differentiated teacher roles – design guide november 2014

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Differentiated Teacher Roles – Design Guide

November 2014

Created by Blue Seats Consulting

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Differentiated Teacher Roles Guidebook - 2014

Welcome to the Design Guide for Differentiated Roles at Denver Public Schools. This document is designed to guide your planning and decision-making for the Differentiated Roles program. It is packed with examples from the first two

groups of schools to take on this work - Cohorts 1 & 2, lessons learned, and advice on creating a successful Application: Part 2 for a high-impact shift in teacher leadership and school culture.

Objectives for this Design Guide:

• Define the decision points schools will encounter, and identify strategies for making decisions

• Reference and connect to the best plans and implementations from the first two cohorts of the Differentiated Roles Program

• Provide checklists, question guides, and other tools to support strategic planning and application revision

School Design Teams, including principals and teachers, are the main users of this document, but there are other groups that can learn about the Differentiated Roles Program, and the planning necessary to build a successful school plan for distributive leadership.

Several other documents can help your school team with its planning, and those docu-ments are available from www.tinyurl.com/diffroles. You’ll also find links, examples, and advice throughout this document.

GROUP

School Design Teams: principals, other

administrators and teachers

School Design Partners

Budget Partners

HR School Partners

To guide your journey of reflection, analysis, understanding options, making decisions, and documenting

your plan in the Differentiated Roles Application: Part 2

To help School Design Teams understand the decisions they face, and to connect examples of previous implementation strategies

that were effective

To understand the prioritization in Differentiated Roles planning

To understand the prioritization in Differentiated Roles planning

WHY USE THIS DOCUMENT?

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Table of Contents1. Overview of the Differentiated Roles application process

2. Starting with School Needs and Purpose

3. The Differentiated Roles Design Process

4. Appendix of Specific Design Resources

1Overview of the Differentiated Roles application process

Milestones

If you’re reading this, you’ve been selected as a semifinalist school and hope to implement Differentiated Roles in 2015-16. You’ve gotten a good start by submitting Part 1 of the application, and now have an opportunity to tell the rest of the story in Part 2, the final application. Here are the dates to keep in mind:

Part 1 Application Deadline

Final Application Deadline

Finalists Receive Funding Notification

Schools Receive List of Eligible TL & TTL Candidates

Team Lead Recruiting & Selection Process

Training for Differentiated Roles teachers & principals

October 31, 2014

January 14, 2015

January 31, 2015

February, 2015

March-May, 2015

Spring & Summer, 2015

Table of Contents1. Overview of the Differentiated Roles application process

2. Starting with School Needs and Purpose

3. The Differentiated Roles Design Process

4. Appendix of Specific Design Resources

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What do I need to know about the Final Application?

Part 2 of the Differentiated Roles program application will be sent to semifinalist schools via email before November 21, 2014. This Guidebook is designed to help you navigate the reflection and planning process that will help your school create and submit an effective application.

What happens between submitting the application and receiving the funding notification?

The turnaround time from January 14 to January 31 is tight, but busy for the Differentiated Roles program team and their partners. School Design Partners will be reviewing your applications for completion, as well as evaluating role and funding proposals to ensure they are aligned with program policies and guidelines. Program staff will then review each application and implementation design plan to make final decisions about school participation. With that information, the team will let each school know the committee’s decision about funding and support for the 2015-16 year.

How will the applications be scored?

The most important elements to consider in planning, and to include in your plan, are as follows:

• Role selection and implementation design are based on school needs; proposed design is likely to be implemented successfully and to impact school goals

• Role design adheres to program goals and guidelines

• Funding proposal aligns to program guidelines and demonstrates effective strategy and anticipated impact

• Design decisions demonstrate the School Design Team’s self-awareness regarding the school’s strengths, weaknesses, school culture and leadership

• The school is ready and willing to make changes to school structures and schedules to support teacher leadership and team professional learning with the goal of increasing student achievement

Will every school that applies get accepted?

That depends. Funding is available for all schools that are completing the application, but only schools that communicate a vision aligned to the program and design roles that meet program guidelines will be accepted.

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2Starting With School Needs And Purpose

Articulating your specific school needs and why your school is pursuing Differentiated Roles is the first step to creating a great plan for implementation. To enable reflection, there are three formats below to help your school reflect and document your strengths, weaknesses, and goals. Utilizing one of these recommended tools will guide your team’s reflection on the current state of your school , your needs, and vision before starting to make design decisions.

The first format, a Before & After graphic organizer, helps you consider the impact that designing and implementing a Differentiated Roles model in your school could create. While keeping in mind how you could distribute leadership from the principal to a team of Teacher Leaders, this format helps your school’s design team map the desired changes to several critical roles.

The second format, a series of questions, could be used to facilitate the design team’s strategic planning session, or to engage several stakeholder groups in defining their vision for extending leadership to key teacher roles, in service of better supporting students.

The third format presents several goals of the program. Starting with the question of “If our school implemented Differentiated Roles, what are the ways our school would change around these specific elements?” Your team can use these desired states to brainstorm the ways your organization could change to better leverage adult talents and serve students on your campus.

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School mission – What are we here to do? How well are we doing it?

Principal Time – how is it currently spent? What

has he/ she analyzed? How much does he/ she

plan re: time use?

Teacher leadership – do roles currently exist?

