The Beginning of the Next School Year Starts Now: The
“Get-Go Process”
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Dear Colleagues,
Introduction
Last week, on May
17th, the 65th anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case
was celebrated. As we all know, this unanimous
Supreme Court decision determined that state laws—establishing racially
segregated public schools—were unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools
were otherwise equal in quality. More
specifically, the Court decided that “separate educational facilities are
inherently unequal” and, thus, that they violated the Equal Protection Clause
of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
Critically,
however, the Supreme Court decision did not specify how states were to eliminate
racial segregation in schools, and it ordered states to desegregate “with all
deliberate speed.” Thus, while Brown
was a landmark civil rights decision, during the past 65 years, many districts
and schools have “waxed and waned” from segregation to integration to
re-segregation.
But the “bottom
line,” as discussed in Part I of this two-part Blog series, is that the current
state of educational equity is not good.
While segregated educational facilities were deemed by the Supreme Court
to be inherently unequal, the quality of instruction and the availability of
resources and money in today’s schools—for many students from poverty
and students of color—is unequal.
Below is a quick
review.
_ _ _ _ _
In Part I of this
series, we provided data from a number of sources showing that high-poverty
non-white schools in this country receive significantly less money per pupil
each year than high-poverty white schools and middle or upper class dominated
schools, respectfully. While this
involves approximately 12.8 million students—many of them attending schools in
urban settings—this is a nationwide problem.
Because of the
financial inequity, these high-poverty schools have fewer resources than middle
or upper class-dominant schools, and they are typically staffed by less
experienced teachers who have more skill gaps, and who resign from their
schools more often and after fewer years in-rank. In addition, the students in these schools
typically have less access to high level science, math, and advanced placement
courses, and less access to needed multi-tiered academic and social, emotional,
and behavioral services, supports, programs, and interventions.
Correlated with the
poverty, many of these students exhibit health, mental health, academic, and
social, emotional, and behavioral challenges, that also triangulate with stress
and trauma—including the impact of hunger and poor nutrition, parental incarceration
and loss, abuse and neglect, and the exposure to violence and drugs.
From a school
perspective, all of this translates into lower numbers of
academically-proficient students, and schools that are either in their state’s
ESEA-driven school improvement programs or that are rated at the low end of
their state’s school report card scale.
From a student perspective, all of this
translates into negative effects on students’ school attendance and
expectations, classroom engagement and motivation, academic readiness and
proficiency, emotional self-control and prosocial interactions and, ultimately,
their high school graduation and readiness for the workforce.
_ _ _ _ _
Critically, the
sources of the existing financial inequities start from the top and move down.
Indeed, the
financial inequity occurs at the federal level relative to funding for students
with disabilities. Some of the inequity
rests at the state level relative to their respective funding formulas and how
they distribute educational funds to all of their districts. Other inequities occur at the district levels
relative to funds generated from local property taxes, and the ability of
parent groups to generate discretionary money through fund-raisers and other
donations.
In the final
analysis, Part I of this series described a vicious cycle due to all of this.
Despite the fact
that teachers’ relationships with their students are one of the strongest
predictors of student engagement and learning, these relationships are hard to
establish and maintain given the effects (noted above) that occur in many
underfunded schools. This is compounded
due to the intensity of the conditions in these schools’ communities and of the
students’ needs.
Because of the
under-funding, many of these schools do not have the effective multi-tiered
system of supports and resources that the students need. Thus, the students’ problems persist or
expand, classrooms and schools go into crisis, staff become reactive instead of
proactive, more students are sucked into the negative climate and culture, and
the entire cycle begins anew.
Part I ended with a
plea for systemic changes relative to federal, state, and district funding
policies, principles, and practices. We
recommended a “Core-Plus Funding”
process whereby all schools in a district receive the core funding needed for
student success, but where the schools with additional or significant student
needs receive, annually, the additional funds and resources needed for their
success.
_ _ _ _ _
In today’s Part II
of this series, we will briefly discuss a new report showing the impact of poverty
and the importance of equitable school under-funding, and revisit the Core-Plus
Funding process—identifying one district that has been using it successfully.
