1. 4/19/2017

2. Louisiana’s Comprehensive Learning Supports System
4/19/2017

3. A hard look at ourselves…
“…schools fail because the challenges they face are substantial; because they themselves are dysfunctional; and because the system of which they are part is not responsive to the needs of the high-poverty student populations they tend to serve”
Mass Insight, Education and Research Institute
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4. Spring 2007….
We were challenged to build a world-class Department of Education
Each office in the Department was challenged to build a world-class Office within the Department by finding world- class assistance
Office of School and Community Support found The Center at UCLA with support from Scholastic
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5. What Happened Next? UCLA, Scholastic and DOE met in Fall 2008
Superintendent gave us the charge to develop a plan for the state on how to integrate a system of support into the school improvement process
We established a Design Team made up of a cross-section of DOE
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6. Louisiana’s Rankings #1 in Accountability
#1 in policies for improving Teacher Quality
Close to top for Content Standards, GLEs and Curriculum
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7. More Rankings Near top on: Poverty Childhood obesity Juvenile crime
Adolescent drug abuse
Teenage pregnancy
Near bottom in student achievement
Near bottom on children’s health
Very low adult literacy levels
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8. What is our plan for improvement?
To accomplish the essential public education goal of enabling all students to have an equal opportunity for success at school, research indicates the need for developing a comprehensive, multifaceted, and cohesive system of learning supports.
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9. A Definition… Learning Supports:
The resources, strategies, and practices that provide physical, social, emotional, and intellectual supports to directly address barriers to learning and teaching and re-engage disconnected students.
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10. and School Improvement
Barriers to Learning
and School Improvement
There are many barriers that interfere with ensuring that all students have an equal opportunity to succeed at school.
All these barriers contribute to large numbers of disconnected students who need learning supports to address barriers to learning and teaching and help them re-engage in the learning environment .
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11. A Definition… Comprehensive Learning Supports System
This system provides supportive interventions in the classroom and school-wide and is fully integrated with the efforts to improve instruction and management at the school.
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12. How Are We Currently Addressing Barriers to Learning?
Fragmented
Policy
Fragmented
Practices
4/19/2017

13. Traditional School Improvement Components in Education
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14. Escaping Old Ways of Thinking
The foundation for rethinking school improvement involves adopting a three-component conceptual framework to guide development of a comprehensive system at every school in Louisiana for enabling/supporting learning:
An Instructional Component that provides guidance for best practices for effective instruction.
A Management Component that guides best practices for site management and administrative capacity.
A Comprehensive Learning Supports Component that guides the coalescing of resources to address barriers to student engagement in the classroom.

15. A Unifying Concept to Address Barriers to Learning and Teaching*
07/16/96
A Unifying Concept to Address Barriers to Learning and Teaching
Comprehensive Learning Supports Component:
Designed to enable learning by addressing factors that interfere with learning and teaching
Examples of programs, services, and initiatives:
Positive behavioral supports
Programs for safe and drug free schools
Full service community schools & Family Resource Centers
Safe Schools/Healthy Students
School Based Health Center movement
Coordinated School Health Program
Bi-lingual, cultural, and other diversity
programs
Re-engaging disengaged students
Compensatory education programs
Special education programs
Mandates stemming from the No Child Left Behind Act
And many more activities by student support staff
Add any current initiatives and programs for example EMPLoy that also fits into this list. * 15

16. What a Comprehensive Learning Supports System Is Not…
A case-by-case approach that focuses only on individual students with problems and is unable to meet the needs of many students.
A fragmented set of student and family services.
A marginalized and highly restrictive set of student and family services and crisis responses.
An approach that mostly focuses on using outside providers.
An approach that is unable to meet the needs of most students even with capacity building.
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17. What a Comprehensive Learning Supports System Is Not…

18. What a Comprehensive Learning Supports System Is…
A resource-oriented approach that uses aggregated school and student data and maps and analyzes resources to clarify what learning supports a school needs.
An operational infrastructure at a school designed to recommend priorities for alignment and redeployment of resources to develop a comprehensive system of learning supports.
A continuum of interventions that encompasses prevention and early intervention and is fully integrated into school improvement.
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19. What a Comprehensive Learning Supports System Is… Continued
A system that emphasizes both school-wide and classroom supports, learns from best practices in our High Poverty/High Success schools, and seeks to weave in community supports.
A system that can benefit from regional and state-level capacity building.
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20. What a Comprehensive Learning Supports System Is… Continued

21. Benefits of a Comprehensive Learning Supports System*
07/16/96
Benefits of a Comprehensive Learning Supports System
Reducing student dropout rates
Reducing teacher dropout rates
Re‑engaging many disconnected students in classroom learning
Narrowing the achievement gap
Countering the plateau effect related to student achievement
Reducing the growing list of schools designated as low performing
Underlined areas are key components of the program. Stress how Learning Supports address the underlined goals.
4/19/2017 21 *

22. High Poverty / High Performing Schools Initiative
Some Schools Get It!
High Poverty / High Performing Schools Initiative
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23. How High-Performing, High-Poverty Schools Do it*
How High-Performing, High-Poverty Schools Do it
07/16/96
Reengagement of students
Explain the overall principal of this slide. As circle and arrows appear, explain how learning supports addressess these components of the Turnaround Challenge.
Analysis of resources and how they are utilized
Capacity building and support from district and state
Operational Infrastructure
The Turnaround Challenge, Mass Insight *

24. Meeting the Challenge…*
07/16/96
Meeting the Challenge…
Reframe current student/learning support programs
Redeploy resources
Develop in-classroom and school-wide approaches, including learning supports found effective in our High Poverty/High Achieving schools
Underlined areas are key components of the program. Stress how Learning Supports address the underlined goals.
4/19/2017 24 *

25. Continued…
Develop the capacity to implement learning supports through leadership training
Revamp infrastructures at the school, district, and state levels
Develop and implement accountability indicators directly related to the Learning Supports System and fully integrate it into school improvement accountability
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26. A Message From Superintendent Paul Pastorek
Teacher Tube Address
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27. A final thought….
Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation.
John F. Kennedy ( )
Thirty-fifth President of the USA
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