Are they used effectively?

Teacher feedback & coaching –

Do teachers receive frequent, specific

feedback? How do we know?

New teacher recruitment, selection, & orientation

School culture – who are the heroes?

Who are the challenges? What is there not enough time for?

Staff culture – how do teachers demonstrate

ownership of their own learning? What do they

champion?

LEAP implementation – do we use our data to

make decisions?

ELLs – Does our school implement our strategy

effectively? How do we know?

Data – How do we use data to make decisions

about students and programs?

Principals who create consistent time on their weekly schedule to meet with all instructional leaders on a campus –

APs and Team Leads – are best positioned to amplify their instructional voice through their instructional leaders.

Quote from Westerly Creek teacher: “I think the biggest impact is that the

consistent coaching and feedback from TIF leaders has helped everyone in the school align their practice and become

more effective.”

Many schools are making sure new teachers are included in support

structures. This helps with recruitment, retention, and consistent high-leverage

instructional practices being implemented across the school.

Schools that invested in purposefully building a strong culture of trust,

transparency and shared expectations for this work are benefitting from smooth implementation. These are the schools

where teachers are excited about getting feedback and guidance from their most

effective colleagues.

Where Team Leads are empowered as instructional leaders to select the techniques to support their teams

(re: ELLs and others), they are often the most successful.

CURRENT STATE DESIRED STATEIncorporating Differentiated Roles

WHAT DO WE KNOWAbout best practices?

(Specific questions in Appendix 3)

1. Before & After Graphic Organizer

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2 – Guiding Questions for School Design Team

Gather student achievement and growth data, last year’s school Unified Improvement Plan, School Performance Framework, and other management documents. Use those to inform discussions among your School Design Team, guided with the following questions.

1. What are our current school needs? What do our data indicate are our strengths and weaknesses? What are our barriers to success?

2. What is our vision of where we want our school to be in 2018? If we’re on track to that vision, what does success look like at the end of next year?

3. How can Differentiated Roles be used as a vehicle to align work in our school and achieve our goals?

4. How will we know we are on the right path? What metrics will change if we positively impact our school with this program?

5. What teacher leader roles do we currently have in our school? How will those roles complement Differentiated Roles? What are the ways in which different teacher leader roles can work together and support our vision?

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3 – Desired End States

Which of these program goals resonate most with your school, faculty, and student needs? How could you use Differentiated Roles to make more progress with students? Where are the biggest opportunities to increase student growth? How does your plan address the purpose and goals stated in your program vision?

1. Extend the reach of effective teachers – Provide increased feedback, observations, and support for teachers

2. Improve equitable access to effective teachers – One team lead impacts, on average, 6 teachers and 145 students.

3. Improve teacher retention – Develop and sustain a culture of collaboration and continuous growth

4. Increase distributive leadership – Capitalize on the expertise in the building and increase teacher voice

5. Elevate the profession of teaching – As instructional leaders, practitioners create sustainable and systemic change

Best Practice:Calling out an intentional program goal and aligning implementation and program rollout to that goal yields more impact.

Example: High Tech Early College High School is focusing the use of their teacher roles on retention. Communicating this program as a strategy to support teachers and retain them in the building has enabled HTEC HS to increase its retention rate year to year, at a rate more than 3 times higher than similar schools.

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Given that reflection and analysis, how will differentiated roles improve outcomes for the students of your school? How can Differentiated Roles help your school reach its goals?

Examples are available in the DR Application Workshop Packet.

3The Differentiated Roles Design Process

DPS schools have been working with differentiated roles in pilot schools for almost two years, and together, we’ve learned a lot about the planning process schools have used to create effective plans and successful structures. This section utilizes grant guidelines and lessons learned from the first forty schools to guide thinking, prioritizing, and planning for your School Design Team to consider while completing the implementation design plan in the application.

Implementation Design

Informed by the US Department of Education’s guidelines for the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF*) grant and teachable moments from Cohorts 1 and 2, the Differentiated Roles program has developed a list of program requirements and school decisions to help you create a plan to implement Differentiated Roles at your school.

In the application, the decisions to make about the Differentiated Role are captured in this format. Over the next few pages, this guide will prompt reflection and planning to answer not only the questions related to this teacher role, but also questions about how many of them could best support your school, how they work together, and how these roles can help you achieve your vision.

This chart can guide the questions to answer, elements to consider in making decisions, and other Differentiated Roles Program tools to help inform and guide your decisions.

Role:u Team Leadu Teacher Team Lead

Focus Area:

Non-Teaching Time:

# Team Teachers:

Team Goal:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I98O0tQKhMC_W-qQ_Nkh6LSo6IOQMYvQjTw8X-nWpU4/edit?pli=1

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Design Question

How do we decide the Diff Roles responsibility

levels?

Diff Roles ToolkitExperienced

Principals TIF Team

Unified Improvement Plan

TEC

Diff RolesToolkit

Experienced PrincipalsTIF team

Diff Roles Toolkit

TEC

Experienced PrincipalsTIF team

School Budget Partner

Experienced Principals

How do we decide how many

roles to use in our school?

How do we decide what are

the right Focus Areas

for our school?

How do we decide the team size connected to each role?

How do we form teams

connected to these roles?

How do we prioritize which techniques to

use with these roles?

