Acceleration for All: A How-To Guide for Overcoming Learning Gaps

[00:01] Announcer:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.

[00:13] SPEAKER_01:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to welcome to the program Sharon Kramer and Sarah Shule. Sharon Kramer, PhD, knows firsthand the demands and rewards of working in a professional learning community, or PLC. As a leader in the field, she has done priority schools work with districts across the United States, emphasizing the importance of creating and using quality assessments and utilizing the PLC continuous improvement process to raise student achievement. Sharon served as assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction of Kildare Countryside Community Consolidated School District 96 in Illinois. In this position, she ensured all students were prepared to enter. Sharon holds a PhD in educational leadership and policy studies from Loyola University in Chicago.

[00:54]

And Sarah Schull is an educational coach and consultant specializing in mathematics, professional learning communities, common formative and summative assessments, priority school improvement, and response to intervention, or RTI. She has worked in schools as a secondary mathematics teacher, high school instructional coach, and K-12 mathematics specialist. Sarah was instrumental in the creation of a PLC in the Centennial School District in Oregon, helping teachers make large gains in student achievement. And she earned the Centennial School District Triple C Award in 2012. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Eastern Oregon University and a Master of Science in Mathematics Education from Portland State University. And they are the authors together of Acceleration for All, a how-to guide for overcoming learning gaps.

[01:38] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[01:41] SPEAKER_01:

Sharon and Sarah, welcome to Principal Center Radio.

[01:43] SPEAKER_02:

Thank you. It's great to be here. Thank you.

[01:46] SPEAKER_01:

To kick things off, I wonder if we could talk a little bit about what you mean by acceleration. It's a term that probably has different meanings to different people. How do you use the term acceleration in your book?

[01:58] SPEAKER_00:

So acceleration in our book is different in that I'm going to just start with the premise is that it's for all. That's why the book is called Acceleration for All. I think that's the biggest difference. We traditionally have saved acceleration for the academically able, for honors classes, AP classes at the high school, for gifted or talented programs at the elementary or middle school. This book is written for all students and it is written to raise the level of learning for everyone. And so I think that's the biggest difference, but I'm sure that there are other things that we say are different in it, things like being strength-based versus deficit-based thinking, which is what remediation is.

[02:44]

And so we want the shift from remediation and that thinking over to, can we accelerate learning for all students? And so that's, I think, the best definition for what we were thinking when we wrote the book.

[02:57] SPEAKER_02:

I would just say when students have gaps, when they're not yet at grade level readiness, then the only way to get them there, as Sharon said, is not to remediate and hold them back because then the gap tends to grow. And even if by some luck you were able to take a group of students and really track them, which we know is not beneficial, but track them. and teach at the same rate as grade level students, the gap would still be there. So the only way to close it is to accelerate their learning. And then in order to do that, one of the key features is getting crystal clear on some priority standards so that you can honestly accelerate to grade level learning or beyond and have kids go to the next grade level or course grade level ready.

[03:39] SPEAKER_00:

And we believe this is an equity issue as well, because we talk a lot about equity and we write about it. And there are many books out there about it and podcasts and all kinds of things, webinars. But we really don't have a lot of equitable actions going on. And so basically, this is sort of equity in action. How do we get all kids there? And so I think that underlying of all of this is the idea that they all can and that we're here to make sure they can.

[04:09]

And we preach a lot about all means all and that we really want all kids to be at grade level and beyond. Yet it escapes us. That's why there's gaps across the country. And so basically, how do we get there? This is kind of that how.

[04:24] SPEAKER_01:

And that raises some big questions about time, right? Because when students come to us at any given age, you know, if I'm a third grade teacher, students have had three years of kindergarten, first and second grade already, and they've perhaps all had the same amount of time, but they have made different amounts of progress in that time. And we have to figure out how to accelerate, to close any of those gaps that are there within the time that is available to us. How do you look at that issue of time? Because it's one of the things that we typically don't vary, right? All students get the same amount of time.

[04:57]

Maybe if there's absenteeism, some students have had less time in school, but it's one of those things that we don't really differentiate for the most part. How do we think about that?