We will then
describe the “Get-Go” process. This is a
process we have used across the country at the end of the school year to help
schools identify and prepare for their diverse student needs on the first
day of the new school year.
The Get-Go process helps districts know how to
best deploy existing staff, services, and support to meet as many student needs
as possible, and it can be used to determine how much “Plus Funding” different
schools need as a function of their academically struggling and/or behaviorally
challenging students.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
First: The Inequity Story Continues. . .
On May 15, 2019
(last week), Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce
published a study, Born to Win, Schooled to Lose: Why Equally Talented Students
Don’t Get Equal Chances to Be All They Can Be.
This study used
data from a number of national longitudinal databases to investigate the impact
of students’ socio-economic status in kindergarten on their college and career
outcomes. Among the databases used were:
the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, the Consumer Expenditure
Survey, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (to
determine students’ socio-economic status); and the Early Childhood
Longitudinal Study: Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999, and the Education
Longitudinal Study of 2002.
The Early
Childhood Longitudinal Study’s 1998-1999 kindergarten cohort involved a representative
sample of 21,260 kindergartners from across the country. The Education Longitudinal Study of 2002
sampled a nationally representative group of over 15,000 10th graders from over
750 schools beginning in 2002.
This study is
important to our discussion of inequity because it (a) demonstrates that
socio-economic inequity for students in kindergarten has dire, long-term
effects; and (b) that schools with large numbers of poor students (many of whom
are students of color) need more (not fewer—as shown in Part I of this Blog
series) resources and funding to address these students’ needs.
[[CLICK HERE for the Key Findings from this
study in the full Blog message]
All of these
results from this report crystallize the long-term impact of poverty. And while the report did not analyze whether
low-SES students attending better resourced schools had better outcomes, past
research suggests that quality education and sound multi-tiered supports can
mediate the impact of poverty. This,
then, reinforces the potential impact of “Core-Plus” funding for schools with
high numbers of students from poverty.
In the end, addressing
the problems outlined in the Georgetown University report is not just a moral
imperative; it is a national economic and social imperative. And this imperative is no less important than
that highlighted in the 1983 A Nation at Risk report over three decades ago.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Briefly Revisiting
“Core-Plus Funding”
In Part I of this
Blog series, we discussed Core-Plus Funding as one way to address inequities in
school funding. We noted that:
Core-Plus Funding occurs when, for example, every district in a state or every school in
a district receives, each year, the core funding that it needs to run a
successful multi-tiered instruction and support program for all of its
students. The “plus funding” are the additional dollars that are given to
districts or schools to support the services, supports, programs, and interventions
needed by at-risk, underachieving, unresponsive, unsuccessful, and failing
students.
This “plus funding” is allocated (a) for the service
needs of existing students; (b) to compensate for student problems or
deficiencies (e.g., from high-poverty schools) that have resulted because “plus
funding” was absent in the past; and (c) to students who are at-risk, or are
showing “early warning” signs, of future, potentially significant needs.
Core-Plus Funding must occur from the federal to state
to district to school levels. But a
prerequisite to all of this, naturally, is adequate Core Funding that
successfully supports the instructional, programmatic, resource, and related
service needs for all of the students in every school.
Unfortunately, there are no national studies
identifying what states or school districts employ Core-Plus Funding processes
(or the equivalent), which funding formulae work best, and whether Core-Plus
Funding was producing positive student outcomes.
A June 6, 2018 Education Week article,
“Equity in K-12 Funding More Complex than Just Dollars,” did a nice job of
outlining the complexity of the relevant issues. It also identified Wyoming as a state that
was addressing both core and equity-based funding in an effective way, and
Alaska as the only state that, in 2015, spent more money in its
poverty-stricken districts than in its wealthier districts.
Relative to Core-Plus funding in specific
districts, a May 14, 2019 article (last week) in the74 noted
equity-based funding in New Orleans’ schools as one of ten reasons why there
has been an educational renaissance in that district.
