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In episode 2, part 1 of Inglewood, we talked a lot about receivership.

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Yeah, it's been hard to see obviously when we went into receivership, receivership, receivership,

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receivership, receivership.

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And the challenges that come with receivership.

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How difficult and taxing it can be.

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But we really wanted to get a sense of how hard this is.

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How difficult it is to be a teacher when the systems around you are not working.

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It's very hard to get up and just teach.

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Teach.

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Teach.

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Teach.

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But the teachers at Highland still got up every day and came to work and did everything

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they could underneath whatever system or new thing they were told to do.

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We were asked to do a lot.

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And then did their best to teach their students.

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The fact that they haven't given up is frankly incredible.

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And so the reason to be candid and look deeply at the challenges of something like receivership

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is to understand how the systems that we made up affect our ability to teach effectively.

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Now we're talking about ways to change them.

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A system is created by the people.

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And so they have the decision to change the system, to disrupt it and do something differently.

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We're talking about systems that give the power to each individual teacher to see themselves

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as part of a whole.

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And we collectively, when I say we, I mean all of us, the teachers at Highland, the teachers

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of Inglewood School District, the administrators, the community and our legislators, we all

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have an obligation to these systems that we created to make sure that we're creating

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them in a way that provides the most coherence and allows our teachers to thrive.

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And that's what the intensive assistance model is made to do.

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This is Rising from the Margins, Chapter 2, Part 2, Highland Elementary in Inglewood, California.

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The intensive assistance model requires a lot of work.

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That's Dr. Stephanie Gregson, Deputy Executive Director for CCEE.

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She's leading the direct technical assistance efforts for a number of schools in Inglewood

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Included.

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What it looks like the first year for any school site is 51 days of coaching.

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51 days of coaching in leadership, in collaboration and in content areas.

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But Inglewood needs to do work on having a vision, a mission and common goals to make

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sure that every action, every decision they make is aligned with those.

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And that is the work that Highland is doing.

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That is a lot of the work that the first year of this model is about.

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What is our vision and mission together as a team and what are our goals?

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In the last episode, we talked about the recipe for how this could happen at another school.

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The loss of leadership, the loss of culture and the loss of coherence.

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These three things are connected and they're pretty essential when you start to look at

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a lot of schools.

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If you recall from Episode 1, PLC stands for a professional learning community.

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The true model PLC work unfolds all three of those essential things.

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It can restore each of them and create a space so they can thrive.

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And the beauty of that, the beauty of how the model PLC does it, is from the ground

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up.

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Leadership unfolds from the teachers themselves by giving them tools, agency and authority

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to solve problems in their classrooms.

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Culture begins to unfold from their continued collaboration and coherence unfolds as they

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communicate and discover problems in real time.

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So in the last episode, we said there is a lot of programs that sometimes try to get

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tacked on to schools.

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You know this multiplicity of adorned, superficial projects that go on and on and on.

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And so you might be thinking, well isn't the intensive assistance model PLC just another

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one of those tacked on things?

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And you'd be right to think it.

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So let's look deeper at how this PLC work.

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This intensive assistance model unfolds those three key necessities of a successful and

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thriving school.

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Leadership, culture and coherence.

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And see why it's not just another.

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Superficial adorned project, project, project, project.

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We're seeing the shift in the types of work that's happening at the district level, especially

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the work with Bernadette Lucas.

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Dr. Bernadette Lucas is Inglewood's chief academic officer.

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I cannot overemphasize the importance of this model with CCE.

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As a leader within the district, it would be hard to find another as passionate as Bernadette.

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Her focus is clear and she's driven to steer Inglewood in the right direction.

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I was told by several teachers that it's hard not to leave a conversation with her inspired.

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And I felt that too.

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You know, I've been in administration now for, gosh, the vast majority of my career.

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So at least 20 years, probably more than that.

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And I have never seen an educational organization make moderate to significant movement if the

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adults in that organization aren't engaged in collaborative teamwork and shared leadership.

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I've never seen it.

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And it's unlikely to happen.

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Not in a sustained way over time.

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So why is ground up leadership so important at schools?

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We've talked in both episodes about the need to value the degrees and experience of our

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teachers that respects their knowledge and allows them to grow in new ways and not just

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be told what to do.

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There is so much talent in this district.

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That's something that also kind of bothers me about the receivership thing.

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There's an assumption that the adults in the organization are somehow lacking or without

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talent and that is absolutely not true.

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The system has created this kind of veil of incompetence because of receivership, which

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could not be more false.

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I've been here 27 years.