[05:06] SPEAKER_02:

There's lots of different ways to think about time, but we are going to have to carve some time out in different ways, kind of expand how we think about instructional time. So beyond just bell to bell instructional minutes, If you know you're teaching one of those priority standards to grade level, then we work with teachers and teams to say, okay, so where are the kids and how are we going to scaffold and level up to grade level? What is that direct prior knowledge on that progression of learning that we're going to need to tackle, making sure we do grade level every single day. And then outside of that, when we are working in schools, we do try to carve out some type of tier two time. Or even think about what that tier three time might look like where we could carve out a half hour during the day where we could shuffle, regroup kids around those priority standards, really make sure they have that additional time if they haven't learned them yet moving forward.

[05:58]

While at that time, then extending learning for those kids who have learned because we don't want them just sitting there or being stuck helping the ones who did learn because they're not teachers and they tend to just tell them what to write down. Rick DeFore, who is somebody that authored Learning by Doing and a close colleague of both of ours, says, or used to say quite often, don't tell me you believe all kids can learn. Tell me what you're doing about the kids who aren't learning. And so what are we doing system-wide so that it's not just up to each individual teacher and luck of the draw for who a student got? How are we promising that regardless of teacher, your child is will at a minimum learn these priority standards to grade level and beyond so they can continue to be successful and have options and opportunities when they graduate.

[06:47] SPEAKER_00:

Time is huge to teachers, to teams, to principals, to everybody in schools. It's the one magic thing we don't have a lot of. And I think one of the things that we tried to do with remediation over the years, because I taught and taught and taught for years, over the years, is that we tried to go backwards, pick up the skills they didn't get to move them forward. And that only made sure that they were further and further behind as we moved forward. And so this really takes the stance that you start with grade level every day or course level standards every day and you build a learning ladder to get up there. And within that learning ladder, you pick and choose the most important conceptual understandings students will need to be able to do that.

[07:32]

And you build it into the learning ladder. I think during remediation, we tried to remediate everything. We tried to say, well, there are third graders and they're at the first grade level. I'm going to do first grade things instead of picking and choosing only the big rocks, only those conceptual understandings that underpin performance. what we're really asking them to learn right now. And if you do it that way, I think you save time as well.

[07:55]

Although you have to decide what your priorities are to begin with. And we often say that you pick the most essential standards. When we talk about acceleration, we talk about the essentials of the essentials. Because if you're going to embed those things into your learning ladder, then guess what? You're going to need more time to teach it no matter what you do. And so basically we say, take those essentials and now look at them one more time and tell me which are the priorities.

[08:25] SPEAKER_02:

And I would add one more thing to that, which is, especially as the school year is getting ready to start, how is that time being utilized from the very first day of school? How are we teaching kids a standard? And while we're showing them how to interact with groups, if we stop and we review things for three weeks, we've used up about 8% of our school year already. And we're not helping those kids who have learned it. And we're just reinforcing for students who haven't learned it an identity that I can't do this. So we instead take those priority standards and that prior knowledge, and we start to look at in which unit does it best fit?

[08:58]

Let's put it there. Let's not start the year by reviewing everything. Let's instead make interaction with these standards fun while students are getting to know each other and learning the routines and structures in the classroom.

[09:10] SPEAKER_00:

One of the things too, I think we talk a lot about when we get a chance to talk to teachers is this whole idea that we've been preaching for years. You have to teach bell to bell, right? Start teaching in the morning. Use every minute of the day to teach all day. We believe you teach bell to bell and we think you teach all year long from beginning to end. So things like there's life after testing.

[09:31]

If your state tests in April, May is a great month to do a whole bunch of really thick. wonderful things to make sure students are ready for what they're going to get to next. And so this whole idea of bell to bell is important, but so is all year long. And starting the year using data you already have instead of waiting for new data allows you to start the year. Those are acceleration strategies that we already can do because they're there. We have data and we can do that.

[09:58]

You can start working on interventions and spiral review the first week of school. because you already have data on most of the students. So thinking about the time you have differently would be very helpful in being able to accomplish this.

