The gameplan: A state department of education wishes to take on the challenge of significant disproportionality in its districts. They draw it up on the board and are ready to hit the court. But key to every all-star team are role-players, team members ready and able to lend a hand at just the right moment to help ensure a big win. That’s where IDC comes in to play.
When the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) asked us to help deliver its training sessions for districts with significant disproportionality, our own Nancy Johnson, Tom Munk, and Heather Reynolds came off the bench to help: from the planning stages to the two-day event itself to the required follow-up activities designed to ensure a focus on building systems and infrastructures for sustainable change and improved outcomes for students with disabilities.
Later, Nancy, Tom, and Heather were excited to share all the highlights of their experience working with KDE. Here’s how it all went down in more detail:
“Once identified, the summer training sessions—Addressing Equity, Inclusion, and Opportunity—served as the initial phase of addressing a district’s disproportionality and focused on preparing districts to address success gaps, including significant disproportionality data, calculations and success gaps statements as well as equity teams, root cause analysis, priorities, and action plans. Each summer training session concluded with financial considerations and requirements for implementing Comprehensive Coordinated Early Intervening Services (CCEIS), which is a requirement for districts identified with significant disproportionality. We also assisted with a review of and schedule for documents and information that districts must submit to KDE and supports and resources available to the districts.”
IDC wants to assist your all-star team as well. For starters, check out IDC’s Success Gaps Toolkit to learn more about a process for using data to identify the root causes of gaps between groups of children in districts or schools. Or if your state is interested in our technical assistance around CCEIS, significant disproportionality, or success gaps, why not reach out to your IDC State Liaison? Put us in, coach. We’re ready.