The
article stated:
New Orleans’s public schools
have shown significant growth and progress in the past 13 years. This progress
did not happen overnight; it took passion, leadership, accountability, funding
and focus to turn our education system around. The results are impressive. In
2005, 62% of New Orleans students attended the lowest-performing schools in the
state, compared with just 8% in 2018. (The District’s) college-entry rate has
risen from 37% in 2004 to 61% in 2017.
Equitable funding: Resources for our schools are
allocated based on students’ unique needs
New Orleans’s public schools
are funded not only based on how many students they educate but also on the
number of students with additional needs and the intensity of those needs.
Schools get more funding if they educate more English learners, students who
are overage for their grade and students with special needs. The special-needs
funding is also proportional to the specific services each child requires.
_ _ _ _ _
While, as noted
above, we are in our infancy relative to determining the best approaches to
Core-Plus Funding, there is no question that we must—at the federal, state, and
local levels—figure out how to address the inequities in educational funding
and how this inequity impacts schools’ multi-tiered systems of support.
But at the local
level, the first step in this process is to identify students’ current
needs. With this information, at the
very least, districts and schools can best align their existing funds,
personnel, and resources to meet as many student needs as possible.
The remainder of
this Blog will discuss this needs assessment process—one that we call the “Get-Go”
process. This is a process we have used
across the country at the end of the school year to help schools identify and
prepare for their diverse student needs on the first day of the new school
year.
While the Get-Go
process helps districts know how much “Plus Funding” different schools need as
a function of their critical student needs, it also guides their distribution
of staff and resources, and their decisions regarding professional development
and teacher coaching.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The
Beginning of the School Year Starts in April
While most schools are focused on student
testing during the last months of the school year, this is also a crucial time to
reflect on the “lessons learned” during the current school year so that they
can inform and prepare everyone for the next school year.
This is a planned, summative evaluation
process that potentially involves everyone in a school. It could involve administration and staff, school
leadership teams, and other committees or units (e.g., secretaries, paraprofessionals,
cafeteria workers, custodians). And it
could focus on curriculum, instruction, or the delivery and impact of
multi-tiered interventions by related services and other academic support staff.
We
have guided districts and schools through this current-to-next-school-year “articulation”
process for over 35 years. The theme of
the process is:
The
beginning of the new school year starts in April.
The functional
point of the theme is that:
When schools complete this organizational,
curricular, instructional, intervention, and student evaluation process, they
can use the data—beginning in April or May—to (a) align and adapt existing
resources; (b) acquire and activate new resources; and/or (c) retire or reserve
other, unneeded resources all to address as many students’ collective and
individual needs on the first day of the new year.
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _
The “Get-Go”
Process
The “Get-Go”
Process is part of this articulation process where the progress and current
status of every student in the school is evaluated. In most schools, this is best accomplished by
using their existing data-management system to import and post the needed data
into interactive student roster spreadsheets.
These data are then
reviewed by the grade-level teams of teachers with the involvement of
administrators, related service professionals (e.g., counselors, school
psychologists, and others), intervention specialists (including special
education teachers), and selected others.
At times, the process also includes each grade level’s the “next
highest” grade-level team—the teachers who will receive that grade-level cohort
of students at the beginning of the next school year.
The goals of
the Get-Go Process are to:
- Complete a final, summative evaluation of the academic, and social, emotional, and behavioral progress of every student— including their attendance, medical and home/living status (as relevant), and their multi-tiered intervention status (again, as relevant).
A significant portion of these data
are required by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act for every school’s
annual report and Report Card.
_ _ _ _ _
- Use the information collected to help organize what classes and/or “home rooms” students will be assigned to for the next school year.
This is often done to ensure that
every (especially elementary and middle school) classroom has only three
functional skills groups in it so that teachers can successfully differentiate
instruction. This is also done so that
all classroom teachers know the functional literacy, math, writing/language
arts, and oral expression skill levels of all students—again, so that they can
differentiate instruction, and in case they need to provide remediation,
accommodations, or modifications.