[10:15] SPEAKER_02:

And not reviewing for a month before the state test, right? And then doing all field trips after. Now we've just lost two months. So, you know, we would like that test to take care of itself because of all the great things the teachers and the teams are doing along the way. Giving really short, common formative assessments, not full day assessments. We talk about giving pre-tests only if you don't know whether or not kids have the prior knowledge that they need, and if not, 15-minute pre-tests so you get that information right away and you're using it instructionally.

[10:42]

Because otherwise, if you gave 10 to 12 pre-assessments that match the assessment you already know that the students don't have the information to demonstrate to you they've learned, you've just lost another couple weeks of school in doing that practice. Any assessment you give, how are you learning from it and how are kids learning from it instructionally? And so again, you're just utilizing those minutes as best you can.

[11:06] SPEAKER_01:

Very well said. And I appreciate the different ways to think about time there, especially at the end of the year, at the beginning of the year, making sure we're getting right into grade level standards and just avoiding some of those unforced errors in terms of wasting time that we need to get students to where they need to be. And I'm thinking about like, if I, again, take the perspective of a third grade teacher who has a student who maybe is a year or two behind in math, say, and If I think about kind of the most dramatic action that a school might take, like retention, like we're going to have the student repeat a grade, then in that case, we're not doing what you said about prioritizing and figuring out what are the most essential things the student needs. And we're deliberately not teaching them the next grade's standards that they otherwise would have learned if they weren't retained. So I tend to think about knowledge as being foundational.

[11:58]

And when we see a student who has gaps, we think, well, we need to go back and we need to build that foundation. There are some things that were supposed to happen, say, last year in second grade. There were some things that were supposed to happen in kindergarten and first grade to lay that foundation so that this student in my classroom would be ready for the third grade standards, and they're not. So we can mentally go back and say, OK, here's how we would lay that foundation if we had the luxury of time. But we don't. This kid is getting older.

[12:24]

This kid is going to keep having birthdays. This kid is going to keep moving on to the next material. How do you think about the cumulative and foundational nature of knowledge, knowing that concepts do legitimately build on other concepts, but we don't have the luxury of going back and just redoing everything from scratch? Say more about that if you would.

[12:44] SPEAKER_02:

Well, we talk a lot about like conceptual understanding being so important that too often when students, and we'll use the math example right now, if they don't have basic skills, so maybe I can't yet add and subtract fluently quickly within 20. And now you're trying to teach me multiplication and division in third grade. Right. And so, um, do I even understand what the concept is? Do I understand that adding is just putting numbers together? Do I have that number sense on a number line?

[13:10]

And we can build those things into lessons for five or 10 minutes at a time. And then as we continue to teach multiplication and division, what are the manipulatives we're using? How are we showing it as repeated addition? Because then we can be practicing the addition skills they haven't yet learned. Our interventions tend to go back to the algorithms and the steps that kids need in math when instead they don't even understand what addition is and we need to go there first. And then we can start to show them in specific ways with math they can touch and later draw pictures of and actually write down what that means.

[13:43]

We also need to start more with word problems in math. Obviously I could go on and on here, but if we start with word problems and we don't start with steps and end with word problems, we're now showing kids relevancy and they can sometimes reason to a solution. And then we can show them the numbers and symbols they would have to write down to show that thinking. If we go back to concepts, we go back to relevancy in our teaching that we can weave in the prior knowledge. And then as we said before, ideally there would also be some intervention time or small group time When you could go back and even more so look at those skills related to addition and subtraction.

[14:20] SPEAKER_00:

Sharon? I think that's exactly, I mean, Sarah said it so well. I think that what we've done in the past is said, oh, we're going to stop everything. They don't know their math facts up to 20. So we're going to just kill and drill till we get there. And that only wastes time in the system.

[14:37]

Plus, the students don't, I call it having something to hang the skill onto. The students might be memorizing math facts, but they have nothing to hang it onto. But if you weave it into multiplication and they figure out it's repeated addition, you now gave them something to hang onto. And I think the brain likes that. And so basically, I think what we're really saying is this would be way more brain compatible than math. killing and drilling until we got there and then moving on to the next thing which has kind of been the traditional approach nobody's fault did it when I taught every one of us did it when they taught I'm going to be honest but the reality is that it didn't get us where we needed to go and that was why Sarah and I said oh my gosh we need to write a book about how to get really get somewhere because the first book we wrote was school improvement for all and it's wonderful but It really has everything in it that you need to be able to do the work that we're asking you to do in professional learning communities.

