Board Business Meeting Packet June 18, 2012 Superintendent’s Report School Readiness Coalition Pilot Project: A Report to the Boards of Directors Prepared by Organizational Representatives of the Racine Unified School District (RUSD) Racine Kenosha Community Action Agency (RKCAA) for Head Start Next Generation Now (NGN) 21st Century Preparatory School (21st CPS) United Way of Racine County (UWRC) The Johnson Foundation at Wingspread (TJF) June, 2012 Organizational Representatives 21st Century Preparatory School Arletta Frazier Tucker and Mary Olson Next Generation Now Carrie Scruggs and Alison Haas Racine Kenosha Community Action Agency (RKCAA) Head Start Leighton Cooper, Connie Crawford, Jehan Ghuari, Sharon Schulz and Anita Vital Racine Unified School District Amy Douyette, Dena Joyce, Ann Laing and Culleen Witthuhn United Way of Racine County Susan Gould, Marie Hargrove and Kimberly Payne The Johnson Foundation at Wingspread Carole Johnson and Ashley Staeck Ex-Officio (DPI Consultants) June Fox and Carol Noddlings Eichinger 2 Introduction Members of the School Readiness Coalition came together in 2010 based on their shared passion and commitment to excellence in early childhood education and their belief that by working together they could have long lasting impacts on the educational and life outcomes of children. One of the central concerns these organizations shared was that there was no means through which they could share information about the progress children made after completing the respective programs. This information is critical for continued improvement in programs to enhance children’s learning as well as improving the quality of information available to teachers in the subsequent program in which children enroll. The Coalition established as its mission: To ensure school readiness and success of young children as they progress along the education continuum. The goal of the Coalition is to: Establish a reciprocal process for determining school readiness, monitoring student progress, along the educational continuum, and informing the continuous improvement of early childhood programs. Our objectives are to: 1. Determine means for assessing outcomes of early childhood education and readiness for Kindergarten. 2. Identify appropriate assessment tools to aide classroom teachers in assessing and addressing student performance. 3. Implement a process to establish a longitudinal database that will provide a means to: a. Inform kindergarten teachers of student strengths and areas for improvement in order to support student success; b. Inform early childhood programs of student progress along the educational continuum in order to provide information for program improvement; c. Increase coordination of early childhood programs with primary school programs; d. Increase communication with parents and reduce unnecessary duplication of services and redundancy. 3 Over the past two years the Coalition has engaged in a pilot project designed to develop and test a process to assess the growth and development of 4-5 year old children and to establish methods and means for monitoring progress as they move through Kindergarten and the primary grades. During the pilot test the Coalition operated under a Memorandum of Understanding approved by the Boards of the respective organizations. Coalition Process The Coalition met approximately every six weeks from the spring of 2010 to date at The Johnson Foundation. Ad hoc committees were formed to perform in depth work on specific aspects of the project and reported their recommendations to the full Coalition. Chairs or co-chairs were designated for each ad hoc committee and were charged with convening designated members and reporting to the Coalition by a specified date. Members of these committees volunteered based on their interest and or expertise in the particular topic. Ad hoc committees reported their progress or presented their recommendations and led in depth discussions with the full Coalition. The Coalition adopted committee recommendations, suggested modifications or referred the topic back to the committee for refinement. The ad hoc committees were: • Assessment tools review • Consent form design • Data entry and retrieval • Process and procedures • Training The Coalition also engaged in several shared learning opportunities. Guest presenters from Educare of Milwaukee, Center for Social Emotional Foundations of Early Learning, the Wisconsin Early Childhood Longitudinal Data System Project, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services SPHERE data system and the RUSD SchoolNet system provided valuable information to the Coalition. Progress to Date Agreements and Accomplishments All programs adopted the Wisconsin Early Learning Standards as the basis of their work. During the first year of the pilot, staffs from all Coalition member organizations were trained in administration and scoring of the ASQ-3 and ASQ: SE by the Coalition training team. Staff administering the ASQ-3 and ASQ: SE participated in a joint training session and had the 4 opportunity to meet their colleagues from other organizations. In addition, the team trained staff of other community organizations. During the first year of the pilot project, 150 children enrolled in PK4 were assessed using the ASQ-3 developmental assessment and ASQ: SE (social emotional) developmental screening. In the second year, 900 children were assessed with 800 of them enrolled in RUSD. Data from the two assessments administered in pilot year one were entered into a single, private data system to test the feasibility of the process. Data from both pilot years has subsequently been entered into SchoolNet where it can be linked with future student records and from which reports can be drawn. A common parent Consent form was used by all member programs so parents are fully informed of the purpose of the assessments and data sharing. Parental consent was required for all participating children. A written protocol for data entry and retrieval has been developed, including designation of individuals with authorization to access data. Members of the Coalition made presentations about the work of the Coalition at State meetings. Consultants working with the Department of Public Instruction, working on development of a state longitudinal data system, have joined the Coalition as ex-officio members and have been helpful in connecting us with that work. Challenges The primary challenge has centered on the data system. While useful for testing the feasibility of all programs entering data into one program, the initial system proved to be much less flexible than we had hoped. While we examined other data systems, none would lend themselves to longitudinal purposes. Lack of access to individual State I.D. numbers for non-school district students (due to the State’s system of F.T.E. calculation using Student I.D. numbers) initially caused consternation. SchoolNet operated by RUSD, however, proved to have a solution whereby data could be entered and students (enrolled in programs other than those operated by RUSD) given a unique identifier that would link with a State I.D. number once the child enrolled in RUSD Kindergarten. The Coalition recognizes that not all children will enroll in RUSD or 21st Century but determined the majority will do so. The RUSD data team faced the special challenge of getting SchoolNet up and running district- wide while simultaneously setting up and entering Coalition data. The Coalition also needed to establish a records review process to assure that the information given to the RUSD team was 5 complete and accurate. This step required one member to put in substantial time in records review. Assuring that all information was correctly and completely entered required more supervision and review than originally anticipated. Further staff training will occur in the fall. Next Steps Over the next several months/year the Coalition will: • Develop a brief end of year progress report summary on each child to be completed by the PK4 teacher. This report is intended to assist the Kindergarten teacher in working with the child. The Coalition will survey Kindergarten teachers prior to developing the format of the summary report. • Revise/update parent consent form. • Prepare and operate under an MOU for 2012-14. • Define report parameters to be extracted from SchoolNet. • Determine the end of PK4 assessment tool that will link with NWEA MAPP and PALS (the new State required reading readiness assessment tool) in Kindergarten. • Explore use of additional social emotional development assessment instruments. • Design and deliver staff training. • Host an event/session to update the staff of the Coalition members on the progress and next steps of the Coalition. • Monitor implementation of the data protocol. • Monitor administration of ASQ-3 and ASQ: SE. • Determine feasibility of linking in results of ASQ-3 administered prior to age 4 by other agencies (e.g. physicians). • Implement a new partnership between Head Start, Next Generation Now (NGN) and RUSD to deliver a PK4 program at Head Start and a Head Start program at NGN. In addition to the specific accomplishments of the Coalition and the shared learning we have experienced, there have been two outcomes that will have long term benefits. First is the engagement of parents in one-on-one communication about their child that can set the tone for involvement of parents over the next thirteen years of the child’s education. Second is the 6 positive relationships developed among Coalition