Deal Center for Early Language and Literacy FY 20 Annual Report

FISCAL YEAR 2020 ANNUAL REPORT

LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR

Dear Partners and Friends,

On behalf of the The Sandra Dunagan Deal Center for Early Language and Literacy at Georgia College (Deal Center), I am pleased to provide our Fiscal Year 2020 (FY20) annual report. This year’s summary provides important information about the Deal Center, including exciting new programs, partnerships, and outcome measures.

Weighing heavily on our minds is the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Please know that we continue to respond to this evolving health crisis. We are working in cooperation with partner organizations, schools, educators, and staff to ensure continuous education of Georgia’s children, especially the most vulnerable. We will share our outreach and efforts throughout the extent of the crisis.

During FY20, the Deal Center achieved a number of organizational and community-wide goals, including:

• Strengthening our internal strategic planning process

• Developing measurable programmatic goals, outcomes, and timelines for all Deal Center initiatives

• Creating a framework for evidence-based practices to assure all partner organizations working with children birth to age eight follow a systematic approach to early language and literacy development

• Continuing current research studies with a specific focus on quality and process improvement

• Adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure a continuation of our work and partnerships (e.g., virtual learning series)

We are proud of our accomplishments in FY20 and we continue to increase our outreach, partnerships, and impact across the state of Georgia. I am particularly pleased with the evolution of the Deal Center and our work as we move toward embedding long-term, sustainable, and scalable solutions for improving Georgia’s literacy rates by the end of third grade. Literacy changes lives, and we are moving closer to turning this promise into practice and policy.

We sincerely thank each of you for your commitment to the Deal Center and as always, we are grateful to you for the support you provide to propel every Georgia child to read proficiently and beyond!

Sincerely,

Dr. Theresa Magpuri-Lavell

Theresa Magpuri-Lavell, Executive Director

The Sandra Dunagan Deal Center for Early Language and Literacy is proud to call Georgia College home and is thankful for guidance from their leadership, faculty, and staff.

LEADERSHIP

Dr. Steven Dorman, President of Georgia College & State University

Dr. Costas Spirou, Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs of Georgia College & State University

Dr. Theresa Magpuri-Lavell, Executive Director of the Deal Center; Associate Professor of Education

GOVERNING BOARD

Commissioner Amy M. Jacobs, Chair

Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning

Arianne Weldon, Vice Chair

Get Georgia Reading Campaign

Dr. Keisha Callins

Mercer University School of Medicine/ Community Health Care Wendy Cornelisen Georgia Public Library Service

Dr. Lucky Jain Emory Children’s Center

Lisa Kinnemore

Georgia Board of Education

Dr. Joe Peters

Georgia College & State University

Martha Ann Todd

Technical College System of Georgia

Joy Hawkins

Governor’s Office of Student Achievement

ABOUT THE DEAL CENTER

MISSION

The mission of the Sandra Dunagan Deal Center for Early Language and Literacy is to improve the early language and literacy skills of Georgia’s children by providing research-based professional development for organizations working with children from birth through age eight.

VISION

Passionate commitment. Integrity. Collaborative thought leadership. Respect. Our values guide our efforts. These values are at the heart of every program, every event, every project, and they keep us focused on our vision — propelling every Georgia child to read proficiently and beyond.

OUR APPROACH

The Deal Center is a research and training facility for the advancement of early language and literacy development. We were founded on the premise that evidence-based research and practice are critical to ensure reading proficiency for all children. We work to improve the early language and literacy skills of Georgia’s children through a unique approach, integrating research, professional learning, and community engagement.

ABOUT THE DEAL CENTER

Research:

At the Deal Center, we conduct original research and work with a variety of partners to:

• Improve the processes for early language and literacy skills

• Find sustainable and scalable solutions

• Share evidence-based research and best practices through professional development

Professional Learning:

The Deal Center is transforming early childhood educators throughout the state by offering leadership trainings, continuing education, and virtual learning opportunities. Through scientific research, we are uniquely positioned to lead the state’s early childhood educators to improve literacy development and quality of life outcomes for all of Georgia’s children.

