Ed Partners Perspectives
Bring Preschool to Third Grade Coherence to Your District
Beginning in May 2023 we will start a new network focused on improving preschool to third grade coherence in the service of students. To learn more about how your district can join us, click the link below or email our Director of Program Sustainability & Growth, Steven Kellner (skellner@caedpartners.org)
District Spotlight: Grass Valley School District
This month we want to highlight the work in Grass Valley. The Improvement Team is engaged in year two of the P3CC Literacy Collaboration. Grass Valley has focused on Preschool through 3rd grade coherence as foundational to their district-wide initiative of building an effective multi-tiered system of support. This P3CC system work has resulted in significant and positive change including a district instructional calendar, a district wide tool for planning and decision making as well as a shared focus on improving student outcomes in phonic and phonemic awareness.
The Improvement Team is also engaged in implementing a change idea focused on assessment. They discovered a need for an assessment that allows teachers to identify specific phonics skills students need. This led the team to review formal assessments currently in use in the district as well as those created by grade level teams. After conducting this review and research the Improvement Team streamlined their assessment into a single tool that they are currently piloting. Great work Grass Valley in your incredible systems work in coherence!
Long Term Impact of Dual Language Immersion Program
As part of Ed Partners’ Research Practice Partnership, Redwood City School District leaders and Stanford Graduate School of Education Professor Amado Padilla followed students who graduated from the Adelante K-5 school’s dual language immersion (DLI) program through middle and high school completion to examine the impact of the DLI program on students’ later academic and language outcomes. The research showed that Adelante students who begin in a dual language immersion program in elementary school and continue with Spanish language instruction through high school attain high levels of Spanish proficiency while also showing high levels of English Language Arts and Math achievement when compared to peers not enrolled in the DLI program. Research findings were presented in this slide deck to the Redwood City School District School board by Superintendent John Baker and Professor Amado Padilla and a story published on the district website.
