Show Notes
Wayne RESA Presents: Getting to the Core - MiCIP.
Today's content will be about continuous improvement. The State of Michigan has revamped our school and district planning to be more reflective, intuitive and responsive to the needs of staff and students. The process of district and school improvement is meant to be used for setting and aligning goals and expectations to the district and schools mission and vision. The goals have strategies and activities to systemically implement and address the needs of the district. Over time the process improvement planning has become cumbersome and compliance driven. MiCIP or Michigan Integrated Continuous Improvement Planning is a new and improved way to assist districts with school improvement in a way that helps to ensure that goals and expectations are being monitored and evaluated consistently throughout the school year. There's a new platform to house the plan that's much more intuitive than any of our old district school improvement systems. Your host is Marvin Franklin, Educational Improvement Consultant at Wayne RESA. Our guests are Nekeya Irby and Kimberly Murphy, Educational Improvement Consultants at Wayne RESA.
Resources
Transcript
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(ANNOUNCER): Welcome to Getting to the Core, a Wayne County Regional Educational Service Agency podcast. We invite you to join us as we discuss a variety of educational topics and hopefully plant a few seeds that get to the core of our mission leading, learning for all.
Marvin Franklin: Well, Hello and welcome to an episode of Getting To the Core. My name is Marvin Franklin an educational improvement consultant at Wayne County's Regional Educational Service Agency in Wayne county Michigan. We are affectionately known as Wayne RESA. Today's content will be about continuous improvement. The State of Michigan has revamped our school and district planning to be more reflective, intuitive and responsive to the needs of staff and students. The process of district and school improvement is meant to be used for setting and aligning goals and expectations to the district and schools mission and vision. The goals have strategies and activities to systemically implement and address the needs of the district.
Over time the process improvement planning has become cumbersome and compliance driven. MiCIP or Michigan Integrated Continuous Improvement
Planning is a new and improved way to assist districts with school improvement in a way that helps to ensure that goals and expectations are being monitored and evaluated consistently throughout the school year.
There's a new platform to house the plan that's much more intuitive than any of our old district school improvement systems. I have two other educational improvement consultants, Nekeya Irby
Nekeya Irby: Hi Marvin.
Marvin Franklin: and Kimberly Murphy
Kimberly Murphy: Hello, Marvin.
Marvin: to chime in and discuss a few elements of MiCIP and district improvement. Kim is going to delve into where to start. Nekeya is going to talk about equity and I will talk about chronic absenteeism. So let's begin our discussion with Kimberly. The content of district and school improvement is the same for the most part, but addressing continuous improvement within MiCIP, it's a challenge. Where do I start?
Kimberly: Well Marvin, when we're looking at that continuous improvement process, knowing that
we start with the district. The district identifies that goal and then we actually move into having a team. You need to have a continuous improvement team before you start. What does that look like? Who's on that team? For me. I think it's important that we have parents teachers, students, community members. What's important about this is that you want to make sure you have a different perspective. So one person can actually come with two perspectives, but you want to make sure they bring a different perspective and they bring some different background knowledge into the platform as you're establishing that one goal. So starting off with what's that goal and who's this team? Who's this team that's gonna come together to look at this district-wide data before we actually tag into our schools to do a little bit deeper.
Marvin: So, what's the best thing about Wayne RESA's MiCIP University and how can I find out more about it?
Kimberly: MiCIP University MiCIP university is something that we implemented this school year here at Wayne RESA and it is a recorded also live hour of really walking through that MiCIP process. The one thing that's important about that MiCIP university is that we have a mini-lesson but know that our participants also have an opportunity to break out. You can break out and learn about equity, you can look at the platform some additional technical support, even looking at some strategies and activities. So, knowing that that MiCIP University is something that we do and we're
doing it quarterly. Our next session is going to be December 5th, 2022. So, make sure that you sign up. But also going on to Wayne RESA's MiCIP continuous improvement site where we have a resource hub. So that resource hub has videos, it has recordings, it has resources and it also has what is most important-- is the frequently asked questions. So after each session, Marvin and Nicaea, when we ask questions, we go back and answer them and then we post them because again, we're modeling that immediate feedback to our team members.