How do we decide what to

do with non-teaching time?

Dependenciesto Consider

Resources to Utilize

= School Size = Student Data = Budget = Org Structure = Culture

Icons used by permission and licensed under CC BY 2.0 from www.flaticon.com

http://www.flaticon.com

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To ensure that your implementation plan 1) meets the needs of your school, 2) is sustain-able, and 3) is set up to positively impact your school, it is critical that you design the right roles for your school, not roles for specific teachers. To begin selecting the right roles for your needs, design teams should begin by reflecting on the current culture in the school.

The Differentiated Roles program team understands that not all applying schools will be exemplary in each readiness area. By understanding your school’s strengths and areas for development, your School Design Team can create a strategic plan that utilizes teacher leadership to drive professional growth, particularly in those areas of development. Role design is influenced by school context. Use the outcome of your reflection to drive your planning and design efforts to advance in these areas during the rest of the 2014-15 school year.

INDICATOR

1. Vision for the Work

2. School Leadership

3. School Culture

4. School Capacity

5. School Structures

• Is the Differentiated Roles program aligned with the school’s strategic vision?

• Will this work be a priority amidst other efforts and initiatives?

• Is the school committed to distributed leadership?

• Is the school’s leadership stable?

• Does the school leader have experience managing large-scale change?

• Does the school leader have experience distributing leadership?

• Is there a decision-making process that includes teacher voice?

• Is there a strong school culture to support the changes of the program?

• Is teacher leadership present and visible in the building?

• Is there a culture of continuous improvement?

• Does the school have the capacity to implement new teacher leader roles?

• Are there strong performers in place to fill the roles (or a strategic plan for recruitment)?

• Are there systems in place (or a plan for new systems) to support teacher leaders in the work?

• Are school structures (schedules, planning time, meetings, and budgets) flexible enough to accommodate the program?

ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

See the Differentiated Roles School Readiness Toolkit 2015 here for rubrics, metrics, and more information about assessing readiness.

https://sites.google.com/a/dpsk12.net/dps-differentiated-roles/i-am-interested-in-the-dr-program

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Complete job descriptions for each of these roles are available here in the Google Drive.

What is the School Performance Framework rating for the last couple of years?

____________________________________________________________________________________

What is the percentage of teachers who are in their first few years of teaching? ____________________________________________________________________________________

Role DesignWhat kind of leadership roles would work best in your building?There are two new teacher leader roles in the Differentiated Roles program. They have confusing titles (although we’re working on that), but here are the differences.

With this information and reflection, what are your conclusions about school areas of strengths, opportunities for development, needs, and readiness to participate in Differentiated Roles ?

TITLE

Focus Area*

LEAP Impact

Team Formation

Stipend Expectations

Focuses on supporting a specific area of instructional practice

• Content • Culture

• Blended Learning

• English Language Acquisition

• Data • Subgroups

Contributes to formal evaluation and professional

growth of all team members by conducting partial LEAP-scored

observations on 2-4 specific indicators chosen by the school

Team formation centers around common instructional need or

development area

$3000 stipend

Focuses on holistic improvement across the Framework for

Effective Teaching, including professionalism

Responsible for complete evaluation of all team members, including the full LEAP evaluation process, professionalism score, mid/end of year conversations,

and final rating

Team formation typically determined by grade, subject,

or teacher experience level

$5000 stipend

TEAM LEAD (TL) TEACHER TEAM LEAD (TTL)

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-RaQdLsfl_ubTF5TGdxWFFzNTA&usp=sharing&tid=0B-RaQdLsfl_uOU9VREkzVWhCN1k

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Budget Planning

How many teacher leadership roles make sense for your building?

For the 2015-16 school year, the TIF grant and district general funds will support a limited number of roles in each school. On average, the grant will fund three roles per school, with each having release time of 0.4-0.5 FTE*. The School Design Partner will communicate final budget information in December.

District-supported funding supplies part of the story, but your school’s team needs are the more important element. Informed by your vision for your school’s future, impacted by teacher support and coaching roles, how many roles do you need?

Re-visit your school needs aligned to your vision. Do you have money in your budget to co-fund* part of a role or FTE for additional roles?

NOTE: For 2014-15, the average allocated to each school was 1.4 FTE.

A good rule of thumb is that for every .1 of release time, a team lead should be supporting 1-2 teachers. For example, if a team lead has .5 release time, they should support a minimum of 5 teachers and a maximum of 10, with 6-8 being the sweet spot for greatest impact. Your school is free to budget for the roles it needs, but consider the interdependencies of team need, team formation and size, and release time when making this decision.

Based on lessons learned, here are some things to consider:

Q: When would I choose a Team Lead role? I’d like to pay my teachers more.

A: Making the decision between Team Lead and Teacher Team Lead depends a lot on the culture in the building. To be successful with Teacher Team Lead roles, a school should have a strong school culture in place, one that is experienced in peer-to-peer learning, and already has structures in place to support teaming like common planning time and common interim assessments. If any of these readiness factors are not pres-ent, schools should select Team Lad roles to develop their culture of peer feedback and evaluation, and then consider evolving those roles to Teacher Team Lead over time.

Q: How exactly does the funding work?

