DOE College Access For all

Carmen Fariña, Chancellor

Implementing

College Access for All A Case Study of Promising Practices INTRODUCTION TO CA4A In 2016-17, 101 high schools across New York City participated in the High School College Access for All (CA4A) initiative, part of the city’s Equity and Excellence for All agenda. Led by the NYC Department of Education’s Office of Postsecondary Readiness, the initiative aims to improve schools’ capacity to provide postsecondary planning support to all students. CA4A defines their aspirational “North Star” goal as closing the gap between graduation and postsecondary enrollment rates by 10% over the next two years.

Specifically, the program consists of: • A 5-day College Access Inquiry Institute prior to or at the beginning of the school year attended by school teams of 4-5 staff members • Monthly coaching visits from a College and Career Planning Manager (CCPM) throughout the school year • Identifying and implementing a change project using an improvement science approach with guidance from the CCPM • Funding to help schools provide additional postsecondary planning support for students • College Planning Calendar events, a series of events to improve attainment of critical milestones in the college and career preparation process, including College Application Week and Financial Aid Awareness Month • Monthly interschool Third Thursday events for school teams and principals to network and learn from other CA4A schools

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To better understand how schools implemented CA4A, researchers in the DOE’s Research and Policy Support Group conducted observations and interviews throughout the year at five case study schools. This research showed that school teams effectively participated in CA4A by: 1. Building the right foundation through their CA4A school team and

leadership, 2. Maximizing CA4A supports, including coaching, funding, and events, and 3. Successfully implementing a change project using an improvement

science approach.

WHAT IS IMPROVEMENT SCIENCE? Improvement science is a method of using disciplined inquiry to drive school improvement around an identified problem.1 By tracking change through measuring outcomes and processes. A continuous improvement approach aims to examine not just what works, but also for whom and under what conditions, before scaling a project.

A popular protocol for conducting improvement science is PDSA cycles.

PDSAs are used to test, implement, and refine a change idea. There are four steps:

PLAN

1. PLAN: Identify a change idea to test and determine how to implement it 2. DO: Implement the change idea, document observations, and track results

ACT

DO

3. STUDY: Compare the results from implementation to predictions 4. ACT: Based on lessons learned, adopt, adapt, or abandon the change idea 1

STUDY

ryk, Anthony S., Louis M. Gomez, Alicia Grunow, and Paul G. LeMahieu.

B Learning to Improve: How America’s Schools Can Get Better at Getting Better. Harvard Education Press, 2015.

The following case study describes how one school implemented CA4A by engaging in these three key elements, with a particular focus on how they implemented a change project using improvement science.

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WILLIAMSBURG HIGH SCHOOL FOR ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY: USING IMPROVEMENT SCIENCE TO IMPLEMENT STUDENT-LED CONFERENCES (SLCs) The Williamsburg High School for Arts and Technology (formerly known as the Green School: An Academy for Environmental Careers) is a small high school located in Brooklyn that also participates in the DOE’s Community Schools Initiative. In the past, the Principal described how the school faced challenges finding the right “balance between real world learning and opportunities that are interesting to our students and getting them over the threshold for the Regents.” Moreover, college support has traditionally been limited to a small number of staff doing most of the work in students’ senior year; this would become the main problem of practice the CA4A team later chose to address.

Building the right foundation First and foremost, the Williamsburg High School for Arts and Technology (WHSAT) has an invested Principal who attended all five days of Institute and immediately prioritized their participation in CA4A with the goal of building a stronger college-ready culture across the school. The Principal was an active member of the CA4A school team in many ways, including consistently contributing administrative support, ideas, and technical assistance, while also frequently participating in team meetings. The Principal also established a relationship with the CCPM beginning at Institute.

The school has a diverse and committed CA4A school team that includes staff members of different roles and expertise. The Principal intentionally recruited a team that represented different stakeholders from across the school, from the school’s CBO partner to guidance counselors and teachers. Moreover, in order to “move the college work down” from 12th grade to the pivotal junior year, the Principal strategically selected an 11th grade teacher, who is also the coordinator of student events, to join the team. The school team is highly committed to advancing their CA4A goals, which they accomplish by meeting outside of their monthly coach visits, as well as leading PDs to share and turnkey their work to all staff.