[15:35]

And it's very, very detailed and extremely... There's a big amount of resources in it, things like templates and things. But...

[15:44]

it was it's slow going the improvement is slow going and as we looked at the slowness of moving it on up that was how acceleration for all was built it was like how can we do this even faster how can we do this so that more kids learn more now and so basically that was kind of how that came about and we know that even if a school is strong and many students are doing well there's always

[16:11] SPEAKER_02:

some students who are not yet at grade level or beyond. So what does that look like versus other schools we're at where 95% of the kids are not at grade level yet? And how do we struggle and work with that? If we think about a third grader who isn't reading to grade level or writing to grade level, since we talked a little bit about math, what might you suggest for that? Because I know third grade reading is pretty big in many states.

[16:34] SPEAKER_00:

Third grade reading is enormous. So one of the things that I think is helpful is that you divide, every school has what they call a literacy block or a reading block of time. And if you think about that and you divide it up into the parts that really are important. So for instance, if you're in third grade and you're expected to do third grade standards, the teacher's launch lesson with the whole class, that's 15 to 20 minutes, would be on whatever learning target They were talking about for the day. Okay. And then if we then met with small groups and did some small group work where we'd be able to take that learning to a text we could actually read and find the words in that we can that would reinforce what we just heard, we would be doing what we needed to be doing in terms of keeping them up with the grade level concepts that they need in understanding.

[17:30]

And then as far as raising their reading levels, because it's two parts. They have to read at grade level. They have to read the text. They also have to be able to understand cause and effect or what key details are. And so basically, one of the things that we often say is you can start to teach almost anything by reading it aloud to them, right? And then next time you do it, you do it at a low level reading that almost anybody could do and they could still do it.

[17:58]

Then you up the reading level and you begin to build a staircase until they're doing it at grade level. And basically that's the scaffolding that needs to happen to get them to grade level reading. We also believe that all students need to read by three And I think there are many laws across the state, some of the states where if they don't, there are repercussions for that. And, um, we believe that if you're going to read by three, then strengthening K one, two, or even pre K one, two. Reading has got to happen everywhere. We can't just talk about it.

[18:34]

We can't just worry. The third grade test that these students take is a pre-K through three test. It is not a third grade test. So what are we doing to build those skills all the way through to get there? And then how are we building in interventions? to scaffold up and bring those students where they need to be.

[18:54]

And sometimes it's foundational reading skills that they missed. And I know I read articles recently this year where they talked about the reason middle schoolers and high schools were struggling with reading is because we left phonics out for a while. I don't know if that's true or not necessarily, but it's what we're writing about right now, right? And so bottom line on that is then we should be doing those big words and doing multi-celebic routines where we're actually teaching them how to read those big words. We're not taking them back to learning their alphabet or sounds. We're taking them to what they're actually doing and saying, this is how you might decode this.

[19:31]

This is how you might find it out.

[19:32] SPEAKER_02:

In a grade level lesson, you're doing that for five or 10 minutes a day. You're not doing it for the whole lesson. So they're getting little micro bursts of it, little pieces of it all the way through to grow that learning and not swimming in it and being held back.

[19:45] SPEAKER_00:

Yep, absolutely. So I think there are a lot of ways to do it. And I think that we need to be, first of all, students of assessment so that we really understand what they know and what they don't know. And that allows us to teach and respond diagnostically, not in general. And that helps us to meet them where they are when we're doing interventions, but hold them to the standard of or the learning target for the day when we're doing the launch lesson. So I think teachers do a lot, sometimes uphold class because we have so much to teach, not their fault.

[20:20]

And we're trying to teach it in the most efficient manner possible. But when you teach whole class, you're teaching so few students. The ones that don't get it dropped out already and the ones that already know it are ignoring you anyway. So you end up teaching about three kids. And that really needs to be the shortest part of the lesson or block so that you can get to the real learning in small group work.

