District Rubric - TEMPLATE

LEVEL 2 Emerging - District leaders express disjointed visions of success which are not always tied to equity. District leaders are unfamiliar with systemic strategies for closing the achievement gap and improving student achievement or they lack focus in promoting a specific set of strategies.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - District leaders including board members, the superintendent and district office staff, site and teacher leaders share a common vision of success and knowledge about a set of key strategies for closing the achievement gap and improving student achievement.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - The district implements state standards as a compliance activity rather than to inform its program. The district may adopt district curriculum and instructional resources, but provides limited or inconsistent guidance as to how the curriculum and resources are to be used.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - The district adopts state standards and aligned curriculum and intervention materials for all grades in reading/language arts, mathematics, and English language development that will support students’ progress toward meeting state standards. Systems are in place to continuously monitor and adjust implementation.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - The district sets goals each year, but they have limited or little impact on decisions about programs, professional development and monitoring priorities, and the allocation of resources. There is no system for monitoring progress or attainment of goals.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - The district sets explicit, measurable goals for improving student learning using a clear and inclusive process based upon multiple forms of data, the standards, and the adopted curriculum. The district uses these goals to make decisions about programs, professional development and resource allocation.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - Outside of contractual evaluations, the district inconsistently monitors principal performance, and only among a small number of site administrators. The criteria for monitoring are unclear; or monitoring of performance is not tied to district-wide and building-level data. District office staff only visit sites which are under state/federal monitoring status.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - The district regularly monitors principal and district staff performance (formally, at least three times per year) using a district-adopted evaluation tool that that also includes a review of multiple measures of disaggregated student assessment data as well as feedback from teachers and staff about effectiveness of instructional leadership strategies.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - The district provides an incomplete set of assessments to schools and/or is not consistent in encouraging schools to use district assessments. The district has begun to identify or develop assessments, including multiple measures, used across schools that provide teachers and schools with diagnostic and progress data, but they are inconsistently implemented and monitored.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - The district provides and supports the use of a comprehensive district-wide student information system that is supported by appropriate technology solutions (on which staff have extensive training). The district, with participation from principals and teachers, continually reviews assessments to determine which provide the most useful data about students’ progress toward standards.

LEVEL 2 Emerging The district does not employ a strategy to consistently monitor and improve its own performance. Student data disaggregated by subgroup is typically reviewed only at the school level in the fall but rarely throughout the year at the, but rarely, if ever, district-wide. If reviewed, data is not consistently linked to specific strategies to improve performance and district-wide achievement benchmarks.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable Through regular meetings reviewing data on student progress and other forms of feedback about organizational effectiveness, the district consistently monitors its own performance and the performance of its schools. Similarly, District leaders hold school leaders accountable for monitoring the performance of their schools and teachers

LEVEL 2 Emerging - The district provides annual professional development on its assessment and data systems, but it is often only at the administrative level and site administrators have or take little time to review it with teachers. Additionally, this training tends to focus on the system and not on how to use the information

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - The district provides professional development on its assessment system, the district-developed data system and the data reports the district receives from the California Department of Education. The district also trains instructional coaches and leaders at the site level to assist teachers with data analysis that guides instruction.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - The district provides schools with state-adopted programs in reading and math, but has made training and/or implementation of the materials a site-/grade-/teacher-specific decision and has provided minimal direction, accountability or support on the use of the materials.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - In addition to the adoption/provision of research-based programs, district leaders provide adequate professional development for principals and teachers immediately following the adoption and provide ongoing training and support for effective use of these materials. Districts hold school leaders accountable for ensuring teachers use research-based practices.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - The district either does not provide schools with common tools such as pacing guides or they do not hold schools accountable for using them. Schools may create their own pacing guides/common curriculum or certain grade-level/dept. teams may make individual decisions about what to teach.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - In addition to district-wide implementation of pacing guides/common curriculum, the district has adopted standards for students’ ethical, social, emotional and intellectual development. District staff and school leaders have built support for the emotional, social, ethical and intellectual development of children into the regular curriculum and into a repertoire high-quality instructional strategies that all teachers teach.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - The district provides teachers with episodic support on differentiating instruction. District leaders have assisted schools with the purchase of research-based intensive intervention programs, but they’ve made training or implementation of the materials a site/grade/teacher-specific decision.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable The district has a highly nuanced approach to serving the diversity of its students’ needs. All staff understand how to appropriately “respond to intervention,” and use academic materials, human resources and community support to quickly, efficiently and effectively meet the needs of students not being served well by the district’s academic programs.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - The district provides schools with general direction about instructional arrangements (master scheduling priorities, reading/math/ELD instructional minute requirements, etc.), but they are almost exclusively driven by external compliance mandates, not student data analysis or teacher skill/competence.