Nekeya: I wonder if people can just come to the university at any point in the year Kim or do they need to have been there for the first session?
Kimberly: Nekeya, anyone can come to our MiCIP university. Everyone in each district is assigned to district liaison that works with your district, you can contact that person. Most likely the district liaisons will reach out to you. There's a registration link that you can use, you can sign up for it and you're able to attend and you'll also have access to all of the resources in the MiCIP University hub.
Nekeya: Outstanding.
Marvin: So I know you you kind of answered it. I just wanna ask again a little bit more information, how can a district ensure that everyone within their school and district knows the school goals when everyone is not part of the planning.
Kimberly: That's a very good question, Marvin because so many districts are different sizes and their different needs. So I think it's important to know that MiCIP is moving from the district. So, I think there has to be a communication protocol in place. So how are we informing our stakeholders? How are we informing our schools? What's the platform for that? So I think it's important to do some meetings where they're coming together to meet. I think it's also important to have a website where everyone understands and able to have access to that website. And I think at the school level, all throughout the school level, everyone needs to be aware of what that goal is. Is that goal posted? Is it embedded in everything we do? Do we have that equity lens embedded within that goal? So I think it's that constant continuous communication protocol in terms of making sure that all of our stakeholders, even our students, community, all parents, staff members are aware of what that goal is. and revisiting it throughout our analysis
Nekeya: Kim, I'm wondering if the people who are on the planning the team, if they are to be representative of everyone who is involved in that school community? How do they make sure that they get representation of different stakeholders on the team?
Kimberly: So Neykeya, I think what we, what we most likely what we do, we want to make sure that it's representative of all stakeholders is to tap into the different roles that are in that community. So making sure there is a faith based partner, making sure there is someone who is in the business community, making sure that there is a parent because again, all of them come together with a different perspective, but they also come, come to you with a different background, in terms of what's important to them. So making sure that we're not tapping into just who's in the building, but who's in the community because we really want to focus on that whole child. So we're looking, we're looking
at are our students safe? You know, are they challenged? You know, do they, are they healthy? We want to make sure that we tap into all of those different tenants. So to do that in order to tap into that whole child, we need to tap into that whole community.
Marvin: Now, Kim I heard you mention one goal. Now I've been a part of school improvement for a long time, and we've always had more than one goal, and more strategies, that kind of thing. So how many, how many goals must a district complete? And what must the focus be?
Kimberly: So, right now, Marvin and there's been conversation about goals, but right now the focus is on one goal. But, we want to make sure that the also that the focus is really is on making sure on the mindset on the process and on the platform. So we wanna make sure we're looking at accessing that platform, assessing those students implementing your plan. We want to make sure that we monitor, adjust and evaluate that plan. So it's only say continuous improvement It means that it's not a one stop shop. We're continuing to look at that data to monitor and make some instructional shifts.
Marvin: I really like that. Thank you so much for your expertise and I'm looking forward to seeing some of our districts or more of our districts come to the MiCIP University because I'm sure there'll be more questions as we move forward. As you mentioned, we've got a new mindset, a new process and a new
platform. So with all of that being said, I'm sure we've got quite a bit to address. and as we're having this conversation, one of the things that we've been in Wayne County, not just Wayne County all over the United States after the pandemic, has been an issue of chronic absenteeism. And as I was listening to you talking might ask this question? I know the answer, but I want you to answer it. Would chronic absenteeism, could that be a particular goal that I could have within MiCIP? Does the goal have to be just the content specific area? Or is it something else?
Kimberly: Absolutely not. Because again, we're looking at data. We're looking at multiple data sets and we're looking at it across the district. So when you're looking at your data, if attendance seems to be a concern across the district, then that's definitely a goal. Because remember that's one of the components of that whole child. So it's beyond just the academic achievement. But we want to make sure we provide that social and emotional support as well. So can attendance be a goal? Absolutely.
