run meetings, develop communication skills and processes for building consensus, and to use formal discussion protocols for analyzing data and student work.  Again, the Critical Issues for Team Consideration in Learning by Doing is used as a framework to ensure that school leadership teams are strategic in designing and implementing tools and routines that guide the work of teacher teams. 

At the conclusion of the two-year program each school presents evidence of their implementation of PLC concepts, including gains shown in student achievement data.  School leadership teams have indicated that they possess a greater capacity to function as a guiding coalition.  This increased leadership capacity has translated into the consistent use of protocols to analyze student assessment data and inform instructional practices, creation and monitoring of team and classroom SMART goals to guide instructional and curricular decisions, co-planning and co-teaching by grade level and course-alike teams, and implementation of various academic interventions to support student learning.  Schools completing the program have received recognitions for academic achievement including National Blue Ribbon, California Distinguished School, and Title 1 Academic Achievement.  In addition, schools completing the program have exited Program Improvement and state-monitored status.

 

Cohort	School	District
1	Mountain View Middle School	Moreno Valley Unified
1	Cloverdale Elementary	Moreno Valley Unified
1	Mira Loma Middle School	Jurupa Unified
1	Jurupa Middle School	Jurupa Unified
1	San Jacinto Elementary	San Jacinto Unified
1	Terrace Elementary	Alvord Unified
1	Pinacate Middle School	Perris Union High School District
2	Arlanza Elementary	Alvord Unified
2	Twinhill Elementary	Alvord Unified
2	Mission Middle School	Jurupa Unified
2	Honey Hollow Elementary	Moreno Valley Unified
2	Canyon Springs High School	Moreno Valley Unified
2	Palm Middle School	Moreno Valley Unified
2	Moreno Elementary School	Moreno Valley Unified
3	Canyon Lake Middle School	Lake Elsinore Unified
3	Vista Heights Middle School	Moreno Valley Unified
3	Butterfield Elementary School	Moreno Valley Unified
3	Bear Valley Elementary School	Moreno Valley Unified
3	Serrano Elementary School	Moreno Valley Unified
3	Sunnymeadows Elementary School	Moreno Valley Unified
4	Terra Cotta Middle School	Lake Elsinore Unified
4	Lake Elsinore Elementary	Lake Elsinore Unified
4	Landmark Middle School	Moreno Valley Unified
4	La Jolla Elementary School	Moreno Valley Unified
4	Chaparral Hills Elementary	Moreno Valley Unified
4	Hendrick Ranch Elementary	Moreno Valley Unified
4	Sugar Hill Elementary	Moreno Valley Unified
4	Armada Elementary	Moreno Valley Unified
4	Box Springs Elementary	Moreno Valley Unified
5	Locust Elementary	Fontana Unified
5	Diamond Valley Elementary	Hemet Unified
5	Corona Fundamental Intermediate	Corona-Norco Unified
5	Butterfield Elementary	Lake Elsinore Unified
5	Lakeland Village Middle School	Lake Elsinore Unified
5	Elsinore Middle School	Lake Elsinore Unified
5	Lakeside High School	Lake Elsinore Unified
5	Vista del Lago High School	Moreno Valley Unified
5	Valley View High School	Moreno Valley Unified
5	Moreno Valley High School	Moreno Valley Unified
5	Machado Elementary	Lake Elsinore Unified
5	Ridgecrest Elementary	Moreno Valley Unified