Once they formed a strong school team, team members worked at Institute to identify structures within the school they could leverage to better provide college and career support to all students. Specifically, they identified parent-teacher conferences as a structure they could repurpose into student-led conferences (SLCs) – something that staff was familiar with since they had tried it in the past, but abandoned because there was insufficient structure, purpose, and buy-in at the time. This time around, they could revive SLCs with a focus on postsecondary planning and guide staff through clear protocols. Through these discussions, the team decided on SLCs as their change project. The team further recognized that the school’s existing advisory classes could be used as time in the academic program for staff members to work with students to prepare for their individual SLCs. Lastly, the CA4A school team planned to regularly use allstaff meetings to message CA4A work, build staff knowledge, and gather staff feedback on how to improve the project.

AT A GLANCE Enrollment: 244 Co-located: Yes Demographics:

Asian: 1% ❘ Black: 30% Hispanic: 66% ❘ White: 2% English Language Learners: 34% Students with Disabilities: 23% 4-year Graduation Rate (Class of 2016): 70% 6-month Postsecondary Enrollment Rate (Class of 2015): 40%

4-year CUNY - 6% 2-year CUNY - 20% NYS public - 7% NYS private - 5%

CA4A VOCAB QUIZ In CA4A, a change project is the main project that a school team aims to study through improvement science and accomplish by the end of the year. While a team may have other projects, a change project is the one that a team chooses to focus on and examine through PDSA cycles of learning.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Of the three elements of a strong foundation (active Principal, diverse and committed team, leveraging structures within the school), which will be easiest for your school to identify?

What challenges do you anticipate?

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Maximizing CA4A supports The CA4A team built off of Institute early by sharing their learnings with the greater school community. On the first two days of the school year, the CA4A team, along with facilitation from the CCPM and school leadership team, conducted a school-wide PD that included two activities from Institute: looking at their 9-12 timeline through the Mapping Your System activity and examining the School Quality Snapshot data. This allowed the team to generate buy-in from all staff, and share their SLC change idea to elicit immediate feedback on their plan.

The team also worked to fully engage in coaching provided by CA4A. Besides helping to facilitate a school-wide PD at the beginning of the year, the school team requested that the CCPM make frequent visits to help the team plan for the first iteration of their change project. Furthermore, the CCPM served as a thought partner in terms of logistics and determining next steps, and provided guidance on content. During regular monthly meetings, the CCPM led the school team through reflection exercises using a variety of protocols that helped the team clarify its goals, reflect on their actions, and plan short-, medium- and long-term steps. After every meeting, the CCPM provided the CA4A school team with notes detailing items discussed, decisions made, and next steps outlined with dates and roles.

The school also participated in the College Planning Calendar events in a way that suited its capacity and needs. While the CCPM reminded the team of upcoming events and offered assistance, the school team coordinated events such as financial aid workshops for Financial Aid Awareness Month and a pep rally to celebrate students’ completion of applications during College Application Week. Additionally, teachers decorated their doors, wore college gear, and held a personal statement competition as part of their own College Awareness Week.

CA4A VOCAB QUIZ In CA4A, Learning Trajectory refers to the tool that maps out your change project work month-by-month, including opportunities to engage in PDSA cycles of learning.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: An example of WHSAT’s Learning Trajectory is on page 8. How would you describe what a Learning Trajectory is in your own words?

Finally, members of the CA4A team engaged in Third Thursday interschool sharing and convenings. In February, the Principal attended a principal convening where she was able to share their school’s Learning Trajectory and workshop challenges. In March, the Principal returned to share a challenge of maintaining staff buy-in. She received actionable feedback from other administrators that led her to plan an end-of-year retreat where staff would revisit the mission of SLCs, and how it aligns to their school culture.

2016-17 COLLEGE PLANNING CALENDAR 2016 OCTOBER 17-21

2016 NOVEMBER

2017 JANUARY

2017 APRIL 5

2017 MAY 1

College Application Week

Financial Aid Awareness Month

Career Exploration Month

SAT/PSAT Day

College Signing Day

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Implementing a change project using Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles The key to effective CA4A participation was the school’s engagement in improvement science through conducting PDSA cycles. The remainder of the case study describes the school’s two cycles of learning in order to implement their SLC change project. Although what follows pares their experience into neat PDSA cycles and stages, it is important to keep in mind that in reality, the process is more “like arrows going in every direction. In general you revise, reflect and start something new, but the order is also based on the need of what is happening now… [Ultimately] no change happens in a straight line.” – Principal

CYCLE 1 PLAN The first and perhaps most critical step in implementing CA4A is to identify a high-leverage change project that connects to the CA4A North Star goal, addresses a specific problem, and best fits the structures and capacity of the school. The team was particularly influenced by the Mapping Your System activity during the Institute, which helped the team see when, where, and with whom the college and career readiness work lies. As the Principal summarized, “a lot of [the work] was living in the world primarily of guidance and administration [but] not necessarily trickling down to the teachers and a change in our practices.”