_ _ _ _ _
- Identify and communicate the special needs (as identified during the process—see below) of specific students to the next year’s classroom teacher (or teaching team), as well as to the school’s administration and related services and support staff—so that the school is prepared to implement all necessary interventions starting on the first day of the new school year.
The last part of this goal is
critical. Students should not have to
wait for effective instruction, or the services, supports, or interventions
that they need to succeed in school until Day 2 of the school year—much less
Day 5, Week 3, or beyond. Especially for
students with IEPs or 504 Plans, their services or interventions (by law)
should be fully present and functional on the first day of school.
_ _ _ _ _
- To identify the resources and personnel needed to address the universal, strategic, and intensive needs of all students in a school prior to the end of the previous school year, so that (a) needed resources are coordinated or purchased during the summer, and (b) appropriate staff can be deployed or hired.
Thus, in addition to summarizing
the progress of all general education students, it is especially critical to
review—as part of the Get-Go process—the status and progress of all students who
received strategic or intensive services during any part of a school year, as
well as the status and progress of students with disabilities who are on either
Individual Education or 504 Plans. This
review must include both the teachers and related services and other support
staff (as relevant) who were primarily (and often cooperatively) responsible
for these students’ school programs and programming.
[CLICK HERE for a complete description of the
Get-Go Meeting, data, and decision-making processes in the full Blog message]
During the Get-Go process,
students are given one of four designations.
Students can be identified as Get-Go, At-Risk, Check-In,
or No-Problem students, respectively.
These are defined below.
- A “Get-Go” student is a student who needs immediate interventions in place on the first day of the new school year. Students on IEPs, 504 Plans, and any other state-mandated intervention plan are automatically Get-Go students as their interventions, by law or regulation, must be in place on the first day of the new school year.
However, a Get-Go student might be
a medically fragile student, a student with a significant allergy, or some
other special student situation that staff need to be prepared for even on the
first day of the new school year.
_ _ _ _ _
- An “At-Risk” student is a student who has received academic, behavioral, or other interventions during the past school year that were successful to the extent that they are not needed at the beginning of the new school year. These interventions could have been implemented solely by the classroom teacher(s), or they might have involved an Academic or Behavioral Intervention Plan and other support staff.
Regardless, despite the fact that interventions
are not immediately needed at the beginning of the school year, current staff
still believe that their colleagues at the next grade level need to understand
the history and lessons learned regarding these specific students—in case the
problems re-emerge or the transition to the new year is not fully
successful.
Thus, all new teachers for all
At-Risk students are systematically briefed, verbally and through a written
Student Briefing Report, on the history of the student, successful and
unsuccessful interventions tried, and how to best transition the student into
the new school year.
_ _ _ _ _
- “Check-In” students have received and have completed one or more successful interventions, and the staff feel that they will have no difficulties in transitioning to the next school year. At the same time, the staff want to put one final “safety net” in place and have someone check in on the student at some point during the first quarter of the school year.
Thus, when identifying Check-In
students, the grade-level teams identify the area(s) of concern, when the
check-in should occur (e.g., after Week 1, 2, 4, or 9), and who should complete
the check-in and with whom. For some
students, the check-in simply involves running an attendance or office
discipline report in the Office. For
others, it involves a scan of selected students’ report cards at the end of the
first marking period. And, for others,
it involves asking a student’s teacher to complete a brief “Current Student
Sheet” to provide some brief feedback on the student’s performance in the
classroom.
_ _ _ _ _
- “No-Problem” students have made good progress during the current school year, and have no history or characteristics that their future teachers (and others) need to be brief on. In most schools, the vast majority of the students typically are “No-Problem” students.
While most students
who are identified with one of the first three designations during the Get-Go
process have academic or behavioral needs, some students may be identified, for
example, because of (chronic) attendance issues (including being persistently
late), because they have medical conditions that teachers and others need to
know about prior to the new school year, or because of family issues that
impact them at school and that are either historical in nature or that currently
exist.