Marvin: So, when we talk about chronic absenteeism that uh, I'm sure this is a word or phrase that many of us have heard, we don't have a full, everyone doesn't have a full understanding of what that means. It's 10% or more absences It is different than truancy because it includes all absences whether it be excused, unexcused, suspensions etc. And because of that particular number in Wayne County, we've had quite a bit of a challenge with our chronic absenteeism with numbers going up to 50, 60, 70 and 80% for some districts. And, because of this large number of attendance, uh days missed achievement has gone down. Behavior has gotten worse and there have been just a myriad of other challenges. So, with that in mind and I'm thinking about developing a goal, let's just say my district is a district ABC.
Kim: Uh, huh.
Marvin: The goal in most of districts are to improve attend student attendance anyway, But there are so many ways districts are attempting to tackle this problem. Typically goals are identified initially through data and conversations in MiCIP, this would be identified in the discover part of the plan. The MiCIP plan is broken down into other categories, subcategories, which is discover plan and implement. I don't want to get too deep in the weeds, but I still want us to kind of unfold what what this process may look like and I'm using a particular strand of it chronic absenteeism and how we would get to a goal, a strategy and activity in that. Um So, if I'm a district ABC and we have 45% of our student population identified as chronically absent. We may be able to assume that student achievement on standardized tests, grades and behavior at inflated figures as well. This conversation could then be followed by a root cause analysis. The definition of root cause analysis is the process of discovering the root cause of problems in order to identify appropriate solutions. There are a few tools that many businesses use. Schools, districts, uh for this in their leadership team meetings. Two of them are called the five wise and the fish bone and in our MiCIP planning process, we have talked about utilizing one or the other. You don't have to, but this is just a way to kind of look at the data to see if this is a identified problem that needs to be addressing. Uh this the drilling down more to ensure that we are thinking deeply about the problem to find the solution within that. Our schools see that missing 10% or more has made a drastic impact on the overall achievement of our school as well as the climate. Improving teaching and learning will not be an effective goal if the students aren't in school to receive the teaching. So our goal is to decrease chronic absenteeism by 15% That's what I'm just trying to put that together by November and then 25% by March. What about a strategy and activity? But what's the activities, what's the activity Uh we're using actions that are undertaken within these strategies. My strategy would be to create a system to review student attendance data regularly and create actions to address these situations before they become a problem The activity would be creating an attendance resource team within that activity All the details who is responsible when they will be reporting out dot dot dot. And so I think this is like a real rough draft of what the process could look look like around a particular problem that a district is challenged with.
Nekeya: Absolutely, And your team would be able to discuss that strategy of how they're gonna actually put that team together, because it does make me think about our districts that are suffering from not having enough staff in the building period. And so the people who are on this team, do they have to be special attendance agents or can you use other personnel to actually be a part of that attendance resource team.
Marvin: So for my particular activity, I understand that, that staffing has been an issue as we know that all the numbers in schools are down. I think that many people have to wear a multitude of hats in a building. And if we as a school have identified this as a challenge, then it may just have to be Miss Mcgillicuddy and Ms. Johnson from the fifth grade and me, uh, and whoever else to put all hands on deck to try to address this problem. When you have larger systems and you have more money and more resources with people, yes you can put those on the team. I just use this as a particular idea of how to do. There are a lot of different ways within that particular way. You could kind of figure it out depending on your own size. As a matter of fact, just in the conversation today I heard a teacher I'm sorry, a principal say that five minutes after the tardy bell teachers are to send them the report and they call students right then. Well that would take out some of that of what we're talking about, but they're addressing it immediately, uh and working through this, what is what works with them. So the teachers can continue working on uh instructional practice, but then they're also including other staff members to try to get kids back into schools.
Kimberly: That's a great idea. I'm thinking about our schools that already are looking at this as one of their goals because obviously we want all of our kids back in school. But what are some of the reasons we're hearing out there as to why kids become chronically absent?