PLAN

ACT

DO

STUDY

MAKING CONNECTIONS A change project is “highleverage” if it connects to the

After identifying this problem of practice, the team identified two structures that the school already had experience with and could build upon – parent-teacher conferences and student exhibitions – before deciding on a change project of conducting student-led conferences (SLCs) around postsecondary planning. However, rather than being focused on content mastery as the exhibitions were, all students across grades 9-12 would work in their advisory class to prepare leading a conference between their parents and teachers about their postsecondary plans, along with the work and study habits needed to successfully achieve that plan. To help them prepare, students would be assigned an additional coach – a staff member separate from their advisor – who would guide them. Because the team had actively involved leadership and took advantage of existing structures, the school was able to launch the project as a school-wide initiative with all staff and across all grades.

CA4A North Star goal (see p.1),

DO At the end of October, the school prototyped its first SLC across all grades. Attendance was higher than previous events, and even included parents who were out of the country through Skype or Facetime.

At a whole staff debrief that took place within a few days of the event, staff members reflected on highlights, areas of improvement, and next steps. In addition to generating postsecondary conversations for 9th and 10th graders, staff found that SLCs empowered students not only to take ownership of their work, but also to lead discussions with their parents and teachers on how to collectively generate solutions to issues they had identified.

high complexity. What existing

PLAN

DO

ACT

STUDY

and has a scale/scope (i.e. reach/complexity) that aligns with your school’s structures and conditions.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: 1. How does WHSAT’s change project connect to the North Star goal?

2. In focusing on SLCs, WHSAT took on a change project with school wide reach and fairly school structures allowed them to successfully do so?

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STUDY The school team then moved beyond summarizing what STUDY happened during the first SLC to study the iteration in more depth and glean insights for the next PDSA cycle. Despite many early successes, the team examined staff feedback data and recognized that staff needed more role clarification between advisors and the coaches and that students did not deeply understand the habits of mind and work framework.

PLAN

ACT

DO

Guided by their CCPM, the CA4A school team analyzed additional student data and found that there was an increase in student attendance in November following the SLCs. This led the team to wonder whether SLCs could have affected overall attendance. The team decided to share the attendance data with the rest of staff at the next two PDs, where grade teams would also be given initial end of year goals to guide them in creating SLCs differentiated by grade level. Furthermore the school team decided to track parent attendance at SLCs, as well as student credit accumulation from trimester to trimester, from 2015-16 to 2016-17 as data points.

ACT With this in mind, the CA4A school team decided to continue SLCs, but with some key adjustments. First, instead of students of all grades following the same conference format, there needed to be more differentiation by grade and scaffolding for students, particularly in the content of their SLCs. Secondly, the team needed to draw a clearer distinction of the role and responsibilities between advisors and coaches to all staff.

PLAN

ACT

DO

STUDY

CA4A VOCAB QUIZ In CA4A we use the term PDSA cycles to describe the cycles of learning that school teams participate in throughout the year. As described on pg. 2, PDSAs are used to test, implement, and refine a change project through the four stages of Plan, Do, Study, Act. DISCUSSION QUESTION: During the “study” phase of the work, what data sources did the school utilize, and how did they use them?

CYCLE 2 PLAN Over the next couple of months, the CCPM guided the team to plan logistical, student and staff support activities that needed to take place within a month, before the second trimester, and before the next SLC. During this process, the CA4A school team described the CCPM as an unbiased voice in balancing the diverse opinions of the team, who also guided team members to realistic, actionable steps aligned to their main goals.

PLAN

ACT

DO

STUDY

The CA4A school team conducted an additional PD in which team members clarified the role of the coach and the advisor in SLCs, and worked with grade teams to create and solidify postsecondary goal setting sheets for students. Afterwards, the CCPM led the CA4A school team in a “Looking back/Looking forward” exercise that helped the team generate additional next steps for the second round of SLCs. In so doing, the team recognized the need to keep up momentum and sustain what occurred in SLCs for the rest of the school year, which could be accomplished by creating grade-specific postsecondary projects for students to complete in their English class.