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I don't even know what the inside of another school on a professional level would even

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feel like or look like.

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This is all that I know.

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Trevino Jones is the principal at Highland Elementary.

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This will be his third year as Highland's principal and as he puts it, he isn't going

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anywhere anytime soon.

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I can sense that there's a change and a shift that's beginning to take place and it's not

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all directed by me.

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I have a tremendous support team with my guiding coalition and on any given day any of those

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members may walk in or call a meeting, hey Mr. Jones, we need to meet.

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We haven't done it.

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Even our teachers who aren't a part of the guiding coalition, they've come to me and

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they've said Mr. Jones, we're developing a CFA.

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We had a discussion around it.

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What do you think?

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And I'm thinking to myself, wow, it's amazing.

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These aren't conversations that I'm leading.

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These are conversations that I'm a part of.

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We've been making strides towards shared leadership for a while now.

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I feel very strongly about shared grassroots type leadership.

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And as a result, teachers are feeling empowered.

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They have agency not only within their classroom, but it extends to the other grade levels and

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even the school side.

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Really the PLC work, having teachers work together in teams is very respectful of what

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they bring to the table.

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That is Dr. Jim Morris, County Administrator for Inglewood School District.

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I feel like I own it more than before.

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It's veteran fourth grade teacher Michael Reed, who started his career at Highland 27

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years ago.

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Because now I'm a part of it as opposed to being told XYZ, you do this, you do this,

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you do this.

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Now I'm talking with my colleagues and we're coming up.

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We're designing.

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We're making CFAs.

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We're using those.

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We're looking at the data.

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So yeah, ownership, you know.

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It's interesting how people respond when you treat them as the experts, how people respond

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when you treat them as the people who have the answers.

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I feel like I own it more than before.

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Rather than saying, okay, I know better than y'all because, you know, I'm old and I've

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been doing this a long time or whatever else, that may be good knowledge, but it's not as

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relevant to solving the problem at hand as what the teachers in the second grade classrooms

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at Highland know about the children that they're teaching every day.

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What this means is that Highland, Washington, and any school working on the intensive assistance

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model to become a model PLC school, you'll find there's less concern about leadership

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changes because every teacher that comes into the school will work this way.

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Every new principal that comes into the school will work this way.

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And that means the culture that was established by the teachers and support staff through

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collaboration continues to thrive regardless of the forces around them.

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What we're trying to do is build it into the culture of our school, how things are done.

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And I think what's beginning to happen is I think our teachers are taking that on.

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I think they can feel it.

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They can feel the shift in the culture here at Highland.

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And they also know that I'm not going anywhere.

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So I've made the words PLC part of our culture here at Highland.

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I mean, I don't want to present it like it's the magic solution for everything, but it

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is the magic solution for a lot.

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And having that professional structure in place to do that is why we value it so much.

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You're talking about new people to the district, right?

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So they come into this professional learning community that's already set up to promote

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the expertise of the people with whom they're working.

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So there's now a group of people working together toward a common goal with a very focused lens

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and focused structure.

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So even as we were starting this process, the first thought was, well, we don't want

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another thing that we have to do, but to recognize this is just not another thing to do.

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It's kind of changing our culture and it's shifting us from complaining and all the

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negative things in the past are really looking for solutions.

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So I think that is a benefit when we can steer the conversation to what can we do better?

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How can we work together?

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What can we do in the future?

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We can't control the past.

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We can't change the past.

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And there are certain things that we have no control over, but what's happening in the

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four walls of each of our classrooms, we have control over and we can really look at, find

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solutions to how we can do better.

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You can write the bullet points of a culture on a wall, an attempt to impose them on people

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or have them recite the bullets together and hope they begin to believe it.

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But true deep and meaningful culture unfolds from people coming together and really collaborating,

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understanding each other, sharing meaning.

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That is a culture.

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I think it's critical.

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This is the voice of LA County Office of Education Superintendent Dr. Deborah Duardo.

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Because we're talking about changing systems and not having changes programmatically like

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every year, we're going to go this direction, we're going to try that program, we're going

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to do this.

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We have a model that's in place that will stay in place regardless of the change in

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some of the administrative positions.

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And True Model PLC work flattens that leadership and gives that power to the teachers to understand

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what's going on in their classroom.

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Really understand how their students are learning, to truly know what they have to teach with

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the essential standards and to know that those standards are understood by their students.

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And not only that, but that these essential standards will prepare the students to be

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ready to move into the next grade because there has been collaboration between grade

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levels about how they fit together.

