A Collaborative Path to Successful Implementation of College and Career Ready Standards

A Collaborative Path to Successful Implementation of the College and
Career Ready Standards

Is implementing Arizona's College and Career Ready Standards a challenge or an opportunity? For Osborn Elementary School District, it is a chance to develop a vision, create and sustain a whole-school trajectory and empowered teachers and students.

The Osborn experience was shared by Marilyn Rollins, governing board president, Patricia Tate, assistant superintendent and Dr. Catherine Weber, assistant professor, literary education, ASU Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College.

Osborn used SchoolRise seven levels to success as their roadmap to change. The levels include:

• Recognizing a need
• Organizing for change
• Working on huge building blocks
• Pulling the whole school together
• Sharing results
• Implementing the staircase curriculum
• Engaging students and families

The district developed a staircase curriculum by grade level that provided fully articulated expectations across and between grade levels. Teacher expertise provided the foundation, with the standards playing a supporting role. As part of the standards-based change process, the curriculum meshes with schoolwide professional learning communities (PLC) to lead to improved student achievement.

A "to-do" cycle guided pulling the whole school together by setting schoolwide goals, identifying grade-level and department goals, developing an evidence system and providing evidence-based teaching.

PLCs provided a safe avenue for sharing results. Expectations across the district rose as a result, as teachers learned of and adopted their colleagues higher expectations for students.
Governing board understanding and engagement was critical to the success. The Osborn board regularly viewed videos from Engage New York (www.engageny.org) to become familiar with the change in standards. This led to support for requested funding and scheduling changes. While parent communication and engagement throughout the process is
critical, sharing the outcomes is an important step to success.

ASPRA reporter, Helen Hollands, Mesa Public Schools