A: The school is responsible for funding the teaching portion of the Team Leads’ or Teacher Team Leads’ salaries. The Differentiated Roles Program funds the non-teach-ing* portion of Team Leads’ and Teacher Team Leads’ salaries directly, freeing up that portion of their salary in the school’s budget for the school to re-hire. The grant also funds the stipends for each role.

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0.25 RELEASERELEASE TIME 0.33 RELEASE 0.4 RELEASE 0.5 RELEASE 0.6 RELEASE 0.75 RELEASE

2-4 TeachersSCOPE

Variable ImpactEXPECTED IMPACT

Recommended with

reservations

TEAM RECOMMENDS

Not recommended

Recommended with

reservationsRecommended

Recommended with

reservations

Not Recommended

Could address focus areaFOCUS AREA

Need focus in order to make

impactRISKS

Difficult to budget and

schedule


schedule

Recommended Structure


schedule; does not maintain

teaching impact

Not enough impact on

student achievement;

lack of teaching time

Focus area or observation



2-4 Teachers

Variable Impact

3-5 Teachers

Broader Impact

6-8 Teachers

Broader Impact

8+ Teachers

Big Impact

Big Impact

Scheduling and Design Considerations

• When not serving as a team lead, teachers must be teaching. They are not allowed to serve in multiple leadership or administrative roles. Please consider this policy when planning for number of roles needed.

• Roles must be focused on instructional leadership and leading teams. Team leads cannot lead programs, initiatives, or manage grants per program guidelines and funding policies.

• When you release teachers from part of their teaching time, they still need to have planning time for their teaching role, aligned with the expectations of the DCTA contract.

• When a Team Lead is co-teaching a group of students with another teacher, they need coordination time with the other teacher to plan and align instruction.

• Team Leads also need to join the school’s instructional team to discuss goals, data, and actions.

• Team Leads’ release time may not be used for lunch duty and tech support; while those roles help the school, they are not the highest and best use of that teacher’s talent, nor is it the supported use of centrally-funded release time.

• Avoid planning specific roles for specific people; it’s not closely connected to your school’s vision or data-driven needs, and makes the roles less sustainable.

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Q&A - Determining the Right Number of Roles for My School, Forming Teams, and Recruiting

“What if I want to have Team Lead help for every teacher in my school but I can’t afford that many roles?”

Look to your data, and prioritize the support you offer. You could identify specific focus areas from the Framework for Effective Teaching, and have your Team Leads work across the building in a targeted model* that focuses support on specific areas and groups of teachers. [A comprehensive model* is where a Team Lead supports all or most of the teachers in a building on a limited scope.]

“Can I only have the number of roles the program funds? How do I prioritize support when I’m creating my plan?”

This is only the TIF and district-funded resource pool, which you can split up among your school’s roles. If you want to pursue additional roles, you will need to pursue co-funding strategies in your school budget for FY16.

“If I co-fund a role, do I still have to follow all the TIF rules about eligibility, scheduling, and placement?”

Of course! This program is about new roles, and with lessons learned from previous cohorts, the Differentiated Roles program team will expect consistency in how these new roles are selected and administered across sites. These roles need to be equitable across school sites.

”Will the program funding support these roles past the initial year?”

There is a district commitment to supporting these roles for many years to come. We know that funding will decrease over time. As the federal TIF grant ends in 2017, schools will need to assume more funding responsibility to sustain these roles in their schools. However, we anticipate there being many supports to make these roles sustainable – from Strategic School Design and planning to building a foundation for these roles now that doesn’t require as much release time in future years. Sustaining differentiated roles as a normal part of school strategic staffing is in the plans.

“How could these schedules actually work? Can I see what it looks like for students and for teachers?”

School schedules won’t be due until the summer, but seeing how other schools adjusted their plans to accommodate these roles can be helpful in planning for your own school’s context. For three examples of schools that pursued different configurations of Team Leads and Teacher Team Leads, see Appendix 5 for sample schedules.

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“How should we create the right amount of teaching time? How does the use of teachers’ time shift with the assumption of differentiated roles?”

In alignment with the DCTA contract, teachers need to maintain a prep period associated with their instructional time. In addition, Teacher Leader roles will require some collabora-tion time among the participants in the Differentiated Roles program, and with the central program support team.

“I know just the people I want to add to my Instructional Leadership Team via Differentiated Roles. How do I plan for that?”

Through the experiences of Cohorts 1 & 2, we’ve learned not to build roles for specific people. Turnover is an issue, and we have seen a mismatch between school needs and teacher specialties. We recommend that the School Design Team reflects on the school needs, design the roles, and then select or recruit the right leaders to fill those spots. Selection cannot begin until March, and scheduling with these new roles is not required until the summer, so your school will have time to find the right leaders for you.

Class Ownership

Team Lead Time

Teacher Pre-time

Teacher Prep Time

Class Ownership

Class Ownership

Team Lead Time

Teacher Prep Time

Instructional Leadership Meeting Time

Instructional Leadership Meeting Time

0.5 TEACHER / 0.5 TEAM LEAD

0.5 TEACHER / 0.5 TEAM LEAD

1.0 TEACHER

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“Okay, so what rules do I have to follow, and when does our school have autonomy of decision-making?”

In the spirit of autonomy and accountability that drives Denver Public Schools, the team provides the following guidance on program requirements and opportunities for customization.