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I, myself personally, professionally, have learned some new things with the way that

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we're approaching it.

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And I've taken it back to my class, like looking at, you know, essential standards, things

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like that.

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I didn't think of it like that because I was always taught or told to teach everything.

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Before, I think we're trying to be all things to all standards, and I think now they're

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laser focused on what's important.

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So those essentials are quite vital and that focus has to be extremely poignant.

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Again, Deputy Executive Director for CCEE, Dr. Stephanie Gregson.

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These four essential questions are the framework at ensuring every student is receiving the

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instruction that they need to be successful.

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The first question is, what do we want students to know and be able to do?

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And that's centered around identifying essential standards.

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The essential standards are focused in the content areas of literacy, mathematics, and

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language development.

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Period.

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Nothing more.

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The second question, how will we know if they've learned it?

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And the third question, what will we do if learning has taken place?

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And the fourth question, what will we do if learning doesn't occur?

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And that is having a school system have a structure in place that makes sure that they

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can meet the needs of the students who may need intervention and those who may need expanded

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learning.

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All of that takes a lot of awareness around the infrastructure of the school site.

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That was eye-opening for me, and that brought clarity to me where, okay, I can focus on

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this, this, and this as opposed to everything.

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The initial reports that I'm getting from staff around this work is that it is the right

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work to do and we must continue it.

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The intensive assistance model is a three-year project, but that's just the start.

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Really the work comes after the project is over because that is around the sustainability

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for each of the school sites.

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Have they embedded this culture and approach and who they are as a team and how they work?

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That is the work that has to be done beyond the three years of this project.

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I just got a question from one of the teachers you're going to interview.

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Dr. Lucas, how can you assure us that this isn't going anywhere next year?

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Yep, that was me.

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That was me.

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That's the voice of third-grade teacher, Steph Rula-Dukas.

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Because I like this so much.

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It's not easy.

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It's not easy.

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There is a different type of cognitive load here for the teacher because it's new and

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I do worry because we see funding come, we like something, and then it goes away.

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That's part of building trust around this work that you have those systemic pieces in

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place so you can say, yes, in two, three, four, five years we'll still be doing this.

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One of the things I just try and do is to reassure of our North Star on why we're doing

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what it is that we're doing here.

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This is a priority.

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It's one of the drivers that we've identified to move student achievement in this district,

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which is my singular focus.

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It can work if done effectively and done with fidelity.

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So here at Highland I'm trying to make sure that even though it isn't prescriptive, what

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we're doing is the right thing to do.

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Guiding Coalition member Valerie DeMorst.

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This is not just a program that we're putting into place that, hey, in a year it's going

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to go away if we don't have the funding, but it really is kind of that mindset shift that

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I do hope makes a big difference.

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And I do think it's going to affect student scores in the long run too, that they're really

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going to be able to do better on the state assessment, but also just be better, better

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readers, better academics that'll help them succeed in life.

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Coherence is kind of a buzzword within the education world.

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Everyone desires coherence and they say they're moving toward it.

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We said PLC's unfold coherence.

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So if coherence is something that's desired, the only way to get there, the only way to

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have more coherence is to identify and spot incoherence.

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So in order to find coherence we have to share meaning among each other.

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And schools would need to be sharing meaning together so that they can see what's true

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and false.

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To see what's right and wrong, to see what's working and not working.

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No individual teacher is going to truly be able to see this on their own.

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And if everyone is just operating within their own silo of their own classrooms, coherence

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will never be achieved, no matter how much it is said to be desired.

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And this is what the Model PLC does.

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The intensive assistance model brings the teachers together to communicate and collaborate

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in order to discover coherence.

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Their spotting places where things aren't working, where there is incoherence and they're

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correcting them.

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They're able to adjust.

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And the beauty is they can do it more in real time.

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And they're given the hours in the day to do it.

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We're going to look at the standard space weekly test, right?

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First let's make sure that 3.3 is on our essential standards, the ones that we put in

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green, the non-negotiables.

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This is a live PLC between Highlands 24-year veteran teacher, Steve Rulodukas, then second

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year teacher, Carmen Garcia.

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They're reviewing material between classes and confirming where it meets the essential

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standard requirements, but also how they can share their students among each other and

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teach the entire grade level together in order to support the entire grade level where they

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might be struggling.

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When we check our data, we should check if it's oral comprehension or fluency issue.

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Yeah, that's an excellent point because we know that our students who are reading below

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50% are not fluent readers and that could be a contributing factor.

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So how do you feel we should address that?

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I think maybe if you take Tier 3 and I take Tier 2, we can split them up like that.