LEVEL 3 Sustainable - In addition to the district’s development of student-focused instructional arrangements, the district also effectively leverages and coordinates external resources for social services, after-school and extracurricular activities that better support student social and emotional development. These external partners are intentionally woven into the program.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - The district recognizes student achievement, and only recognizes improvement in some/few schools whose achievement is relatively low. The district has limited structured and/or informal opportunities to recognize school leaders and teachers, and rarely for improvement.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - The district has robust formal and informal systems in place to recognize district, school, school leader, teacher and student progress toward individual and district goals. The district also has formal and informal opportunities to recognize parents, board membersand businesses.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - The district holds itself accountable for resolving inadequate principal or teacher performance. It only addresses the needs of those who are struggling in putative ways and/or for contractual reasons, but does not engage in productive approaches to helping these staff improve.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - The district provides district staff and school leaders with a comprehensive set of tools and support to identify, address and improve inadequate administrative and teaching performance and holds district and site leaders accountable for providing support and pressure to improve. The district has a functional process for moving chronic poor performers out of the district.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - The district may have selected an array of intervention programs or it may encourage schools to select their own state-adopted intervention programs. In either case, the district devotes little, if any, time to ensuring that intervention programs are research-based. The district makes available generic training to principals and teachers on intervention/differentiation, but does not provide systematic training to principals and teachers to ensure effective use of the programs.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - In addition to providing the state-adopted interventions and relevant training to staff so as to ensure high-fidelity implementation of the programs, the district has intentional strategies for addressing the social and emotional needs of struggling students. These strategies may entail working with external organizations, community partners or parents, but are coordinated to support the academic program of the schools in the district.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - The district provides limited centralized support to help schools evaluate and re-assess the status of students in intervention programs. There is limited attention to exiting students from intervention programs as quickly as possible.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - The district evaluates interventions to ensure they are both cost effective and successful in accelerating the learning of struggling students. It expands those that are effective and discontinues those that are not. District staff responsible for services to English learners and Students with Disabilities are under the supervision of the head of curriculum and instruction-not other offices.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - The district is beginning to take a more proactive approach to leadership development and teacher training, but lacks systematic methods for recruiting and supporting high quality administrators and teachers. In addition, the district lacks systematic methods for building leadership skills among administrators and teachers and/or does not effectively allocate resources for this purpose.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - The district provides teachers and administrators access to a high-quality, focused, differentiated system of professional development (beyond a strong programmatic training series). Professional development supports teachers in building awareness, planning, implementation of and reflection on research-based best practices, as well as examination of attitudes and expectations around the performance of under-achieving groups of students within schools.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - The district is beginning to take a leadership role in prompting/mandating schools to use data to make decisions and/or to legitimize their professional development choices. Meanwhile, district-wide professional development may be data-driven, but it is based on relatively crude analyses – using student summative data reports exclusively to drive decision-making.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - Multiple sources of data about both student needs and teacher practices are used to shape professional development strategies employed by the district. Simultaneously, the district supports school site engagement in similar analyses of their own student data and teaching practices. All of these coordinated initiatives are regularly reviewed collaboratively by district staff and all other relevant stakeholders to ensure that professional development is appropriate and useful for all staff.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - The district implements the state- and/or textbook-adopted recommendations for program implementation support (content coaches, collaboration and on-going support), but that is the only PD coordinated district-wide. These implementation coaches tend to address issues of reading/language arts and mathematics solely. As a result, other disciplines are not directly served by the district’s focus on program implementation.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - The district provides access to internal and external resources and supports for sites to make data-based adjustments to their programs and practices. Resources for professional development are located at both the school site and the district office in order to provide both alignment and flexibility. Selection of PD is always collaboratively determined and based upon student data and the needs of staff.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - The district has recommended common collaboration time among teachers at school sites and different schools have used this time to varying degrees of effect. Professional learning communities (PLC) is a concept beginning to take hold in some schools in the district, but neither the district office itself, nor the site administrators yet view themselves as constituting a PLC.