Virginia Leads Innovation Network - VALIN 4.0

Manassas Park City Schools

Table of Contents

Description of the Team’s Artifact / Case Study

Section 1: Our Team

Section 2: Our Content

Section 3: Our Plan

Section 4: Our Contribution

Section 5: Our Journey

Section 6: Our Impact

Section 7: Our Reflections

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Instructions

1. One team member (or you if individual) makes one copy of the workbook
2. Share editing rights of that copy with your team members and your coach

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Coach emails

• Rachel Fruin- rachel@advancedpartnerships.com
• Tammy Hobson- tammy@collectivell.com
• Eric Jones- eljones23@gmail.com
• Lori McEwen- lori@lorimcewen.com
• Tinkhani Ushe White- tuhargrove@gmail.com

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Throughout VALIN Cohort 4.0, teams will create and share an overview / summary of their innovation project for curation within the VaLIN multimedia collection. The artifact should capture the following:

• A description of your team’s innovation
• The challenge(s) you sought to overcome
• Intended outcomes for learners (aligned with the 5Cs of the Profile of the Virginia Graduate)
• Intended outcomes for educators (around deeper learning outcomes, equitable learning opportunities, and/or learner engagement)
• The actions that the team took to design and implement their innovation
• The impact of their actions on the intended outcomes
• Plans for next steps with regard to an operational / actionable / sustainable plan
• Links to artifacts that align to / expand on / contextualize the story of innovation

Description of the Team’s Artifact / Case Study

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Artifact Link

Section 1: Our Team

Team MPCS

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Manassas Park, VA

Team Members

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Ashley Bajohr

Instructional Technology Coach

Manassas Park Elementary School

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Jennifer Kiernan-Graham

Director of Special Education

Manassas Park City Schools

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Kristen Marbury

Assistant Principal II

Manassas Park Middle School

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Melissa Pitts

Assistant Principal

Manassas Park High School

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Erin Quinty

Fifth Grade Teacher

Manassas Park Elementary School

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Lisa Wolf

STEM/CTE/Gifted Specialist

Manassas Park City Schools

Pam Kalso

Executive Director of Teaching and Learning

Things our school/team are good at and can help others with:

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• Active Listening
• Willing to consider each other’s points of view
• Ability to pivot!

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Things our school/team wants to grow in and can use help with:

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• How to keep moving forward with our project during the current political climate

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[Team Name]

If everything goes right this year, including support from VALIN, we hope we can …

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Have a useful product that we can share with staff that helps them be stronger culturally responsive educators. We would also like to be able to provide and support professional learning on Cultural Competency.

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Word that best describes current progress toward Deeper Learning?

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GROWTH

Section 2: Our Context

This evolved into helping to support administrators and teachers on the new VDOE Standard 6: Culturally Responsive Teaching and Equitable practices.

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Individual Excellence Framework

[Team Name]

How can we operationalize the Individual Excellence Framework to build a system of innovation and creativity to meet division needs?

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Our Draft Problem of Practice Statement (Interrogation of problem questions)

Join the conversation: @VA_Partners4EDU #VaLIN #ALPlearn

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• Economically Disadvantaged: 47%
• English Learners: 50%
• Home Languages: 30 different languages
• Students with disabilities: 16%

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[Team Name]

The City of Manassas Park is a small, suburban city, located thirty miles west of Washington DC. Manassas Park City Schools services a student and staff population of just over 4000 individuals. There are four schools in the district: Cougar Elementary School (PK-2), Manassas Park Elementary (3-5), Manassas Park Middle (6-8), and Manassas Park High School (9-12). For the 2022-2023 school year, the district is fully accredited. The district is diverse, with enrollment at 3,430.

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About our division/community

Section 3: Our Plan / Project(s)

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• Timeline Brainstorm
• Survey Slide Deck
• Survey
• Survey Data
• Infographics

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• Professional Learning Opportunities
• Teacher Cohort

[Team Name]

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Provide increased support for teachers on the new teacher performance standard #6:

Culturally Responsive Teaching and Equitable Practices

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GOAL

Section 4: Our Contributions

• Created an Individual Excellence Framework in 3.0.
• Continued to revise the framework during this VaLIN cohort.
• Connected with school administration.
• Developed and administered survey on Standard 6. Surveys were administered during team and/or department meetings across the divisions. This contributed to a high rate of return on the surveys.
• Analyzed data to identify staff’s greatest needs of support.