[20:43] SPEAKER_01:

Thinking about a cruise ship that has different ports of call. We've got the first grade, the second grade, the third grade port. And we feel like some of our students are missing the boat when it comes to being ready for that next level of learning. And it seems to me like what you're saying is we don't respond to that situation by turning the boat around and going back and remediating, or else we're not going to continue to make the forward progress that we need to make. And as I've spoken with some high school principals who receive students who are years and years behind and get into classrooms and they see the books that students are reading in 10th, 11th, 12th grade, that really they should have been reading in fifth, sixth, seventh grade. And it's that lack of grade level standards, that lack of continuous forward movement.

[21:28]

I think because we want to close those gaps, we want to build in that foundational knowledge, but you're approaching intervention very differently. You've said a lot about intervention already. We can come back to that. But you actually don't start the book talking about intervention. I wanted to ask why you start with culture and curriculum, which may be surprising places to start for people.

[21:47] SPEAKER_00:

I think you have to start with culture on this because traditionally it's institutionalized. We go backwards to go forward. And so we look at where they are and then we're really excited if we grow them a little. That's great. But the school year is almost over and they're now further behind than they were before. And so we start with culture because it requires a culture.

[22:10]

that is learning focused, that allows the students to be looked at through the lens of strengths, not deficits. What can we build upon, not where are they now? It allows us to look at our assessments and our information, not from the standpoint of how far below are they, but how close are they to getting to where they need to be. And so you see, we look at this differently. And then it allows you to, if you build the right culture, People think about every lesson they're gonna do, every learning target they're gonna teach, every unit they're in through the lens of what do my students need right now so that they can get this lesson. In other words, accelerate to that level and scaffold up.

[22:56]

And I think culture is the biggest part of it because traditionally the go-to is remediation. And it's nobody's fault. I did it too. But I really believe that that's built in. It's traditional. It's past practice.

[23:11]

It's all those things. It's institutionalized. So we're asking people to shift their views, to shift their minds, and to go on a journey of acceleration versus a journey of what we've always done in the past. And we always tell people it's because it didn't work. We wouldn't be looking at this if it worked, okay? We can agree, Sarah said it.

[23:34]

We have schools where there's a bunch of students who are behind, 90%, 95%, but every school in the United States of America has a pocket of students that we have not reached yet. And those students deserve to be part of this too. And that's how you get to all means all. If you don't take care of those pockets of students, you'll never get there. And so that's a huge culture piece.

[24:01] SPEAKER_02:

Well, just back to culture for just a minute. You know, you talk about that difference between climate and culture and climate is how it feels on campus. And maybe we have parties and we're having fun and that part is there. And then culture is how we behave. Also, just really stepping back and saying, do we really believe that every student can learn? Do we believe that if we teach or we come together and learn from one another, that we can get every student where they need to go is all part of a healthy culture versus that toxic culture that starts to blame circumstances?

[24:29]

Well, if only the first graders would have done their, you know, teachers would have done their job. If only middle school would have done their job. If only the parents would actually support and bring their kids to school and the list goes on and on and on. And so what we're saying is stop making excuses. Right. Recognize who's sitting in front of you and then say, so what are we going to do about it?

[24:48]

Right. Let's not hope that next year is different. You've got that adage that hope is not a strategy. So what's our plan here? What are we going to do? And it starts with.

[24:56]

So as we're creating that culture and Sharon says all the time, learning's required. If you walk into this building, learning's required here. Everybody, parent, student, secretary, teacher, admin, like that's why this building exists. And so now let's talk about if we believe every kid can learn, then what? What are they learning? And so that's where we stop and say, what are those most critical priority standards right now?

[25:18]

And we might grow it over time as kids start coming to us stronger and stronger each year that we're going to really hone in on and look at those learning progressions and make sure we scaffold up. In fact, one of our unpacking documents for standards is to stop and have teams think about the scaffolding strategy they're going to use to get kids to grade level. So what are those supports they can put in place and so forth so that in the lesson kids are getting it as well as in that intervention time.