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - District leaders and staff are part of a professional learning communitiy that provide multiple ways for teachers and administrators to develop the skills to ensure that all students receive high quality instruction. Structures and processes are in place to ensure that district leaders regularly collaborate – peer-to-peer as well as across roles – with school, department, and grade level leaders, and across institutions.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - The district office and some schools or grade levels/departments use data to identify problems and to identify research based practices to address them (usually prompted by externally driven planning processes like the CA Single Site Plan for Student Achievement and/or LEA Plan), but it is not a consistent practice in all locations nor is it focused predominantly on narrowing achievement gaps.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - All schools, grade levels/departments and the district office staff regularly use an equity-driven (gap-narrowing) Cycle of Inquiry to analyze data, identify successes and challenges and research-based practices to address areas of growth. They periodically meet (at least quarterly) to analyze results and plan next steps. They identify problems based on data, share information vertically, and use it to systematically inform decision-making at each level of the district system.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - Even though there is much rhetoric at the school and district level about the importance of collaboration (and the beginnings of useful collaboration at some sites), it is episodic and scattered throughout the district and still viewed by some as not a good use of time.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - No matter what their roles or levels in the system may be, educators seek out the expertise and feedback of their colleagues. They are particularly attentive to the cultural insights that members of diverse backgrounds bring to bear on the problems at hand. They share with one another, solve problems together, and support each other to do good work.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - Some or all schools have strategies in place to do formal peer observations of the implementation of adopted textbook programs, but it is only among some grade levels/depts. and/or it is not done as an explicitly PLC-related activity. Leadership practice is not shared.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - In professional learning communities across the district (schools and central office), educational practice (whether teaching or leadership) is not a private act. It is shared openly so educators learn with and from one another. Educators are open to sharing what they do and why they do it.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - Some schools, as part of the formal state-/district-mandated annual planning process engage in collaborative reflection about the effectiveness of their programs. Although these reflections tend to be about program effectiveness, some schools do engage in discussions of the impact of new teaching practices.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - Members of professional learning communities across the district reflect, both individually and collectively, on the degree to which work meets both a shared set of standards for good professional work and goals for student achievement. This dialogue produces shared understanding about the purposes and processes for teaching and learning as well as awareness of the ways practices at each level can be honed to improve student achievement and close gaps.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - Many of the district’s schools implement the adopted programs with fidelity. However, there is not agreement among all staff that consistent practice is a worthwhile idea, therefore it is not the basis of many learning community activities. Learning community activities are not as effective as they might be with implementation of common practice.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - The work of the district’s professional learning communities is based on shared pictures of best practice (whether teaching or leadership) that support the development, implementation and continuous refinement of a standards-/research-based common curriculum and set of instructional strategies that are robust and challenging for all students.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - The district is beginning to collaboratively model and support a set of common beliefs (a commitment to collaboration, best practice, data-based continuous improvement and strong professional learning communities) driven by the district’s vision (grounded in equity), but these ideas are not widely shared beyond sanctioned leadership across the district and/or only among a small cadre of teachers.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - Professional learning communities at the district and school level develop shared norms and values that establish reciprocal expectations for members. In addition to promoting healthy communication and decision-making, these norms and values promote a commitment to cultural proficiency by ensuring that all members experience the community as inclusive/accepting of and responsive to their cultural backgrounds.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - The district coordinates for some schools (often due to external pressure from school/district Program Improvement or DAIT designation) some elements of learning community activity. However, ownership and accountability for these activities rests almost exclusively with district staff and/or administrative leaders at the school sites.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - As a series of nested professional learning communities, all levels of the district are aligned for the purpose of improving instruction. Teachers work collaboratively to improve their practice, principals provide instructional support for teachers, and the district office focuses its support on schools. Each level of the system is accountable to each of the others for contributing to the improvement of instruction.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - Where formal and/or informal professional learning communities exist, some staff are using these venues to begin to use student achievement data (overall and among subgroups) to identify and share best practice. Although the focus of collaboration for some is shifting toward efficacy of strategies with students, some PLC’s continue to focus on sharing interesting practice—not effective practice (as measured by all student success).

