Great Lakes West Comprehensive Center

Focus on States

October 2011

Great Lakes West State Manager: Nick Pinchok

Parent Involvement

The Illinois State Board of Education's Division of Innovation and Improvement will be hosting a second round of Parent Involvement Regional Summits this fall. The summits, created for Title I school teams, have been developed to assist these teams in producing plans and implementing high-yield strategies that will sustain family engagement partnerships and improve skills that join families and schools on a common path to student achievement.

The fall summits will revisit the work started in the spring summits. using data specific to each school, the fall session will lead school teams through an evaluative action planning process and the development of a ready-to-implement plan that will satisfy family engagement requirements for school improvement planning. Teams will be grouped by schools that serve elementary school, middle school, and high school levels. Lunch and learn breakout sessions run by returning practitioners from the spring summits will provide additional support.

There are four fall summits in October and November. The Illinois State Board of Education's Parent Involvement Regional Summits are the collaborative work of the Academic Development Institute, the Great Lakes West Comprehensive Center, and the Illinois Parent Information Resource Center. More information on the summits can be found at http://www.illinoisparents.org/isbesummitinfo.htm.

School Improvements Grants (SIG)

The Illinois State Board of Education's (ISBE's) Division of Innovation and Improvement hosted a SIG 1003(g) fall grantee meeting on Thursday, October 6, 2011, in Bloomington. Great Lakes West assisted ISBE with the development of the day's activities and provided resources for facilitation support.

SIG 1003(g) Round 1 and Round 2 recipients were encouraged to bring district and school leaders and team members who are working through implementing each grantee's plans. The meeting provided current information on memorandums of understanding (MOus), monitoring, and data use and engaged participants in activities to stimulate thinking and new strategies for a variety of issues critical to transformational school success (e.g., Cultivating Relationships, Family, and Community Support, Working With School Boards, Leveraging Resources, and Building Teacher Capacity). ISBE plans to provide additional opportunities for Round 1 and Round 2 recipients to share what is working and learn from prior year grantees to accelerate learning.

Illinois Learning Standards Incorporating the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)

The Great Lakes West Comprehensive Center is continuing to support the rollout of the New Illinois State Learning Standards Incorporating the Common Core online tool through a series of information webinars for regional offices of education and districts. These 60-minute webinars will provide an overview of the online tool and its capabilities as well as a question and answer session. Every district in the state now has a user name and password to begin to use the tool to think through their transition from current practice and curricula to implementation of the new, more rigorous standards. The Web-based planning tool was designed to guide districts in preparation for the transition to new standards. There are three sections with guiding questions and planning steps to (1) identify your strengths, your concerns, and what you can build upon during the transition; (2) look into the future and determine what successful implementation would look, sound, and feel like to your main stakeholders; and (3) specify the objectives, goals, and action steps local teams will establish in the areas of curriculum, instruction, professional development, and assessment to bring your plan to life.

Great Lakes West, in collaboration with the Great Lakes East Comprehensive Center, will be hosting additional multistate regional meetings to continue to foster collaboration among our five state education agencies (SEAs) and explore ideas for optimizing everyone's time and resources for this important reform. SEA staff members will be planning each of the meetings, and survey results from attendees of the January 2011 workshop are being used to prioritize common needs, areas of focus, and work groups. To date, the following areas have been targeted:

Policy

Mesaging college and career readiness to the field
Continuously connecting to individual state policy contexts

Instruction

helping educators understand the shifts in instruction

Professional Development

Professonal development planning

Assessment

Assessment literacy
Data literacy

Curriculum

collection demonstrations of what this looks like in the classroom
Intergrating the CCSS into career and technical education work

In addition, Great Lakes West plans to bring in support and expertise from REL Midwest, national content centers, and other thought leaders in the Common Core State Standards area as well as host vetted resources and a space where SEAs and local education agencies can go to help them communicate and plan for implementation.