School Improvement Opportunity to Develop Comprehensive Systems of Learning Supports
AASA/Scholastic/UCLA Application for LEAD DISTRICT Learning Supports Collaboration
The American Association of School Administrators (AASA), Scholastic, and UCLA presented a webinar on October 29, 2009, Strengthening School Improvement by Developing a Comprehensive System of Learning Supports. This webinar featured Dr. Howard Adelman and Dr. Linda Taylor from UCLA. The following URL will take you to the UCLA site where you can download the materials from the presentation: http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/rebuild/rebuilding.htm.
How to ensure that all students have the opportunity to succeed in school and have a strong start in being productive contributors to our society is a core question for school improvement policy makers and planners. Nationally, there is great concern and debate about how to raise student achievement, reduce dropout rates, address disparities among children from different socio-economic backgrounds, close racial and ethnic achievement gaps, serve transient students and immigrant populations, and increase the level of expectations of—and support for—all children.
It is clear that such concerns must be approached in the context of school improvement policies and practices. It is also clear that improved instruction alone is insufficient to address the external and internal barriers to teaching and learning that widely interfere with schools reaching their improvement goals. To meet the challenges for the many students in need, school districts must design comprehensive systems of learning supports that address barriers to learning and teaching and ensure that students are engaged and re-engaged in classroom learning. Schools need strong leadership for systemic change and infrastructure that facilitates schools and communities working together in pursuit of a shared vision and common set of goals.
The American Association of School Administrators (AASA), Scholastic, and the UCLA Center for Mental Health in Schools have formed a unique collaborative aimed at expanding leaders’ knowledge, capacity, and implementation of comprehensive systems of learning supports. This effort supports AASA’s flagship initiative, Educating the Total Child, which is aimedatadvocating for an education approach designed to effect real change by addressing key factors that determine children’s academic achievement.
Four Districts that are selected to participate in the collaborative will be provided with valuable supports to help them move forward toward developing comprehensive systems of learning supports that are integrated into school improvement planning and implementation. This involves:
Building understanding about comprehensive systems of learning supports and how such systems transform public education.
Creating policy and practice framework documents that can be shared among critical stakeholder groups.
Working to design and implement learning support systems.
Districts will be guided in their work by Drs. Howard Adelman and Linda Taylor, educators, researchers and national leaders from UCLA who have worked with state departments, regional units, districts, and schools to design and implement comprehensive learning supports systems (see brief document, Toward Next Steps in School Improvement: Addressing Barriers to Learning and Teaching, http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/pdfdocs/systemic/towardnextstep.pdf).
As a member of the collaborative, district leadership will become an integral part of AASA’s Leadership Development efforts. This will include acknowledgment of the district’s leadership in school transformation, presentations at national and state association meetings, mentoring of other districts, among other recognitions.
The school districts will be chosen using the folllowing criteria:
AASA Member District - Superintendent
Priority given to AASA Region 5 School Districts - Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee.
If the selection process does not yeild 3-4 districts from Region 5, we will open up the RFP to other AASA Member Districts.
The opportunity requires the direct participation of you as superintendent. Your commitment is to:
Lead a team of at least three staff to work with the AASA, Scholastic, and UCLA team in developing and implementing the district’s comprehensive system of learning supports.
Attend the three meetings of the collaborative—one in December 2009, one in February 2010, and one at a later date in spring 2010.
Participate in monthly collaborative conference calls.
Provide us with your best ideas on how to connect the work of the Lead District Learning Supports Collaborative with the work of school system leaders across the country.
In addition to you, the Superintendent, the district leadership team should include the administrative leader for student supports and the administrative leader responsible for the district’s school improvement efforts.
The work will encompass several face to face combined Lead District meetings with superintendent-led teams at AASA conferences, on-site work with the collaborative team, and regular ongoing contacts and supports (including phone and email). Scholastic and UCLA are underwriting the costs of the collaborative’s operation, on-site and supports work. AASA will provide for additional costs related to Lead District meetings at conferences.
Lead District Learning Supports Collaborative Meeting I:
December 3-4, 2009 Savannah, GA.
Includes airfare, one night hotel, ground transportation and meal reimbursement
Reimbursement not to exceed $950.00
Lead District Learning Supports Collaborative Meeting II:
February 10, 2009 Phoenix, AZ
AASA National Conference on Education
The trend related to student and learning supports has been to marginalize it in school improvement policy and practice. Therefore, the district’s application should indicate that development and implementation of a comprehensive system of learning supports will have a high priority with respect to innovative improvements to address barriers to learning and teaching and re-engage disconnected students.
If you'd like to be one of four Lead Districts working to improve student achievement through development of a comprehensive system of learning supports click here to download the pdf application.
If you have any questions or require more information, feel free to contact Dr. MaryAnn P. Jobe at mjobe@aasa.org or 703-875-0734.