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DO In March, WHSAT held a second round of SLCs. Under a more clarified advisor and coach structure, students led this second round of conferences with a focus on student data and attendance using grade-differentiated plans that staff had created, along with differentiated plans for ELL students. As a further experiment, some teachers also conducted the SLCs digitally. Similar to the first round, there was an all-staff debrief immediately following the SLC where highlights, immediate thoughts for improvement, and lingering questions were discussed.

PLAN

DO

ACT

STUDY After completing the second iteration of SLCs, the CCPM led STUDY the CA4A team through a 4-3-2-1 protocol of reflecting on necessary steps for an effective SLC, as well as tips and takeaways for others interested in conducting SLCs. The team then modified and turnkeyed the exercise to the rest of the school by facilitating the same activity at an all-staff PD. During this PD session, staff recognized the need to further engrain SLCs into school systems and instruction by creating structures for ongoing check-ins between students and coaches throughout the year.

Photo: Lola Flash

STUDY

PLAN

ACT

DO

ACT ACT Through studying the impact of SLCs on student outcomes and school culture, the team decided to continue SLCs next year. As one team member reflected, “I definitely feel a shift.”

That said, the team still acknowledged the need to make refinements, namely to ensure that postsecondary planning remains the primary goal of SLCs, particularly with teachers and parents who wanted to focus the conversation on grades. With the CCPM guiding them towards planning for sustainability, the team ended the year with a plan to create three committees to carry on the CA4A work: SLCs, college trips and events, and project-based assessments. Staff members would be allowed to selfselect their committee in an effort to generate further buy-in, and members of the CA4A team would also join the committees to help with logistics and follow through. Additionally, the team held an overnight retreat at the end of the school year with the majority of staff in attendance to reflect on the project. The retreat allowed the school to reflect on the parts of SLCs they wanted to keep or abandon, before breaking into small groups to develop proposals and summer work plans. The team ended the year with plans to hold another retreat in August before the school year starts to share the work done over the summer and launch next year’s PDSA cycles.

Knowing that “we are dealing with dilemmas that…are not a quick fix,” the principal ended the year affirming that it is critical not to “think of cycles as one year…We are taking a bite…and just beginning the work.”

PLAN

DO

STUDY

MAKING CONNECTIONS The Williamsburg High School for Arts and Technology team incorporated two PDSA learning cycles into their CA4A work.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: How might your school approach using PDSA cycles in your change project?

Q

What advice do you

have for other schools on how to best use improvement science and PDSA cycles to implement change projects?

A

“Calendar when to

stop and pause for reflection.

For example, early on I calendared the Tuesday after each SLC to be a reflection day. You want to build in opportunities to reflect and revise as non-negotiables in the work plan and budget… otherwise it falls by the wayside.” – Principal

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SEPTEMBER

SUMMARY OF WILLIAMSBURG HIGH SCHOOL FOR ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY ’S LEARNING TRAJECTORY

PLAN PLAN ACT

• Identified 9-12 student-led conferences as highleverage change project

DO

OCTOBER

• 102 parent/student pairs attended SLC

DO PLAN

DO

ACT

• Staff noted higher attendance and increase in student empowerment in subsequent debrief

STUDY

NOVEMBER

CYCLE 1

STUDY

STUDY PLAN

ACT

DO

• Examined staff feedback data and learned: 1) there wasn’t enough differentiation and scaffolding, and 2) there was staff confusion between the role of advisor and coach

DECEMBER

STUDY

ACT

• Decided to continue SLCs but with adjustments

PLAN

ACT

DO

JANUARYFEBRUARY

STUDY

PLAN PLAN ACT

• Created grade differentiated resources, clarified advisor/coach role, and focused on student credit accumulation and Regents data/attendance

DO

MARCH

DO PLAN

DO

ACT

• Conducted 2nd round of SLCs with gradedifferentiated plans, and 1-2 teachers doing SLCs digitally as an experiment

APRIL

STUDY

STUDY PLAN

ACT

DO

STUDY

MAY-JUNE

CYCLE 2

STUDY

PLAN

DO

STUDY

• Recognized need to keep up momentum for rest of school year through postsecondary projects in English • Decided to continue SLCs next year, through reflecting on and revisiting the larger vision during a staff retreat

ACT ACT

• Staff debrief of 2nd round of SLCs, which included highlights, thoughts on improvement, and lingering questions/wonderings

• Engage in end-of-year reflection with CA4A team, whole staff and students, including a data dive into how SLCs impacted school data and parent attendance for conferences

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