Marvin: So, that is a very good question. We've had chronic absenteeism issues prior to the pandemic, but the pandemic has caused or created a whole different uh set of circumstances. So for our middle and high school students, uh the Covid I'm sorry Brain fart for a minute. Covid has reduced the amount of funds that come within the household. So there may have may have been a death in the family or someone that moved away because of some of the challenges they've had in middle school and high school, young adults are making adult decisions to help their families put food on the table. Some of the other issues are when we have families of larger families, uh students are deciding parents with them that I'm going to invest in the younger kids getting the attendance and the older kids will have to either help the younger kids or they have to go out to work. Um. Those are some of the main issues right now, but chronic absenteeism over time has had a lot of problems with students that have sickle cell anemia for our population, asthma for our population also. And the list still goes on. There are parents who are still afraid of what they don't know about the pandemic, and because of that, they are uh they don't want to send their kids, um in. Some just don't have really great relationships with the schools and they feel like that's not the best place for their kids.
Kimberly: So Marvin, I have a question. How would we, how does the school, how does a team involve all the stakeholders in decreasing or being aware of this chronic absenteeism? And its effect on academic and social development and achievement?
Marvin: Well number one, it has to be the goal, like you mentioned in yours, and the goal needs to be posted everywhere, and it needs to be part of your vision and your mission for how you move forward. And as we talk about that that's definitely infused infusing um the ideology that school is important in building positive relationships with the students and the staff. And, why it's important for them to be there, and that's really what's, what everyone is really talking about as we try to move forward, it's not always as easy as as that, there's a lot of other things that go into it, but that's that's the one thing everybody has to know. We have one goal, one sound, one band, one goal and that's to educate our kids and moving forward. And, they can't be educated if they're missing school, which just. . . the systemic way rhythm that we gain by coming every day, is something that definitely needs to be repeated. When we talk about 10% attendance missed its two days a month. And in the school year that's 20 days. So in 20 days that's about a month. Can we really afford to miss a month or more? Not when our reading scores look like they do? So we've got some challenges that we need to address.
Kim: you made a really good point, Marvin. I think it's important too that we share that information with parents. Parents need to, they need to be aware of what that data is and what does it say? You You know? So I think that that is a great way of sharing that information. So everybody knows what the goal is, but I also know what are the action steps and so those are some of the action steps.
Marvin: So, with all that being said, we also need to find a way we've talked about our interesting populations. How do we infuse equity? How does that look as we're talking about? MiCIP.
Nekeya: Well, when you mentioned that some of the the students are chronically absent due to illnesses, right? Things that they can't necessarily, you know, come to school with and with Covid 19 has exacerbated the problem because obviously if students are ill with that virus, there also asked to not come to school you know, sick. So when we talk about equity, it means infusing access, making sure that students have access. It also means to make sure that students get what they need. So, when I think about the fact that we have gone through this pandemic, we've learned some things right? There was a period of time where we had to do schooling remotely. And as much as it wasn't the favorite look for everyone, it was still helpful for some, especially those who may have absences due to sickness or due to illness. So ,Equity means that yes I may have students that may not be able to physically come to school, but how do I make sure that they still have access to the instruction? And so, that piece is why when you're building your continuous improvement plan, you have to ask all of these different questions: Who's not here? Who's not gonna benefit from the way in which we do school? Making sure that the students are still being focused on, even if they're not able to be there. So the example you gave of the, the team that got together to say, you know what we're not gonna wait to see how many students are absent. We're gonna actually look at this on a daily basis and start to make phone calls, get that information out there, because that's gonna allow them to be more equitable in their delivery if they find out, you know what little Marvin is sick today and that's why he's not coming to school. So, what can I provide for Marvin in the interim until he's able to come back to school so that he still gets access to the instruction.
Kimberly: So, Nekeya you mentioned about talking to and gathering some data with students in terms of who's in school, who's not in school. Are there any other ways that you can measure that access to equity at district wide or even within the school?