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• Staff expressed a want for an infographic that they could reference that would help them better understand the new Standard 6.
• Collected resources.
• Researched what other school districts are doing in terms of equity and professional learning/staff support.
• Created three infographics for staff support.
• Shared one of the infographics with administrators at the division’s leadership retreat earlier this month.
• The second infographic will be shared with Human Resources for recruiting purposes.

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[Team Name]

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Provide increased support for teachers on the new teacher performance standard #6:

Culturally Responsive Teaching and Equitable Practices

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Process: What we have done

Prioritizing the NELP Standards to Inform Project Success

Individual Tasks and Actions for Group Success -

• A challenge that we are currently facing is in developing and promoting culturally responsive teaching practices. We know this is a problem because there has been limited training in this area.
• To realize our vision, there needs to be a collective dedication by all stakeholders to promote culturally responsive practices has to (change / start / other verb).
• To address this need in VALIN this year, our team will engage in collaborating to build “MPCS Culturally Responsive Indicators” accompanied with observation tools collaborating to build “MPCS Culturally Responsive Indicators” accompanied with observation tools.

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[Team Name]

In Manassas Park City Schools, our vision is to promote the Individual Excellence framework as a critical component of Expectations of Excellence across the school division.

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‘Mad Lib’ Elevator Pitch

To contribute to the team project:

• Lisa, Melissa & Jen will develop or hone competencies related to equity, inclusiveness, and cultural responsiveness through the district culture & our instructional and behavioral practices. (NELP standard 3.1 & 3.3). They will develop or hone competencies related to (NELP 3.1 & 3.3).
• Pam will develop or hone competencies related to leading Curriculum/Technology Systems and Coaching/Professional Development systems (NELP 4.1 and 4.2).
• By June, we anticipate having a product that will help support teachers improve their culturally responsive teaching practices and be able to offer professional learning to support them.

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Section 5: Our Journey

What we’ve done

• Small teams met with building administration
• Continued to review research
• Discussed general teacher self-evaluations, specifically for Standard 6 and admin observations

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[Team Name]

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September - November

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Our Journey

What we’ve learned

• Self evaluations may be done differently at each building
• Questions about the use of culturally responsive language at the higher education level

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What we’ve done

• Developed and sent survey to staff to rate themselves on their preparedness for Standard 6
• Reviewed data and identified areas that staff would like for support: Infographics, asynchronous PD, recommended readings
• Develop infographic to share with faculty
• Identified interested staff who may want to join a cohort/committee

[Team Name]

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December - February

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Our Journey

What we’ve learned

• Through the survey, we were able to identify the support needs of our teachers in regards to Standard 6.
• Surveys given out during team meetings yielded higher rates of return.

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What we’ve done

• Finished and presented infographic to administrators during the leadership retreat.
• We are considering planning professional learning for next school year
• We are considering planning teacher cohort for next year
• Will share second infographic with HR for recruiting

[Team Name]

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March - June

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Our Journey

What we’ve learned

• It has been difficult to all meet together. We are in a small school district and each wear a lot of hats!
• How can we get big initiatives to move forward?

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Section 6: Our Impact

Infographic for Admin/Staff Use

Infographic for Recruiting Purposes/New Staff Orientation

• Level 1: Affective
• Level 2: Knowledge / understanding
• Level 3: Skills / competencies of targeted stakeholders
• Level 4: Student learning

[Team Name]

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The impact of our actions on the intended outcomes

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Section 6: Our Next Steps

Plans for next steps actionable / sustainable plan

How can we connect this work to specific focus areas that are emerging in the strategic planning process? Ex. Reimagining the School Experience

What professional learning can we create and/or bring to our school district to help support staff in Standard 6?

Section 7: Our Reflections

We enjoy having the dedicated time and accountability to do this work together. We have asked ourselves if we would set aside the time to focus on these things if we did not participate in VaLIN?

[Team Name]

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The impact of VALIN experiences on our learning

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Does VaLIN 5.0 connect to anything we are currently doing or anticipate working on next school year? Possibly in Strategic Planning and one of the focus areas that has emerged (Reimagining the School Experience), which could help link the Individual Excellence Framework with the idea of K-12 portfolios and the Profile of a MPCS Graduate.

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The impact of others in the network

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[Team Name]

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Advice we would give to future cohorts

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Lead from the seat you are in!

Small steps can lead to big changes!

Set aside regular and dedicated time to meet!