Services

All districts receive these customized solutions led by a successful former district leader:

• Detailed analysis of your district's data
• District-wide needs assessment
On-site training, coaching, and professional development

Your DistrictsMovingUp leader then assembles a team of WestEd experts to implement your customized action plan. The architect of your plan elects optional components depending on what is needed in your district.

What are the customized components?

To meet your district's unique challenges, DistrictsMovingUp leaders draw from the breadth and depth of WestEd's experts. Depending on your needs, this might include:

English Learner Professional Development

Professional development for teachers of English learners is directed by Pam Spycher, Senior Program Associate at WestEd. The on-site training and coaching is focused on practical, classroom based instructional strategies to help all students gain access to subject-specific academic language. She has worked with hundreds of K-12 teachers, administrators, and coaches to increase student engagement and academic talk in the classroom, academic vocabulary instruction, and the rigor of academic language instruction.

Special Education Professional Development

Dona Meinders, WestEd Project Director, oversees special education needs assessment and on-site professional development for district leaders and classroom teachers. Her experience ranges from classroom teaching to providing technical assistance under various regional, statewide, and federal programs regarding least restrictive environments, learning disability intervention, and severely handicapped students.

Alignment of Standards, Curriculum, and Assessments

Ruth McKenna, Director of Field Services, Mary Peterson, Senior Program Associate, and Sharon Tucker, Senior Research Associate manage the alignment of state content standards, curriculum, and assessments in all subjects. All three have extensive experience helping districts throughout the United States blend research-based instructional support with data-management technology to create a customized local assessment and accountability system.

Fiscal Management & Resource Allocation

Fiscal management and resource allocation to improve student achievement is directed by Jannelle Kubinec, Associate Vice President at School Services of California. She has applied her extensive knowledge of categorical programs and school finance to help hundreds of districts and schools align their resources to their highest priorities.

Classroom Instruction, Walkthroughs & Feedback

Huck Fitterer, Field Services Director, implements the Teach for Success (T4S) protocol, which improves classroom instruction through professional development, classroom walkthroughs, and feedback systems.

Differentiated Instruction and Formative Assessment

Lesson planning for differentiated instruction that uses student achievement data and formative assessments is led by Joe Sassone, Senior Program Associate. As a former principal and assistant superintendent, he has developed and implemented essential standards, benchmark assessments, schoolwide common formative assessments, and Response to Intervention (RTI) models.

Principal Coaching and Leadership Development

Jon Frank, Senior Program Associate, and Robert Linquanti, Project Director, guide coaching for principals and other district leaders, focused on using data to improve student achievement. They have between them decades of experience working with districts and states on issues ranging from administrative leadership to subject-area instruction to improving English learner achievement.

Parent and Community Involvement

Bonnie Benard, award-winning author of Resiliency: What We Have Learned and many other books and research articles, teaches district and school staff a process for using data from the Resilience and Youth Development Module of the Healthy Kids Survey to improve school communities through data-driven decision-making. She also leads staff development workshops on related topics, including:

• From Risk to Resilience: Principles and Strategies of Youth Development
• Listening to Youth: Using Youth Assets Data for School Community Improvement
• Closing the Achievement Gap by Fostering Resilience and Youth Development
• “You Matter!” Promoting Resilience and Youth Development in Your After-School Program