[25:46] SPEAKER_01:

So if I'm a ninth grade teacher and I'm perceiving and finding through my assessments that students are coming to me with skills that are more on a sixth grade level, what I'm not going to do is go back and teach sixth grade standards for the year, because that's going to ensure that students are even less prepared for 10th grade than they should be. Talk to us a little bit about what that looks like at the curriculum level. If I know I have students who are multiple years behind, I want to get them up to grade level and give them grade level learning experiences. It sounds like rather than turning the ship around, we're maybe sending a speedboat, we're throwing a ladder overboard and trying to reel them in. Talk to us about the curriculum side of that a bit more.

[26:24] SPEAKER_02:

So you are actually speaking about my life for a long time as a high school math teacher teaching Algebra 1, where for years we had a course called Intro A and Intro B, two courses below the high school level of Algebra 1. And at the time when I got to Centennial, you could actually graduate with those two years of math. So then, of course, the state, like many, said, nope, sorry, Algebra 1 is now the lowest level of math that you can teach to have kids successful. Well, that was a shock to the system when all of a sudden, right, you've got every student sitting in front of you with kids. I mean, I would have taken some kids if they had the sixth grade knowledge. You know, you had kids back to third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade knowledge of math just based on what had happened.

[27:05]

So there was some K-12 adjustments that we had to look at vertically and what those priority standards were. But yeah, I still taught algebra one every day. We're solving equations. And while we're doing that, I'll work with you on integer operations, or I'll work with you on fractions while we're doing that. We'll get you where you need to go. We had an intervention time, but I will say we also implemented a few years in, after we had tried grouping the students and remediating and doing a few other things that were not working, an algebra academy course.

[27:34]

We also had a reading academy course for students coming in as freshmen. who the data showed, and there was three different levels of data we looked at, not teacher recommendation, that they were gonna need additional supports coming in. And so that's technically a tier three type intervention. So those kids were heterogeneously mixed in all the algebra and freshman English courses, and they had algebra academy or reading academy to build those foundational skills that they were still working on. But those teachers worked in concert with algebra and freshman English. So they made sure they were working on skills that were gonna give kids access to learning their grade level standards they were currently learning in their course.

[28:13] SPEAKER_01:

So there's massive time being put in here, right? We're not just expressing our best wishes that students will catch up and there's not any kind of magical technique that can eliminate the need for that extra time because the students do need time to learn what they have missed, to learn what they have not gotten in previous years. I wonder if we could talk a little bit about what's required at the system level, because I know that's where a lot of your work has taken place, to make this a reality. And I've taken the perspective several times today of the individual teacher, but a lot of this is system level work. Is that right?

[28:47] SPEAKER_00:

It's system level work. And I think the number one thing is to move from adding new things to the plate to start subtracting. That's the first thing. I think we keep adding and adding. The problem is the teachers can't keep up. and nor can the students.

[29:03]

And so there's oftentimes we go to schools where if you look in a closet or on the stage in the auditorium, you'll find boxes of materials that never got opened because they just didn't have time to do that this year. Or teachers get their materials and they're still in shrink wrap, some of them, because they didn't have time to do it. So I think we have to, as a system, understand that the system cannot support all of that. And although all of it's really good, we need to make some choices. We also say a lot of times that the way to improve schools is to focus, focus, focus. And that means focus on priority standards and also focus on not too many programs and not too many new things teachers have to learn.

[29:46]

to be able to adequately implement them. So, you know, looking at this through the lens of how much are we adding and instead let's subtract. And I think that basically that would, at the system level would be enormously helpful, enormously helpful. We also have to move away from looking at professional development days as an answer to everything, because although PD days are really great, a full day of professional development, everybody agrees, thinks it's really great. And by the way, we do a lot of those. So I'm not, this is not a criticism, but when you get back to school, school happens.

[30:27]

And a lot of what they heard doesn't get implemented. So we need and there aren't a lot of days in a school calendar for those anyway. And so we need to be looking at what are some micro bursts of learning just in time learning. They need to know this right now. So can we do a 35 minute piece before school, at lunch, after school? Can we repeat it three times?