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - Every activity of district and school professional learning communities is focused on improving teaching and learning such that achievement for all students is increased while closing the achievement gap for those who have been traditionally underserved. Teachers and administrators are held individually and collectively accountable for results.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - Giving and receiving critical feedback is becoming routine, and a norm of mutual respect and accountability has been established across much of the district.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - Educators district-wide embrace the idea of continuous improvement and inquiry and see it as the path toward narrowing the achievement gap. All adults see themselves as learners and as part of several nested professional communities. Data based decision-making is the norm. Educators are comfortable with and value an environment of de-privatized practice.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - Effective uses of data to drive changes in teaching and learning are beginning to take hold in some schools in the district.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - Common work is viewed as the foundation for meaningful professional collaboration. Everyone in the district understands that at the center of the inquiry approach is a commitment to achieving equity. Inquiry is always about trying to understand how to close the achievement gaps in classrooms, schools and between schools.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - Some staff use a data-based continuous improvement process to reflect annually on the effectiveness of their programs/strategies, but it tends to be more of a compliance activity than a professional learning community activity.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - All staff (including those not engaged in supporting the academic program directly) use some form of inquiry in their practice—asking questions about data regarding the effectiveness of programs and strategies.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - District staff give general (often voluntary) training and support to school leaders in whole-school inquiry, and it is articulated as a purely program/strategy/student monitoring tool—not a professional learning community activity. The district has no explicit inquiry facilitation training for site leaders.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - The district actively coaches and supports schools in creating explicit learning opportunities for teachers around the use of inquiry, including the use of program/diagnostic/benchmark assessments, formulation of questions about practice, and identification of appropriate instructional strategies to support under-performing students of color.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - District staff articulate the expectation that school leaders should engage in an inquiry process. Grade/Departmental inquiry only occurs in isolated pockets among volunteer grades/departments across the district.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - The district supports and holds accountable (for implementation & documentation) all site administrators and teacher leaders to collect and reflect on data about teacher practice in relation to the professional teaching standards (CSTP) and to link these data to student achievement, the achievement gap and the effectiveness of programmatic strategies being implemented by schools.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - The district is beginning to promote data-based decision-making and planning by schools throughout the district, but rarely prompts shared leadership of those activities among teacher leaders or site administrators.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - The district models and builds the capacity of site administrators and teacher leaders to effectively facilitate whole-school/ classroom/grade/departmental inquiry and holds them accountable for documenting the learning from those activities.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - District office leaders have become more skilled at asking targeted questions that drive productive Cycles of Inquiry and result in high quality data.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - District office staff always use equity-driven cycles of inquiry (as defined by the extent to which the district’s strategies of support to schools are narrowing achievement gaps) at regular intervals (at least quarterly) to drive strategic and programmatic decision-making throughout all departments.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - As the district begins to engage in more intentional district level inquiry it uses annual CST student performance data to make judgments about the effectiveness of their strategies/programs and/or they tend to look exclusively at school level implementation and effectiveness—district practice is not evaluated.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - The district is using multiple data sources in engaging in this inquiry, including student achievement data, teacher practice data, school condition data, and feedback from teachers and administrators. All adjustments to programs and support are made on the basis of data. There are entry points for new staff to become familiar with the inquiry work in the district.