Roles

• Each school must follow the eligibility requirements and hiring practices – See Appendix 4 for details

• Team leads much teach and be responsible for classroom level outcomes to maintain eligibility in their role Stipends for TL & TTL roles are consistent across the district

• Each school must have its team leads complete required training and certification before announced deadlines

• The scope and definition of responsibilities must be consistent for roles, and across schools

• TLs and TTLs in differentiated roles must regularly observe teams of teachers and contribute to formal evaluation

• Team leads must meet all program expectations and role guidelines to remain funded in their role

School Expectations

• Logging scored LEAP observations in Schoolnet

• Participation in program feedback sessions and surveys

• Participation in monthly PLC meetings

• Adherence to program guidelines and policies

Additional Supports

• Participation in site-based supports and 1:1 Coaching

Design

• The school can decide the appropriate number of team leads, based on the funding available

• The school can decide which roles and focus areas meet its purposes

• The school can select and hire its own TLs and TTLs, once eligibility requirements are met

• Team formation (who is on the teams, and why) is up to schools

• Identifying the ideal percentage of non-teaching time between 0.25-0.65 FTE is a school-based decision

• The school can decide the instructional techniques, although some central support is available to assist

• Schools need to decide the schedule and structures that make their model work

IMPLEMENTATION REQUIREMENTS – CONSISTENT ACROSS ALL SCHOOLS

FLEXIBILITIES – SCHOOL DECISIONS IN APPLICATION PREPARATION

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Forming Teams

Deciding which teams your Team Leads or Teacher Team Leads will work with is critical to implementing Differentiated Roles. This team formation depends on the existing culture in your building, and the needs for professional development. School Design Teams should evaluate student growth data by grade level and by subject to identify common needs, and should consider the LEAP ratings of the school’s teachers to target groups that may need specific assistance on parts of the Framework for Effective Teaching or with targeted subgroups.

Some common structures for assigning teams around identified school needs would include the following:

• Assignment by grade level or subject,

• Assignment based on professional practice or experience level (i.e., New Teacher Team),

• Opt-in for specific goal development connected to the Professional Growth Plan in LEAP, or

• Other models driven by school need.

The team formation will then inform the instructional techniques used by the Team Leads and / or Teacher Team Leads, drive the schedule development, and inform the structure of non-teaching time in a feedback loop. Appendix 6 has two examples of how schools designed their teams, with links to several other complete applications.

Identifying Instructional Techniques

What do you need to stop doing to start doing something differently?

In the application, it will be important to call out the activities and techniques that the Team Leads will utilize to meet their teams’ needs. Knowing the goals and the teachers will enable the School Leadership Team to identify the highest leverage techniques. It is important to contemplate these techniques during planning to make sure Team Leads develop the right skills, that schedules accommodate the needs of the team, and that professional learning is differentiated for team teachers.

The following table describes, in no particular order, techniques a Team Lead might use in his or her role. Strong Team Leads could end up using each of these techniques over the course of the year. For each technique, consider how it might help meet the team’s needs and the school’s Statement of Purpose.

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Leading teams and/or PLCs (Data Teams,

SLOs, etc.)

Coaching

Hosting/running Learning Labs (group

co-observations)

Co-planning and/or co-teaching

Observing, providing feedback, and evaluating

Sharing resources

Facilitating PD

Participating in School Leadership meetings

Providing input into school-wide decisions

Modeling instructional best practices

TEAM LEAD ROLES AND

RESPONSIBILITIES

HOW COULD THIS TECHNIQUE HELP YOUR TEAM LEAD MEET HIS OR HER TEAM’S NEEDS AND THE

SCHOOL’S STATEMENT OF PURPOSE?

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Engaging Stakeholders

If your school designs and implements differentiated roles well, there are lots of elements of your school structure and culture that will be positively affected. Identifying those stakeholder groups affected by these changes is the first step, and figuring out the possible positive and negative impacts is the second step of this. Taking an active step to proactively communicate and engage these groups can help your School Design Team refine its proposed Differentiated Roles plan, and can help develop understanding and ownership of the school model among various groups.

Below is one school’s identification of benefits and risks to a series of stakeholder groups:

Connecting these groups in consistent communication throughout this planning year is key. Sharing the selection news when it becomes available will keep them connected, and asking and listening for feedback throughout the planning stages will enable you to build a system of support behind this program, and for your school.

ROLE

Principal

School Leadership Team

Existing teachers

Students

Prospective teachers

Families / Community

Distributed leadership, focus on instructional core (or principal

strengths)

More engaged leadership, whole system accountability

Develop additional skills, maintain classroom responsibility,

retain highly talented teachers

Increased impact of effective teachers

Additional opportunities to lead within school context, join teacher-led team

Increased impact of effective teachers, opportunity to keep great teachers at the school

Learning to distribute leadership; shifting from direct management

to managing managers, more time spent planning work

Adaptation of roles, need for increased communication

Different relationships with students, new time management and coaching skill development

Decreased devoted access to established (sometimes beloved)

teachers

Out-of-district and new teachers will need to teach for one year

before potentially being eligible to serve as a team lead

Students may have multiple teachers, which can feel like a big change to parents at the

elementary level

BENEFITS RISKS/DEPENDENCIES

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STAKEHOLDER GROUP

School Leadership

Team

Existing Teachers

Students

Prospective Teachers

Families / Community

N/A

N/A

WHAT ARE BENEFITS OF ENGAGING THIS

GROUP DURING THE DESIGN PROCESS?