Nekeya: I think that you probably could measure it with some of the online tools that have come out, right? I mean, that's one of the benefits of being exposed to having to teach in a remote setting. There were so many online platforms that were previously there, but weren't necessarily used. And so, now we have more awareness of all of these different platforms that are out there. So, you can actually see when students log in. You can see if they're logging on. You can actually track their participation. And so, you have ways to be able to monitor whether those students are really accessing the learning and if they're actually achieving. You can still get that information through some of the online tools. And so, we encourage all of our educators to use all of the resources that are available to them to monitor how students are progressing, whether they're in school or if for some reason they have to miss. Marvin: Can you give me an example of how Equity can look different in a different district?
Nekeya: So I think some of our districts when they hear the word equity, concentrate first and foremost on race. And obviously that is a very important topic and everyone needs to be aware of it and we need to take special attention to what's happened to our minoritized communities, as a result of them not having access to things. But another thing that we need to think about when we talk about equity is those students that have special needs and there is an exorbitant amount of population that is minoritized that are identified for special needs, but there's also students who are not in the minority population that are special needs students. And how are we designing our programming or designing our instruction to make sure that all of those students have access to a quality education. We don't want to dumb down the curriculum for anyone. If the student has special needs, it doesn't mean that they can't learn. It just means that they need different accommodations or different resources in order to be able to access the learning. So as educators, it's our responsibility to make sure that when we're assessing our students needs we're looking at all subgroups, all different populations and that's what equity means. That you're not just serving one or one dominant group that you're actually looking at all of the groups that are represented in a school setting.
Kimberly: Nekeya, you talked about equity and, you mentioned how equity is really not a one size at all. So there's a difference between being equitable and being equal.
Nekeya: Uh, hmm.
Kimberly: So I think it's important to know that difference. What resources would be out there to help our districts and schools in terms of some best practices in terms in terms of equity?
Nekeya: So the Michigan Department of Education actually just released a MiCIP equity toolkit, a MiCIP equity toolkit and it is available on the MDE site. But, also as you mentioned, Kim through our MiCIP University, we have created a one stop shop where you can access all of these resources. And
they've been partnering with the Great Lakes and Plains Equity Center, to make sure that the information that they're providing is done in a way that everyone can access it. So, they've even come up with something called the "Learning Bites", which are just 12 page outlines of how you can actually implement pieces of the MiCIP plan. This learning bite that recently came out in September was on equity. How do you engage in equity when you're looking at continuous improvement. So they go through and they make sure that districts have access to the definitions so they know exactly what equity means versus equality. So they know what it looks like to actually input this information into their improvement plan, but it's also written in student friendly language. So you can share this with your community, you can share this with the students so that they understand what it means to be equitable, but also with the parents.
Marvin: So, how do I get a learning bike? You just go to the MiCIP website?
Nekeya: Yep. You can actually just click on the MiCIP website under resources. If you go go to our Wayne RESA MiCIP university site, you can actually click right into the resources and you will see where it says learning bites and so they have them when they put them out almost monthly, Um, different topics to help you actually chunk this information about the Michigan integrated continuous improvement process.
Marvin Franklin: Well, this has been an absolutely amazing conversation between three educators. I have truly enjoyed it. We have tried to make sure we have some places for you to go to get some resources. If you need our help, we're here to help you move forward this MiCIP process and we'd love for you to have a great day.
Nekeya Irby: Thanks for inviting us Marvin. We appreciate being a part of the conversation and we can probably make sure that those websites are in our show notes so that if folks are listening to the podcast, they can actually go into the notes and click right in there to get to the resources.
Marvin: That's sounds good.
Kimberly: Thank you, Marvin Again, We want to make sure all our resources are available for all of our colleagues. Thank you again.
Marvin: And, thank you for listening to "Getting to the Core". Bye
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Announcer: Thanks again for listening to Getting to the Core. To access previous episodes along with transcripts and additional resources, visit RESA dot net forward slash podcast.
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