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Maybe you can focus on phonics and I can focus on comprehension.

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If we can find a way to match and align our times, that would be ideal.

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And I think that we work so well together, we could make that happen.

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And these are not the only standards we need to intervene, but because this is a new process,

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we could at least try it with one standard, see how it goes.

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I think it'll be an amazing opportunity if we could split our classes that way.

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You focus on Tier 3, the phonics, and I focus with Tier 2, which is the comprehension of

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the characters in the text, and I think that'll be an excellent way to get started with all

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of this.

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We're willing to try.

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Yeah.

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I'm more than willing to try.

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Again, County Administrator Dr. Jim Morris.

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Competence builds commitment.

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Once teachers see the value and the results they're getting from this PLC work and become

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competent at doing it, they become incredibly committed.

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Student Coalition member Valerie DeMorrist.

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Teachers need to have that collaboration and sharing those ideas.

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We haven't had a lot of time to do that, maybe with everything being given to teachers, just

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haven't had time for that.

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You know, they might have lunch together or something, but there hasn't been a lot of

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time for true collaboration and that we're sharing our practices and sharing, did this

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work, did this not work?

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Because some of the sharing is also things that don't work, you know, so we can learn

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from those too, but really trying to find time for teachers to have that collaboration

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time is our goal through this.

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Even more so now with declining enrollment to teachers per grade level, the impact a

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teacher has is even greater, even greater.

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So if one class didn't get it, that's 50% of your students in that grade.

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That's a huge impact.

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Wow.

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This is cool.

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Highlands, two fifth grade teachers, seeing they are 50% of the grade level, meaning they

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see that they are not separate, but are part of a whole.

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We started just recently how one grade bleeds into another grade, bleeds into another grade,

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and started talking about the way that we're approaching it.

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This is the watch metaphor from Inglewood Part One.

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All the gears of a watch working together to tell time, the parts of a whole.

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If coherence is desired, this is a coherent way of thinking.

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To think and approach grade levels as separate classrooms would be fragmented thinking.

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It is that smashing of the watch with a hammer and then trying to put it back together.

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To the place where we're looking at, all students is our students.

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So then, wouldn't an entire school also need to be seen this way?

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It all fits together to do one thing.

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Looking at the whole school as all of our kids, not just these are my kids and my four

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walls, but these are all our kids and how can we support each other through this?

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But I would hope that that'll affect even as kids go from grade to grade too, instead

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of just, oh, they're the bad kid or they're struggling, they have discipline issues, but

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it's really working with the next teacher and hey, you know what, I found this really

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worked or this really didn't work and that he was able to get from here to here.

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Here, let me give you some ideas that will help hopefully get him to focus to grow even

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further.

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So this is why this model is not just another.

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Superficial adorned project, project, project, project.

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It's because the intensive assistance model isn't really a system.

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It's a process.

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A process for understanding what's happening.

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That's really, really challenging work because it is human work.

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Getting together and facing each other, facing the problems of our class and realizing that

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each of us are a participant in creating the very problems we are trying to solve.

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That is hard work.

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When we get together and look directly at how we help create problems and we face those

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facts head on, those problems head on, we solve our problems in completely new ways.

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These experiences create new pathways of emotional intelligence in our brain.

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They lead to new emotional concepts and we realize something profound that we can fix

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this, that we don't need an authority to tell us how.

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We are that authority.

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Language facilitates culture.

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So for all speaking a common language and that language fosters expectations, having

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that language, we are evolving our culture.

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All of our teachers know what those four questions are.

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More importantly, what those four questions mean.

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What do we want our students to know and learn?

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How are we going to know if they've learned those essential standards?

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What are we going to do if they have learned it?

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And what are we going to do if they have not learned it?

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That language is helping us to create a culture of high expectations for all students.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, you're talking about shared meaning.

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Yes.

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And creating that meaning together.

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So it's not me as a chief academic officer espousing my, you know, bottomless knowledge.

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It's us co-creating meaning together.

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So we're co-creating the culture.

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We're co-creating the shift in the district.

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So what is shared meaning?

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Each and every teacher, each and every one of us has our own meaning of what's happening

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in a situation.

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We're interpreting it through our own past experience, memory, knowledge.

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And if we're all separate, which we are, we can't really know what meaning person A holds

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and what person B holds.

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Modern neuroscience shows us that words help us create concepts.

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They help us group ideas together and create meaning out of those ideas.

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But as a group, like a group of teachers who are supposed to all be doing the same thing,

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we would have to have shared meaning around the language we use and its meaning.

