Yukon-Koyuk School District's

Operational Handbook for the Voluntary Public School Choice (VPSC) Grant

I. Project Objectives

Description of Objective #1

Objective #1 — Provide Intra and Inter District School of Choice Options to increase accessibility to educational services.

1a. 10% total increase in students exercising choice by 2012, growing 2% annually throughout the life of the grant – Baseline percentage gathered in Year One.
1b. 90% of students/parents aware of all choice options available to them by 2012 - Baseline percentage gathered in Year One.
1c. Develop Inter and Intra district agreements across all district schools, including other districts within the geographic region by 2012.

"Make the schools in the area higher performing to increase choice, educate students and parents about choice options, increase the number of students exercising choice options, while providing opportunities outside the district."

Yukon-Koyukuk School District (YKSD) has developed a mission to support and improve choice and educational opportunities for the students in the Yukon-Koyukuk School District. The mission of the YKSD is to prepare all students to become life-long learners, problem solvers, and contributing members of their family, community, and society by providing meaningful learning experiences to understand their cultural heritage and technology.

To support that mission, this project will promote opportunities for school choice and will raise student achievement in all Yukon-Koyukuk schools, in order to increase the number of schools of choice for students within the district. The primary goal of this proposal is to create, expand, and implement a public school choice program. This program will focus on providing parents with greater options in acquiring a high-quality public education for their children, particularly parents whose children currently attend YKSD schools in need of improvement.

YKSD will team with entities that have extensive content and the expertise to develop, document, evaluate, and disseminate innovative, cohesive models of public school choice, including strategies to improve instruction and raise student achievement.

The sheer geographical size of the district affects the application of the Voluntary Public School Choice opportunities differently than potential opportunities in other states. Not only is the YKSD extremely large, but the villages and schools within the district do not have roads connecting one village to another or to the state's road system. The only means of transportation between schools or villages is by air, or via the Yukon or Koyukuk rivers, which allow only very limited access.

Air travel as a means of transportation for increasing school choice options is problematic in multiple ways. Round-trip airfare from any YKSD village to another school district is extremely high. For example, a round-trip ticket from Kaltag to Fairbanks with advanced notice is $377. Flying between villages within the Yukon-Koyukuk district is considerably more affordable. For example, a round-trip flight from Kaltag to Nulato is around $189. But, each village generally offers only one or two daily flight times on small planes that can usually carry no more than a dozen passengers. In addition, the planes are not always able to fly due to weather conditions.

Considering the geographical and transportation constraints, to offer better schooling choices in the isolated YKSD area will require restructuring of existing schools, as well as out of district options. Therefore, YKSD will both develop interdistrict partnerships and implement plans to restructure in-district schools. Because of each village's isolation and cultural emphasis on family, restructuring is critical to establishing long-term sustainability and student success.

Alaska is a vast geographic region with ancient tribal boundaries. That means, any YKSD student who attends an out-of-district school may face the following obstacles: living hundreds of miles from home, living outside of cultural support, living without family, and loss of racial identity. Therefore, YKSD will provide transportation to schools of choice and promote active outreach to each out-of-district school's local community to build foster-communities, communication trees, and other support systems for our students. The development of foster-communities will support the development of strategies to overcome the potential obstacles faced by students who leave the school district. In order to provide in-district options for choice, the interdistrict and intradistrict agreements will include the following types of schools:

Distance Delivery – Credits and classes delivered via Internet
Boarding Schools – Schools which house students throughout school term
Traditional Public Schools – School which operate during the day and provide traditional curricular offerings

1. Information of Choice Dissemination Plan – Year 1

YKSD is developing the Voluntary Public School Choice (VPSC) program with the involvement of parents and the Yukon-Koyukuk regional community. Student participation in the public school choice program will be voluntary. If more students apply to participate in the program than can be accommodated, then the YKSD will use a lottery process for selecting students. YKSD will create agreements with other school districts and among schools within YKSD to substantially broaden school choice for our students. Due to Alaska’s geographical constraints, student support constraints, and transportation challenges noted earlier, out-of-district school choices will be advertised, supported, and coordinated for YKSD parents and students, but as secondary prerogative. Increasing intradistrict school choice options will take priority for YKSD students.