HOW TO ENGAGE THIS GROUP DURING IMPLEMENTATION?

WHAT ARE METHODS FOR ENGAGING THIS

GROUP DURING THE DESIGN PROCESS?

An example of this Stakeholder Engagement Map is available in Appendix 2.

Stating Goals

A final area of development is the identification and isolation of metrics that you want your Differentiated Roles teams to affect over the course of the 2015-16 school year. Stated simply, have your School Leadership Team answer the following questions:

What is the ultimate goal for these teacher-led teams to accomplish by the end of 2015-16?

What metrics will help you monitor the progress of these teams? When and how often will you assess their growth?

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4 Appendix of Additional Resources

Several helpful resources have been made available to you through the presentations, office hours, and other workshops conducted by the Differentiated Roles program team. The program website at www.tinyurl.com/diffroles is a wealth of information about the process of applying for this program.

List of Support Documents:

1. Glossary of Terms

2. Stakeholder Map

3. Peer Principal Question Set

4. Team Lead & Teacher Team Lead Eligibility Requirements

5. School Models for using TLs / TTLs with Role Definition

6. Team Lead & Teacher Team Lead “Day in the Life” Schedule Examples

7. Additional Resources and Contact Information

http://www.tinyurl.com/diffroles

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Co-fund: A budget situation in which a school commits to supplying the financial resources for a portion of the position. If a school decides to use more Differenti-ated Roles than the amount centrally supported by the TIF grant, a school would co-fund additional release time to enable implementation of the desired model. Note: If a school co-funds a position, the Differentiated Roles program still funds individual stipends.

Comprehensive Model: An implementation design model where team leads support all or almost all of the teachers within a school; i.e. all building teachers are supported by a team lead. Design typically centers around grade level or department teams and sup-port is often holistic (corresponding to the Teacher Team Lead role). Contrasts with Targeted Model.

Focus area: This is the function which the Team Lead will target for observation, coaching, and staff development. Common examples of a Focus Area would be content, culture, blended learning, English language acquisition, data, and subgroups.

FTE: Full-time equivalent. This is a term often used in Human Resources to describe the percentage of time an employee is de-voted to a task. The usage for the Differen-tiated Roles program is related to the per-centage of release time for a given teacher to fulfill his or her instructional leadership responsibilities. Schools may budget for 0.25 FTE or 0.5 FTE as two common models.

High-touch teachers: These teachers are those that are prioritized for in-depth work by Team Leads or Teacher Team Leads.

The Differentiated Roles teacher would have a limited number of high-touch teachers with whom he or she works. Contrasts with Low-Touch Teachers.

Low-touch teachers: These teachers are those that do not need significant work by Team leads or Teacher Team Leads. The Differentiated Roles teacher could have a broader number of low-touch teachers with whom he or she works. Contrasts with High-Touch Teachers.

Non-teaching / release time: This term indicates the time in which a Team Lead or Teacher Team Lead would be observing, re-flecting, coaching, or even evaluating fellows teachers. This contrasts with the time in which a Differentiated Roles teacher would have direct responsibility for a classroom.

Targeted Model: An implementation design model where only some of the teachers in a school are on a team supported by a team lead. In a targeted model, a school must prioritize support by identifying target areas for growth. This model is typically associated with designating focus areas for the Team Lead role that is responsible for contribut-ing evaluations on specific LEAP indicators. Contrasts with Comprehensive Model.

TIF: Teacher Incentive Fund. This grant, created by the United States Department of Education, was awarded to Denver Public Schools in 2012 to support the Differenti-ated Roles pilot. The Differentiated Roles program is now funded in part by the federal TIF grant and in part by DPS general funds.

1. Glossary of Terms

23


2. Stakeholder Map - Example

GROUP

School Leadership Team (Principal, APs)

Instructional Leadership Teams & Existing Teacher

Leaders (Deans, TECs, department

chairs, PLC coordinators, etc.)

Teachers

Instructional Superintendent

Budget Partner

HR Partner

CSC / PTA

Shared ownership of Differentiated Roles model;

connection to other school initiatives (UIP, LEAP planning)

Coordination with Differentiated Roles teachers, accelerates the coaching and support provided

to teachers

Shared ownership of Diff Roles model; Trust peers for

TTL and TL roles

Connect with other Diff Roles schools, brainstorm needs as

documented by student outcomes, LEAP scores, UIP and other resources

Adjust budget plans, compare other Diff Roles school budgets

Adjust recruiting needs, identify skill gaps

Parents can discuss benefits of teacher roles; can mitigate parent

concerns re: favorite teachers

Strategic planning meetings, co-developing application

Strategic planning meetings, review of application

Staff meetings, co-developing application with selected teachers

Check-in meetings, edit rights on application

Budget planning meeting, sharing application

Staff planning meeting, sharing application

Sharing application before presenting at meeting

IF THIS GROUP IS ENGAGED, HOW CAN DIFFERENTIATED

ROLES WORK?

HOW TO ENGAGE THIS GROUP DURING THE

DESIGN PROCESS?