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And we have to learn how to better communicate that meaning with each other.

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Our interpretation of what we perceive comes from our past knowledge, which means every

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person's perception of what is happening is different.

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Any ideas we have that our perception is the same is an assumption on our part.

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So the only way we will know if we're all seeing the same things is to share meaning.

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A student in our district, if we're all doing the PLC process the same way, right, is going

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to be approached the same way, no matter what school they're in.

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And that doesn't usually happen, right?

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We don't have that.

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So that's a good thing for kids and their learning.

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It's a good thing for teachers too, to have a common way of doing things so that kids

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are learning more.

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And we know that it's not a checkbox, it's actually a system, it's a way of doing things.

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I want to learn.

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I don't know everything, even though I've taught all this time.

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I don't know everything.

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I'm open to it.

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Give me some ideas.

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Yeah.

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You gotta keep it fresh, even for yourself.

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Teachers have to have available energy resources and clarity.

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They can't be bogged down by a lot of noise.

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And ultimately, that's what this process with CCEE is doing.

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Clearing out the noise to unfold coherence, culture, and leadership.

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Three things we know create a strong school and give teachers the ability to believe in

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who they are and what they can do.

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Giving them the authority to really, truly change the world.

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Our culture is changing.

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I feel it.

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Those conversations are happening outside of me.

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Things are shifting and I feel it.

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People have more sense of hope for the future and, wow, we really can give these kids what

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they need and, yeah, it definitely feels more hopeful, I think.

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The hard work of grappling with all of this is being done at the school sites as they

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make this meeting together and recreate our school culture and our district cultures.

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And not letting all of the distractions, all the noise, all the, you know, things, but

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to really remember, we're here for the kids.

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And we know what we need to do to make it better.

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It's very clear that the research is there, the evidence is there.

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We know what we need to do.

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We just need to stay focused.

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When you think about the power in that, it is so defeating to think that you have no

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power to change what's happening with our kids.

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Oh, they come from these socioeconomic backgrounds that may not open as many opportunities for

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them.

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Oh, they may be English learners.

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Oh, they may have an IEP.

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That's a very defeatist way to look at it.

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And one of the things that I've learned in doing the work for the last year and maybe

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two, three months, that is that it does not have a guidebook on when you should be doing

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something.

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All it does is gives you the pieces to the puzzle.

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When you put them in their place, however that fits for you, then that's when it's working

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the way that it should.

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So that's kind of what we're doing here at Highland.

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00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:14,400
We're putting the pieces together.

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And we're trying to figure out what works for us because what works for Highland may

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not work for Madeira.

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May not work for Sac City, but it worked for Highland.

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The teachers of Highland have not quit in the face of incredible, incredible adversity

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and challenges that for any normal person would have rocked their belief in themselves.

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They've pushed through and held on and it's to be completely commended.

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And so to be working on a model that returns the power to them, that gives them the ability

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to really control the outcomes of their classrooms together, is exciting and hopeful and should

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00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:05,240
inspire all of us to say, Hey, shouldn't we be doing this at other schools?

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00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:13,160
Having these conversations empowers all of us in the organization to say, These are barriers

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00:30:13,160 --> 00:30:15,080
that were meant to be torn down.

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And we now have the language, the culture, the strategies, the tools to combat that.

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That's such a magical thing.

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When people say, What are we going to do about all this?

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That's what you do about it.

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There it is.

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It's right before you.

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The question is, Are you going to do it?

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Do it.

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Do it.

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And that right there is why the intensive assistance model and becoming a model PLC

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school is not just another superficial adorned project, project, project.

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I come to this job every day with my alarm clock rings that is set to ring at four or

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five and I am up by four o'clock every day because we're getting it done.

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This is a wonderful community.

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00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:13,920
There's nothing more, more exciting.

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Every day when I wake up, I'm not a morning person.

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You guys see it took me a minute to bring the donuts, but I'm not a morning person.

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But every day when I wake up, I'm happy to come here.

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May not always say it, but I am.

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I love this place.

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Thank you for listening.

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This series was brought to you by CCEE, the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence,

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whose mission is to help transform public education so that every student is left inspired

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and prepared to thrive as their best self in the world.

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If you would like to learn more about CCEE, log on to ccee-ca.org.

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Additional support was provided by Parsake Education.

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00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:08,680
It was produced in Fresno, California at Winsong Productions.

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And then stay tuned for the next episode where we travel to Sacramento, California and take

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a look at a district that is also knee deep in the intensive model process.

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We hope you'll join us.