Community Engagement:

To achieve real, systemic change in literacy outcomes, the Deal Center has cultivated statewide, cross-sector partnerships, including:

• Grant awards to a variety of institutions and organizations

• Collaborations with universities, technical colleges, library systems, the business community, the public health sector and practitioners, community-based organizations, policy makers, educators, and families

The model below is the Deal Center blueprint to embed evidence-based research, strategies, and tactics into all practices engaged in early childhood language and literacy development. By instituting these systematic protocols for learning, we will meet our charge of improving literacy rates for Georgia students by the end of their third grade school year.

Research

Professional Learning Community Engagement

2020 Impact: Research

Moving the Needle on Reading Proficiency Through Data-Driven Practices

The Deal Center is committed to utilizing evidence-based practices to propel every child to read proficiently and beyond by the third grade. By asking — and answering — key research questions through carefully executed initiatives, we are able to collect and analyze data from Georgia teachers and their students while monitoring implementation fidelity and outcome efficacy along the way.

One such initiative is the Literacy Mentoring for Leadership Program (LMLP). The LMLP, in partnership with the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement is a capacity-building professional development approach to increase educator knowledge of early language and literacy development and to enhance classroom practices among Georgia’s kindergarten through third grade teachers. Through the LMLP, we are able to ask the following three questions, which are central to our goals as an institution:

1. Has educator knowledge increased as a result of our initiative?

2. Are evidence-based practices being implemented with fidelity at each of our schools?

3. Has student reading achievement increased?

Using data-driven practices such as the LMLP, the Deal Center is moving the needle on reading proficiency for K-3rd grade Georgia children.

Quality Improvement for Early Language and Literacy (QUIELL)

Planning and development for the Deal Center's newest project, Quality Improvement for Early Language and Literacy (QUIELL), began this fiscal year. The integration of research, professional learning, and community engagement is the foundation for the QUIELL project. QUIELL is a study designed to embed evidence-based practices to impact student reading achievement by the end of third grade. This multi-year program offers trainings, professional learning, quality improvement tools, and ongoing technical support to school systems and staff to increase student outcomes in reading.

The Deal Center's long-term goal for this project is to embed evidence-based practices among Georgia's teachers, allowing for long-term, sustainable outcomes for student achievement and learning. This project model allows our Center to follow kindergarten cohorts through third grade. The QUIELL project is based upon many years of professional development, data collection, and foundational work led by Dr. Magpuri-Lavell.

2020 Impact: Professional Learning

Literacy Mentoring for Leadership Program

The Deal Center’s professional learning initiatives include the aforementioned Literacy Mentoring for Leadership Program, designed to raise student outcomes in reading by increasing educator knowledge and improving classroom practices throughout the state of Georgia. Using systematic assessments, continuous process improvements, and program evaluation, we have trained more than 300 educators in 11 schools, positively impacting about 4,000 individual students. This program model allows our Center to follow kindergarten students as they continue their education journey to third grade. During these years, our staff works in tandem with schools to collect data to answer important research questions. We are preparing to scale up this initiative to reach more students, educators, and schools across Georgia. This work is based on prior studies by Dr. Magpuri-Lavell.

Virtual Learning Events with Early Language and Literacy Experts

In FY20, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Deal Center launched a robust virtual learning series for professionals and educators. These events, offered in real-time and on demand, highlight recent research, recommendations, and insight from some of the nation’s leaders in early language and literacy development. To date, the Deal Center has hosted ten virtual talks with over 1,100 live participants and 160 total views from the website. This series includes topics such as the importance of phonemic awareness, educating during a crisis, addressing health barriers, and many others.

We are proud to continue to move forward with professional development and outreach in this virtual capacity until such time as it is safe to resume in-person meetings.

Family Literacy Nights

The Deal Center, in collaboration with Georgia Public Library Service, Technical College System of Georgia, and the Alliance Theater, established Family Literacy Night to educate parents about the importance of early language and literacy development in their children. This two session workshop, piloted in Baldwin, Barrow, and Tift counties, with 124 families participating, will be expanded throughout the state.