24


With an opportunity to learn from the School Leader of a Cohort 1 or 2 school, the following questions may be helpful in informing your school’s Differentiated Roles plan.

a. What are the key elements of your school’s strategy in using differentiated roles?

b. What were your school’s strengths going in?

c. What were the areas of concern? What data drove your decision?

d. How would you characterize the state of teacher leadership before you pursued differentiated roles?

e. What went right?

f. What do you wish you’d known before you started?

a. Specific eligibility requirements are set by the federal government and are still being approved for 2015-16

b. In February, schools receive a list of teachers who are “on track to be eligible”; final eligibility is validated at the end of the 2014-15 school year and is based on the following:

i. Current job code as a teacher or interventionist in DPS

ii. 2013-14 and 2014-15 LEAP rating of Effective or higher

iii. Classroom level student outcomes for 2014

3. Peer Principal Question Set

4. Team Lead & Teacher Team Lead - Eligibility requirements

Due to federal requirements, there is a specific hiring process required for funding. Additional information on hiring and eligibility will be available in February after schools receive funding information.

25


5. School Models for using TLs / TTLs with Role Definition

In Part 2 of the Differentiated Roles Program, basic information about the desired teacher roles is expected. Several school examples are available here. Targeted sections from two school plans are available below.

In this school’s example, two Team Lead roles are explained to assist with data-driven math instruction and data-driven social studies & science instruction.

For additional examples of Cohort 1 & 2 Role Definitions, school applications are available here and here.

Team Lead Techniques:

• Facilitate Math department PLC (fidelity to Data driven instruction through SCAN, lesson planning,

reflective activities, ensure co-planning between mirror teachers)

• Host Learning Labs through SCAN and CCSS lenses

• Co-plan and co-teach

• Observation and feedback

• Coaching

• Complete full evaluations

Non -Teaching Time: .5 FTE


• Facilitate SS/ Science departments PLC (fidelity to Data driven instruction

through SCAN, lesson planning, reflective activities, ensure co-planning

between mirror teachers)

• Host Learning Labs through SCAN and CCSS lenses



• Coaching


Non -Teaching Time: .6 FTE

Team Need: Data Driven Math instruction with high-impact moves

and rigorous lessons

Team Need: Data Driven SS & Science instruction with high-impact moves

and rigorous lessons

Goal: All teachers will score at least a 4.5 in each of the three

domains of LEAP

Goal: All teachers will score at least a 4.5 in each of the three

domains of LEAP

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-RaQdLsfl_udURYbFFWNzRKVjQ&usp=sharing&tid=0B-RaQdLsfl_uOU9VREkzVWhCN1k

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-RaQdLsfl_uT3JHdk9nS2ZqZms&usp=sharing&tid=0B-RaQdLsfl_uOU9VREkzVWhCN1k

26


In this second example, an elementary school has three roles that will move the school toward its goals of increased teacher effectiveness via LEAP ratings and sustained student success as measured by CMAS growth (the metrics of which are not evident here, but are referred to elsewhere in the document).


• Facilitate LA departments PLC (fidelity to Data driven instruction through SCAN, lesson planning, reflective

activities, ensure co-planning between

mirror teachers)

• Host Learning Labs through SCAN and

CCSS lenses



• Coaching



• Learning Lab focus- standards LEAP scores,

qualitative & quantitative- surveys on teacher growth

with CRT,

• involved with the broader community of Montbello

• Remediation: 3 heavy touch high need teachers

• Developing CR Leadership Capacity: 4 soft touch TLs to lead CR work in

other PLCs


• Lead PLC on lesson planning for CCSS

integration (daily & LDC Modules)

• Host Learning Labs through CCSS-ELA sense



• Coaching

Non-Teaching Time: .5 FTE

Non-Teaching Time: .4 FTE

Non-Teaching Time .3FTE

# of Teachers on Team: 4



Goal: All teachers will score at least a 4.5 in each of the

three domains of LEAP

Goal: All teachers will score at least a 4.5 in the

Learning Environment Domain on LEAP

Goal: All teachers will score at least a 4.5 on

I1, I5, I7, and I8

TEAM NEED: DATA DRIvEN LA

INSTRUCTION WITH HIGH-IMPACT MOvES AND

RIGOROUS LESSONS

TEAM NEED: CULTURE (POSITIvE YOUTH

DEvELOPMENT, PBIS, CULTURALLY RESPONSIvE

TEACHING)

TEAM NEED: CCSS/ LITERACY/

SHELTERING ACROSS THE CONTENT AREAS

OUR STATEMENT OF PURPOSE: THE PURPOSE OF THE TIF TEAM IS TO LEAD FOR A SCHOOL CULTURE OF HIGH QUALITY

INSTRUCTION THAT ENSURES REALIzATION OF THE HTEC MISSION, vISION, THREE PILLARS, AND OTHER GUIDING PRINCIPLES.

INCREASED TEACHER EFFECTIvENESS AND SUSTAINED STUDENT SUCCESS

i i i

i i i

27


Example 1 - Teacher Leader Schedule. In this model of a traditional secondary school on a regular school calendar, one 0.5 release time teacher works with six teachers; three are high touch* teachers (A, B, and C), and three are low touch* teachers (D, E, and F). The teacher spends the morning and one afternoon period teaching, and spends the rest of the time observing, giving feedback, and assisting with instruction.