LEVEL 2 Emerging - Facilitation of inquiry at this stage often involves school level teams in sharing/reflecting on their strategies and best practices. However, this is not linked back to district practices mostly due to a lack of trust on the part of staff about giving feedback to their respective supervisors.

LEVEL 4 Sustainable - All district staff are skilled at leading and facilitating district-wide inquiry sessions—using best practices of adult learning and learning communities. All key staff and community stakeholder groups are represented in the inquiry enacted at the district-wide level and decisions that come from it are consistently communicated and carried out across the district.

Emerging - The Superintendent and key leaders drawn from board, community, and district office have developed a shared picture of current district performance, a vision for an improved future, and a sense of urgency about achieving goals which may or may not yet be formulated in measurable terms. In some cases, an initial formulation of goals in measurable terms may be ready to be adjusted to be more challenging or compelling.

Sustainable - Leaders at multiple levels of the system and leaders in the broader community have internalized and work from a shared vision and goals; they assess their own work and the progress of the district with a set of metrics that are tied to these goals and that are well understood and valued by all. As challenging goals are met, new ones are established in an ongoing process of adjustment.

Emerging - The Superintendent sends clear messages about not only what goals and strategies are, but about what they mean and why they matter. As a result, other district leaders also deliver a consistent message. The Superintendent and key district and community leaders have formed an alliance with a diverse set of community partners. Leaders from a variety of sectors are actively involved in formulating and in explaining the reform effort in language that connects with the values and experience of the constituencies they represent.

Sustainable - An active network of community leaders works in partnership with the Superintendent, board and other district and school leaders to maintain the district’s focus on its vision, goals and core strategy. The meaning and rationale for both strategy and tactics is consistently described by all in terms of “what’s best for children.”

Emerging - Key leaders understand that some decisions should be left to schools and some made by the district, and that different schools need different kinds of support. Roles are becoming more aligned with the goals and a system for holding people accountable is in place. More leaders are willing and able to intervene when performance is not adequate. As roles shift, people are struggling with change and leaders balance needs for both pressure and support. Resources are being reallocated to support the specific people and activities to carry out the district’s strategy for improving instruction.

Sustainable - A network of leaders at multiple levels of the system translate the district’s core strategy into work that deepens and extends it. The culture is one of high levels of both autonomy and accountability within a clearly-defined set of roles, responsibilities, systems and structures for implementing a core strategy that everyone understands. Resources are continually and smoothly re-allocated to support the highest leverage activities for meeting the district’s goals for improving teaching and learning.

Emerging - The Superintendent and other leaders have begun to actively seek out data and this effort has begun to uncover gaps in the data. In response, the Superintendent and other leaders model using “good enough” data to build a culture of continuous improvement at the same time they work to improve data systems and expand the data to include data about important adult issues. The Superintendent models treating mistakes as learning opportunities and managing crises in ways that foster and maintain a sense of urgency about improving teaching and learning.

Sustainable - The culture of the district is one that seeks out and uses data for continuous improvement. The Superintendent and other key district leaders have begun to understand the limits of their core strategy and to make adjustments without losing momentum. The focus remains on getting better results for students.

Emerging - The Superintendent and district leaders foster a culture of intellectual challenge as they study and build awareness of strategies in place in other districts and of results that are being achieved. Strategy is emerging as the Superintendent works to build a team and phase out efforts that are not showing results or that are in conflict with the emerging goals and strategy. As the district becomes more focused, conflict results and leaders are challenged to “stay the course.”

Sustainable - The Superintendent leads the process of reflecting on and adjusting the district’s core strategy to meet more challenging goals. These adjustments are made without losing momentum or dismantling core elements of the strategy.