Family Literacy Nights engage parents by teaching reading and play activities that can be replicated at home. It then presents a storytelling session and performance by the Theater for the Very Young of the Alliance Theater. The aim of this program is not only to teach the importance of reading but also to demonstrate the integration and fun of reading, playing, and storytelling together.

2020 Impact: Professional Learning

Social Emotional Engagement Knowledge and Skills Training to Enhance Language and Literacy Instruction

The Social Emotional Engagement Knowledge and Skills (SEE-KS) partnership was designed to build capacity to support social emotional engagement in classroom-based language and literacy instruction. This project is in collaboration with Emily Rubin, SEEKS developer and trainer at Marcus Autism Center, and Communication Crossroads.

Working in two Deal Center Literacy Promise Schools and five Georgia Department of Education Chief Turnaround Schools (CTOs), the Language and Literacy Mentors (LLM) at the Deal Center have been integral agents of change by sharing their knowledge and skills. LLMs train school-based literacy coaches to:

• Measure student engagement in reading instruction

• Identify instructional strategies to increase engagement

• Support teachers to mentor one another

Each of the seven schools participating in this project identified a core group of teachers as their initial SEE-KS team. Twelve teachers from the Promise Schools and twenty-six teachers from the CTO sites participated. Using the Social Emotional Engagement ladder, we successfully gathered initial baseline data to reflect student engagement in their classroom instruction. Then, using the SEE-KS Instructional Fidelity Rating Scales, we gathered an initial baseline measure of fidelity of instructional strategies designed to enhance engagement. Unfortunately, our third, end-of-year data collection was impacted by COVID-19. However, we are encouraged by preliminary outcome data and feedback from participating teachers and mentors, including the following:

“SEE-KS has been very helpful in reminding me to maintain student engagement in my classroom. Learning should be enjoyable with effective planning.”

Cooper Carver Elementary School teacher

“SEE-KS has provided our teachers with opportunities to empower each other through positive feedback. This allows teachers to learn and grow in a safe environment. As a mentor, I am always looking at student engagement and building teachers up with what they are already doing! This positive environment directly impacts student achievement. SEE-KS finds the good in what teachers are doing and allows them to learn from one another.”

Cooper Carver Elementary School teacher

2020 Impact: Community Engagement

The Deal Center spent $1,656,896 in direct service within communities to support early language and literacy development.

Research Grant Initiative in Partnership with Get Georgia Reading Campaign

The Deal Center is honored to partner with Get Georgia Reading (GGR) to provide funding for research about implementation of coaching practices for early language and literacy development. These awards, given to three University of Georgia System institutions and state agencies, help to create the conditions for all children birth to age eight to be on the path to third grade reading proficiency. These grants reflect GGR’s four pillar framework of:

• Language nutrition (language-rich interactions)

• Access

• Positive learning climate

• Teacher preparation and effectiveness

In 2020, The Deal Center was proud to promote engagement in early language and literacy research through the provision of research grants to the following institutions:

Collective Impact Snapshots

Empowering Communities Through Collective Impact Grants for Early Language and Literacy

In FY20, the Deal Center worked with five counties across the state of Georgia to improve and expand language and literacy services, systems, and partners. Highlighted below are some of the individual community success metrics. These goals and outcomes were achieved in part through the Deal Center’s Collective Impact Grant. The Deal Center invested in communitybased projects that use the collective impact framework to address all of the four pillars of the Get Georgia Reading Campaign: Language Nutrition, Access, Positive Learning Climate, and Teacher Preparation and Effectiveness through communities, towns, cities, and counties.

Family Connection, Glynn County, Early Education/Child Care Glynn County Collaborative Goals:

• Provide language nutrition for low-income children

• Increase access to quality early childhood education (ECE) for low-income children

• Create a positive learning environment focused on social-emotional learning

• Align partners around a common agenda

Outcomes:

Increase in in-home and center-based ECE participation

1,849 adults in attendance

United Way of the Chattahoochee Valley, Columbus, Georgia, Early Language and Literacy Coalition

Goals:

• Align partners around a common agenda

• Establish the foundation for a shared measurement system to collect data, including kindergarten readiness and ready proficiency by the end of third grade

• Spread awareness about the importance of early language and learning through promoting The Basics Chattahoochee Valley: Five fun, simple, and powerful ways that every family can give every child a great start in life.