[30:47]

and let teachers select where they want to go. I just think we need to bring the focus down and then support the things that we focus on. I work with a lot of school districts and implementing this and also schools as Sierra does too. And one of the things that I think they don't, They think they do well often, but they don't is support. You know, I'll say to them, you know, this is a learning or you're a learning organization and your role at the district office is support. So how are you supporting schools?

[31:20]

But then I have to say things like support does not equal an email. Support does not equal a calendar with due dates on it. That's not support. So now tell me how you're supporting. And then I lay it all out because frankly, at the district level, we have to be more hands-on than we think we have to be. And sometimes we think we can do it and just tell everybody and telling them gets it off my desk and off my plate and they're gonna just do it.

[31:47]

Well, principals are probably the hardest working people on the face of this earth, I'm telling you right now. Because they get those kinds of things from every angle and they're trying to make sense of all of it and make sure that everything runs smoothly all at the same time. I mean, their job alone is, you know, multifaceted with the fact that they have to have a safe school environment. They have to have the school run beautifully. Everything has to be perfect over here on this end. And then they have to at the same time.

[32:14]

have better scores and learning has to be occurring so they're like squeezed from all angles okay and so sending a memo doesn't cut it you know and there are different level and differentiation is necessary as well at this district office and and even if you're a principal not all teachers are at the same level what are you doing to support them not all teams are at the same level what are you doing to support so support always precedes accountability And I really believe that one of the things that a system needs to do is analyze what equals support. How are we supporting? What really does that mean? Because district office is really central services. And we are in service to the students that we serve and the teachers we serve. So how are we in service to those folks?

[33:07]

Because that's where the work is.

[33:09] SPEAKER_02:

And part of that support is is clarifying, right? Brene Brown, being clear is being kind, right? Just clarifying, what are we going to start with as a focus as we're accelerating learning? Again, maybe we have fewer priority standards and let's just have everybody do, we call them 10-day cycles where you would never go more than 10 days without some kind of a quick common assessment to see where kids are so that you're meeting their needs and able to accelerate and have targeted interventions. Is that our focus this year, right? Is our focus something else right now?

[33:39]

Is it just getting teams and time in the master schedule to have that? And how are we supporting you in making that happen? But clarifying that. And then another thing we talk a lot about, so especially you got the culture chapter right at the beginning, but at the end of the book, we've got that chapter six on intervention and structures for that, which is systems. We have chapter seven, which is leadership, and it talks about shared leadership also, that this is not just on the principal's shoulders. Who is that guiding coalition, or we call them sometimes a learning team, meaning we're learning together also and trying to stay just a step ahead of everyone so that we can kick this off and make sure we're also providing support, but we're checking in with each other on priority standard work and so forth.

[34:19]

So who's that shared leadership so that it's not just on the principal's shoulders? And then the last chapter is continuous improvement, which is also system-wide How is one grade level or course sharing with the next grade level or course at the end of the year how well kids did in general with the priority standards and the strategies they use so that next grade level can tag that or know walking in, we're going to have to spend more time on one issue than another. So there are several systems pieces to look at so that the teams and the teachers can be more successful in their part of the, I'm going to say, equation.

[34:51] SPEAKER_00:

I think continuous improvement really needs, if they looked at those chapters, they're just especially the one that looks at leadership and accountability at the end. That really sets the stage for not reinventing the wheel every year all over again, but starting with what you can do. And if you think about it, isn't that how you get more time? And isn't that really how you accelerate? So I think the systems piece that built into everything we've done with this really would help schools get there.

[35:23] SPEAKER_02:

And at the end of every chapter, we've got a series of questions for that leadership team to analyze and look at to say what might be our next step. And then the At the very end, the epilogue also has a chart with all of those chapters kind of going back and saying, okay, if we were going to pick one thing to start with, what would it be? Or top three things, what would it be? And kind of provide that roadmap or allow schools to figure out what their roadmap needs to be.

[35:48] SPEAKER_01:

So the book is Acceleration for All, a how-to guide for overcoming learning gaps. Sharon Kramer and Sarah Shule, thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.

[36:00] Announcer:

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