The Collaborative Initiative in a High Achieving School: Working Together to Achieve Success

The Collaborative Initiative in a High Achieving School: Working Together to Achieve Success

Collaborative teaching has been defined in many ways in recent research. Perhaps the most descriptive and appropriate moniker is "co-teaching." In true co-teaching, two or more educators possessing distinct sets of knowledge and skills (for example, a general educator and a special educator) work together to teach academically heterogeneous groups of students in the general education classroom (Bauwens and Hourcade 1995). Many administrators in recent years have taken a definition such as this, placed two professionals in the classroom, crossed their fingers, and hoped for the best. Dr. Marilyn Friend, the widely perceived "guru" of the collaborative initiative from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, more sharply focused the definition as Two (or more) educators or other professionally certified staff (not a paraprofessional) share instructional responsibility for a single group of students primarily in a single classroom or workspace to teach required curriculum with mutual ownership, pooled resources, and joint accountability although each individual's level of participation may vary (Friend, 2008).

The need for co-teaching is simple, during the 1995-96 academic year, three-fourths of students with disabilities received most or all of their educational programs in general education classrooms. That trend is likely to continue into the foreseeable future (US Department of Education 1998). The focus on over-identification of special education students and the introduction of Response to Intervention (RTI) added to the urgency of finding solutions to the new classrooms of America.

The belief that co-teaching was a common-sense approach to the new challenges educators were facing inspired our faculty at Western Albemarle High School to incorporate a collaborative initiative as part of our journey of continuous improvement. This is a decision that has helped to enable more students in the school to experience success than have ever before. In just two years, there is significant data to indicate that this initiative is playing a major role in increased student achievement. It is a story that needs to be shared.

Western Albemarle High School is a suburban high school of 1,100 students located in Crozet, Virginia, just west of Charlottesville. Students are traditionally high achieving with little diversity racially or socioeconomically. SAT, Standards of Learning, and Advanced Placement test scores are usually high and classroom grades are very good as well. Most discipline issues revolve around attendance concerns such as being tardy and skipping. Parent involvement is high and many, if not most of the teachers, have been at the school for more than a decade.

Until three years ago, students were recommended by teachers to be scheduled into homogeneous classes based on achievement levels. These tiers included practical, standard, advanced, honors, and advanced placement classes. In addition, a number of students with IEP's were placed in self-contained special education classes.

The brief summary of the school might suggest that it is a strong educational institution with minimal academic concerns. High test scores, few discipline issues, excellent parent involvement, and experienced staff certainly do not indicate a school in crisis. But as the metaphor of the onion suggests, one often has to peel back the layers to find the real issues.

No Child Left Behind federal and state guidelines motivated the school's administration after the 2006-2007 school year to look more deeply than the superficial excellence that the casual observer may notice. That deeper look revealed that underneath the 90% average pass rates calculated by the total number of students taking the eleven end-of-course Standards of Learning tests for all students were the students with an Individualized Learning Plan who earned a 74% on the same eleven assessments. Furthermore, these special education students did not make Adequate Yearly Progress in four areas a result that was actually worse than the year before.. So, the continuing rising level to qualify for Adequate Yearly Progress as well as the downward trend in scores of students identified with an IEP presented a problem that needed to be solved.

At a special education meeting in the spring of 2007, Kevin Kirst, the Albemarle County Director of Special Education, issued the following challenge, "If we wait until students are ready to work on challenging standards by virtue of having mastered basic skills, they might not ever work on challenging standards. Exposure to content helps develop knowledge networks." These words provided the impetus for the implementation of a true co-teaching model based on the work by Dr. Friend. The result was the formation of a proposal to collapse the standard and practical levels (the lowest two levels at the school) into one level, creatively referred to now as the standard/practical level.

Rationale for the combined levels included the fact that there were a number of special education students who were assigned to practical and/or self-contained classes who were not being exposed to the curriculum and therefore not passing the Standards of Learning End-of-Course assessments. Additionally, students in practical classes were earning a disproportionate number of discipline referrals and 12% of those students were showing a grade of F on their report cards. The minimal performance of many students identified for special education services clearly indicated that academic needs were not being met.

The decision to allow the school to collapse levels was not made until early summer prior to the 2007-2008 school year. Although the other two county high schools in the district had already collapsed their standard and advanced level classes to form an academic level, the administration at Western did not believe that collapsing the upper levels was an appropriate move for the student population of the school. There were concerns about a lack of consistency regarding leveling from Central Office. The school liaison to the central office, Tom Nash, the former Executive Director for Intervention and Prevention Services, was skeptical about the potential for success and concerned about the lack of consistency in the county. Even with these reservations, Mr. Nash facilitated the implementation of the collapsing of these levels. As the initiative took roots and started to grow, Tom Nash became one of the programs biggest supporters. The school will always be grateful to him for his courage and unwavering commitment.

The decision to collaborate as many core area standard/practical classes as possible was made administratively. It certainly met with some resistance, justifiably so, as some teachers had three preparations, did not have common planning, and were working with other staff members that they may not have had a previous relationship. It was difficult to get general educators to give up some control of their classes, and just as difficult to get some special educators to step-up to the plate and truly share planning, delivery, and assessment of instruction. Some teachers wanted the school to pilot a handful of classes, but time was short and immersion seemed to be the quickest way to reach students who were failing to learn in larger numbers than ever before. The following explanation was distributed to all standard/practical collaborators:

Practical/Standard Classes

In an effort to better serve our student population, we have decided to collaborate our standard/practical classes. In doing so, we have attempted to place a special education teacher with a regular education teacher with a goal of no more than 24 students in a class. We hope that this will help us to meet what Kevin Kirst refers to as the "Curriculum Challenge" and give special education students more access to the full curriculum. We are currently trying to organize a significant professional development plan to address the needs of the collaborative classroom and target that as a point of emphasis for the year.

Implementation

We have attempted to give collaborative teams common planning whenever possible. We are considering how PLC time can/should be used for those teachers who do not share common planning. In a couple of situations, collaborative teachers do not share common planning or PLC time due to part-time assignments or other complications. In the future we will continue to address these issues and find solutions.

In an effort to provide better service to the core area collaborative teams, we sought to hire teachers who were comfortable in planning and delivering instruction in the classroom as well as completing the related assessments. We have also placed current staff in what we believe to be positions of strength as well.

Professional Development had to happen quickly. We were fortunate to acquire the services of Dr. Sarah Armstrong who had resigned her position as an Assistant Superintendent of Staunton City Schools (Virginia) to do consulting work around the Commonwealth and surrounding area. Dr. Armstrong had some significant experience with not only co-teaching, but brain research as well. Her experience, knowledge, and calm demeanor were a definite catalyst to a more successful implementation process. Dr. Armstrong did a workshop for our teachers in October that addressed strategies for planning as well as delivery of instruction. Over the first three years of our Collaborative Initiative, Dr. Armstrong has continued to work patiently with administrators, faculty, and staff to find more successful methods to reach students and more efficient ways to work together. Financial support provided to the school by county special education funds and staff development coffers were critical to the implementation of the program.

Once the professional development program was in place, the next step had to be to find ways to convince teachers to take more ownership of the initiative. A Collaborative Consensus team was organized. The team consisted of representatives from each of the core areas, the Special Education Department, the School Counseling Office, Building-level Administrators, and Central Office Administrators. As the program continued to grow over the past three years, two experienced collaborative teachers received a stipend to be the lead collaborative team. This team has taken over many of the professional development opportunities that Dr. Armstrong once did. The school still contracts Dr. Armstrong to do observations, meet with teacher teams, and provide consulting

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