6. Team Lead and Teacher Team Lead – Daily Schedules

TIME

BeforeSchool

8:00-9:00 Teaching

Teaching

Teaching

*Co-plan teacher D

Teacher Leader Coordinator

meeting

Planning

Lunch

Coaching: observer teacher A

Write-up/plan A

Diff Roles team Co-planning

plan time

Teaching

Teaching

Teaching

Planning time (PLC)

Planning

Lunch

Formal LEAP

Co-teach teacher D

*Reflective Conversations

teacher F

Teaching

Teaching

Teaching

Feedback Teacher A

Leading PLC

Grade Level Meeting

Lunch

Observer other teachers with

teacher B

Write up- reflections from observations B

Formal LEAP

Teaching

Teaching

Teaching

One-on-one with Principal

Write up/plan C

Planning

Lunch

Co-teach teacher B

Observer Teacher C

Reflect/Learn/with teacher B

Teaching

Teaching

Teaching

Formal LEAP write ups

Planning

Lunch

*Co-plan teacher E

Data team plan

Receive Coaching from TLC

(teacher leader coordinator)

9:00-10:00

10:00-10:45

10:45-11:30

11:30-12:15

12:00-12:45

12:45-1:30

1:30-2:15

2:15-3:00

After School

Data team-Leading

Senior Leadership Team

MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY

Coaching-associated work time or

meetings

Lunch

Feedback Sessions Observations Teaching Teaching-associated Meetings

School Leadership Meetings

28


Example 2 - Teacher Leader Schedule. In this model of a traditional elementary school on a regular school calendar, one teacher leader at 0.5 FTE release time, demonstrates how he/she works with six teachers each week.

TIME

12:00- 12:40

12:40-1:00

Time with Teacher F

Observation

Meet with DR Team

Write-up Obs

Planning for Coaching

Time with Teacher D

Plan PLC

Time with TLC

Write-up Obs

Observation

Run PLC

Observation

Observation

Write-up Obs

Planning for Coaching

Time with Teacher E

One-on-One with Principal

Observation

Reflect on PLCs

Reflection on Coaching

Observation

Plan PLC

Observation

Write-up Obs

1:00-1:40

1:40- 2:00

2:00-2:40

2:40-3:00

Observation Time with Teacher B

Time with Teacher C Run PLC Time with

Teacher A

MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY

Coaching-associated work time or

meetingsFeedback Sessions Observations School Leadership

Meetings

29


Example 3 – Student-Facing Schedule. In this model of a traditional elementary school on a regular school calendar, Differentiated Roles teachers are released during the time their students have math and science or social studies. A 1.0 FTE is added to teach science and social studies for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade. The other dependency of this model is that the other teacher at each grade level would cover teaching math for both sections. Electives are the time for grade-level planning, and teachers have lunch the same time their students have lunch.

TIME

8:00

Literacy Block (8:00 – 10:30)

Math or Sci / SS (8:00 – 8:55)

Elective (8:00 – 8:55)

Skills / ELD (8:50 – 9:30)

Intervention (9:30 – 9:50)

Math or Sci / SS (9:55 – 10:50)

Math or Sci / SS (10:55 – 11:50)

Lunch (11:50 – 12:30)

Math or Sci / SS (8:55 – 9:50)


Elective (10:20 – 11:10)

Skills / ELD (11:10 – 11:45)

Lunch (11:45 – 12:30)



Skills / ELD (10:30 – 11:10)

Lunch (11:10 – 11:50)

Elective (11:50 – 12:40)

Math or Sci / SS (12:40 – 1:35)

Math or Sci / SS (1:35 – 2:35)


8:158:308:459:009:159:309:45

10:0010:1510:3010:4511:0011:1011:3011:4512:0012:1512:3012:451:001:151:301:452:002:152:302:453:00

3RD GRADE 5TH GRADE4TH GRADE

Teaching

30


7. Contact Names for Differentiated Roles program team members / areas of responsibility

Program Website: www.tinyurl.com/diffroles

Google Drive: Differentiated Roles Program Resources

Differentiated Roles Program

Allison Trombley

Manager, Differentiated Roles

Kate Brenan

Sr. Manager, Teacher Career Pathways

Justin Darnell

Sr. Manager, Teacher Leadership

TBD

Operations Lead

School Readiness, Implementation Design, and School Leader Support

Funding, Program policy oversight

Team Lead onboarding, training and development

Operations related to application process, funding notifications

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

TBD

This Guidebook was created by Connie Casson of Blue Seats Consulting.

Connie would like to thank the TIF Program team for their expertise, guidance, and optimism, particularly Kate Brenan and Allison Trombley.

Blue Seats Consulting specializes in strategic planning, organizational analysis, and program management for districts, charters, and education non-profits. Additional information is available at www.BlueSeatsConsulting.com.

Layout and design of the Guidebook by Troubadour Design Studio. Additional information is available at www.TroubadourDesigns.com.

https://sites.google.com/a/dpsk12.net/dps-differentiated-roles/

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-RaQdLsfl_uOU9VREkzVWhCN1k&usp=sharing

mailto:TIF%40dpsk12.org?subject=

mailto:Allison_Trombley%40dpsk12.org?subject=

mailto:Kate_brenan%40dpsk12.org?subject=

mailto:Justin_darnell%40dpsk12.org?subject=

http://www.BlueSeatsConsulting.com

http://www.TroubadourDesigns.com