In the final analysis, the Get-Go Process—completed
in April or May—helps to:
- Place students in the best homerooms or academic classes or courses to maximize their academic progress during the next school year
- Identify the multi-tiered academic staff, interventions, and groups needed for the coming year, organize students into the best groups possible, and schedule the groups
- Identify the multi-tiered social, emotional, and/or behavioral staff, interventions, and groups (e.g., individual or group counseling) needed for the coming year, organize students into the best groups possible, and schedule the groups
- Identify the multi-tiered academic or social, emotional, and behavioral materials, technology, or other resources needed to address Get-Go or At-Risk students’ needs
- Prepare the next year’s teachers relative to the accommodations, modifications, and/or interventions needed for different students with disabilities
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Summary
In Part I of this Blog
series, we provided data from a number of sources showing that high-poverty
non-white schools in this country receive significantly less money per pupil
each year than high-poverty white schools and middle or upper class dominated
schools, respectfully. While this
involves approximately 12.8 million students—many of them attending schools in
urban settings—this is a nationwide problem.
Because of the
financial inequity, these high-poverty schools have fewer resources than middle
or upper class-dominant schools, and they are typically staffed by less
experienced teachers who have more skill gaps, and who resign from their schools
more often and after fewer years in-rank.
In addition, the students in these schools typically have less access to
high level science, math, and advanced placement courses, and less access to
needed multi-tiered academic and social, emotional, and behavioral services,
supports, programs, and interventions.
In this Part II, we
added to the inequity discussion by reviewing a recent longitudinal study that
identified the short- and long-term effects of poverty— focusing especially on
the kindergarten through high school academic achievement of students who differed
by family income, race, and ethnicity.
Once again, we emphasized
the potential that schools and quality education can moderate the effects of
poverty, but not when many of the schools that low-SES students attend receive
significantly less money (as demonstrated in Part I of the series). We recommended a “Core-Plus Funding” process
as one way to address school-by-school inequity.
Finally, we
discussed the Get-Go process and how it can help districts determine how much
“Plus Funding” different schools need as a function of their critical student
needs, while also maximizing the use of district personnel and resources even
when sufficient funding is not present.
More specifically in
the context of equity, the Get-Go process is instrumental in helping schools identify—prior
to the next school year—the multi-tiered needs of students, especially those who
are chronically absent, academically struggling, or already presenting with social,
emotional, or behavioral challenges. This
helps the school determine—from a data-based perspective—the resources and personnel
needed to address the universal, strategic, and intensive (“Core-plus”) needs
of all students in a school before the summer begins.
When completed by
May, the results of the Get-Go process give the school and district enough time
to ensure that (a) needed resources are coordinated or purchased during the
summer, and (b) appropriate instructional, related services, and other support staff
are assigned, trained, or hired.
The Get-Go process also
provides critical information to next year’s teachers and support staff
regarding the “lessons learned” about students this year so that all teachers
are fully prepared to teach, and all support staff are ready to provide
services to all students on the first day of the new school year.
In the end, a district’s
multi-tiered services, supports, and interventions need to follow the students
regardless of the schools that they attend.
Even when “enough” money is not present, this is still the essence of
the Core-Plus process.
_ _ _ _ _
I understand the challenges
and controversies related to funding, equity, and my suggestion of Core-Plus
Funding. I consult with many schools
across the country for multiple years and many days per year. At the same time, when working with districts
that are committed both to the goal of Core-Plus Funding and to using the
Get-Go process, we have always come close to meeting our collective goals.
This is not to take
our federal and state governments off the hook.
The $23 billion per
year funding gap, favoring white over non-white districts and experienced
by approximately 12.8 million of our nation’s students (reported in the Shanker
Institute’s April, 2019 report, The Adequacy and Fairness of State School
Finance Systems; described in Part I of this series) is a travesty. It establishes a moral, social, and economic
imperative for change.
When will this be
addressed? Is there really anything to
celebrate on this 65th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education?
_ _ _ _ _
As always, I
appreciate those of you reading these thoughts.
If you have comments or questions, please contact me as desired.
Note that we have
number of Get-Go Process resources in our bookstore. And I am always happy to provide a free
one-hour conference call with you and your team at any time.
Best wishes as you
near the end of your school year.
Best,
Howie