Outcomes:

Collective Impact Snapshots

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Messages From Partners

“Since its inception, the Deal Center has been a foundational partner in the Get Georgia Reading Campaign. Through this partnership, the Campaign has truly become a statewide effort, as the Center directly supported a series of learning events targeting chronically underperforming schools, engaged the Campaign in co-designing a grant program that incentivizes local innovation in early literacy and cross-sector collaboration, and partnered on statewide convenings that support early literacy partners. In just four years, these efforts have led to more than 115 communities in 108 counties adopting our framework for action. We know the current climate brings a unique set of challenges for our youngest learners, but we are confident that with the continued commitment of the Deal Center, the Campaign will rally state and local leaders to meet those needs.”

Akia Lewis, Get Georgia Reading and Georgia Family Connection Partnership

“Through the partnership with the Deal Center, our staff has become a confident group of reading teachers with a wealth of knowledge and tools to instruct a variety of students with differing needs. The Deal Center gave our teachers the opportunity to strengthen their teaching practices through professional learning and modeling and to practice their new skills before implementing them in the classroom. The addition of the SEE-KS coaching model this year has empowered the teachers to take risks and improve their teaching craft with a focus on how students are responding to instruction. Our teachers learned how to utilize formative assessments to address specific student needs and to incorporate data to differentiate instruction. We look forward to continuing this work in the area of reading instruction and teacher practice. The teachers came together as a team and felt like it was such a productive experience.”

Miriam Rearden, Twiggs County Public Schools

“Georgia Public Library Service is grateful for the partnership with the Deal Center. Our collaboration impacts the entire state, with programs such as PRIME TIME Family Reading Time that is offered in over 20 communities. This support from the Center allows Georgia’s public libraries to engage with more families. Programs like PRIME TIME help families discover the joy of shared reading and explore discussions centered around books, strengthening critical thinking skills. Since 2019, the Deal Center has provided additional support for Summer Reading; these funds help support summer learning in all 408 Georgia public libraries through the Collaborative Summer Library Program.”

Elaine Black, Director of Youth Services, Georgia Public Library Service

“I remember being on the phone with Dr. Magpuri-Lavell begging her to take on MLK as one of the schools with whom her team would work. I am sure that she sensed the urgency in my plea. MLK has been in the bottom 5% for far too long. I knew that the only way that we could get out of the “bottom” was by addressing our deficits in reading at the lower grades. The team at the Deal Center provided the professional development and coaching that my K-3 teachers and I needed. As a result of our partnership, we have gone from needing four Early Intervention Program (EIP) teachers to address the high numbers of K-2 students showing a deficit in reading to only needing one teacher!”

Dr. Suzan Watkins, Principal of Dr. Martin Luther King Elementary School in Macon, GA

SUPPORT

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The staff of the Deal Center wish to offer sincere thanks to our partners, sponsors, and donors. Without your support, we would not be able to offer many programs and initiatives to our state’s educators, students, and community. To donate directly to The Deal Center, please return the enclosed donor card to our office or visit our website at https://alumni.gcsu.edu/ supportthedealcenter

A Word from the Former First Lady of Georgia, Mrs. Sandra Dunagan Deal

Adequate words just seem to evade me as I look at the report of what the Deal Center has been able to do in spite of the world-wide pandemic that has scared everyone and altered our world. I am proud of Theresa’s leadership, and the adaptations made by the staff, our Board of Directors, state-wide partners, and volunteers.

Our children are counting on us as adults to educate them for a successful life. Despite the stumbling blocks, the Deal Center and partners have readjusted but stayed true to our plan of action. Training, teaching, and feedback programs have continued. Recognized leaders in successful educational practices have been able to share their experiences and demonstrate their skills to promote online learning and discussion groups. The Deal Center and her partners have continued reading to children and coaching parents on methods to involve their young children in the learning process.

With the disruption this virus has caused, it will be interesting to study the successes and failures. Thank you, Deal Center employees, Board Members, partners, volunteers, and financial supporters. We appreciate you.

Governor and Mrs. Sandra Dunagan Deal PARTNERS AND SPONSORS