To raise awareness of schooling options, YKSD will build an effective communication campaign to inform parents of the available choices within and outside of their home school district. This includes assessing community communication needs, determining the budget for communication, and developing parent-friendly materials. Parents will receive information regarding this project in multiple ways. Information received will include explanations of the project, including local school improvement plan timelines and objectives to become a school of choice. Also, information will be disseminated to families through the YKSD website at www.yksd.com, and through the district-wide newsletter, which is distributed to all schools and posted on the district website. Parent informational meetings will be held in each YKSD village, and parents will receive information via radio announcements.

YKSD understands that they must assist parents to make decisions for their children’s education. The district will provide parents with detailed information to aid their decision making. One-on-one parent informational opportunities will be sought whenever possible to discuss school choice options for each family. Additionally, YKSD recognizes parents are more likely to receive and act on information they receive from trusted community sources. Therefore, YKSD will engage the communities it serves by teaming with local and regional tribal organizations, churches, and village councils to expand outreach and communication with parents regarding school choice options.

YKSD will identify, evaluate, and replicate the applicable strategies used by existing successful programs. Identifying and evaluating successful schools, and then replicating their effective practices will result in the implementation of educational models that raise student achievement. Highest priority for improvement will be given to YKSD schools which have been identified as low performing, as defined by section 1111 (b), No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. In Year 2, YKSD will have several high-quality choice options for district students.

2. Expansion of Choice for YKSD Students

Year 2 will continue interdistrict support, while implementing intradistrict school of choice. Access to choice will include coordinating student boarding options with community members for students to attend other YKSD village schools. Following the restructuring process in Year 1, YKSD intends to revitalize and restructure the schools that are at-risk of closing and sustain them by bringing students into that village. Program capacity for higher achieving schools in the YKSD will be increased beginning in Year 1 and completed in Year 2 by:

Securing housing and/or appropriate boarding situations with family or friends in neighboring villages, so students in lower performing schools can attend higher performing schools in the district.
Linking high-quality schools to lower performing schools through technology to share successes and strategies.
Establishing mentor programs between teachers of high-performing schools and teachers in low-performing schools to provide guidance and support for restructuring efforts to provide additional choice schools.
Create model schools in the district for other schools to replicate and promote the expansion of school choice programs. Rather than assigning traditional neighborhood attendance boundaries, students from across the district can apply to attend any school in the district.
Provide transportation to/from the boarding schools and to/from community housing for YKSD reinvented schools.
Inform and support parents and students regarding school of choice options
Develop relationships with outside schools to provide interdistrict schools of choice

Data collected regarding Objective #1

Intradistrict Choice Agreements
Interdistrict Choice Agreements
High performing and restructured schools in the district
Number of seats available for choice
Total number of student participating in school choice
Total number of transferring student who participated in school choice
Total number of students at VPSC sites
Total number of families participating in choice options
Total number of schools participating in school choice

B. Description of Objective #2

Objective #2 — Implement the research based instructional strategies within the YKSD School Success Plan to enhance quality educational services and increase student achievement.

2a. 80% of all YKSD students will receive a high school diploma by 2012.
2b. 0% of negative growth in all three areas of student achievement by 2012.
2c. 80% of all YKSD students are proficient in Language Arts by 2012.
2d. 0% negative growth in drop-out rates by 2012.
2e. 80% of all YKSD students are proficient in Math by 2012.
2f. 10% increase annually, of students who have developed protective factors and assets.

1. Development of Assets and Resiliency

Resiliency, protective factors, and assets include individual qualities and social supports that help youth make good decisions and grow to be healthy and successful.

This project will concentrate on building and sustaining assets in Alaska Native students both in and out of the classroom. Alaskan Native achievement scores are low, but this is not because they are intellectually incapable of the work. It is because students do not have the internal and external support that enables them to thrive and make good decisions, plan for their future, or persevere in the face of adversity and discomfort. More than ten years of national research has shown that the more developmental assets (protective factors) teenagers have, then the more likely they are to succeed in school, be tolerant, help others, and abstain from alcohol or drugs. This research identified factors that contribute to the resiliency of children. These protective factors include both external factors (those factors provided by the family or community) and internal factors (those values and skills intrinsic to the individual).

The underlying philosophy of the resiliency research is that the focus is on the positive attributes we want for our children, not on the problems that must be solved. If a community and school help students build traits and skills that allow them to make good decisions and bounce back from adversity, then many of the problems we currently focus on in negative ways will be eliminated or significantly reduced. The home, family, school, and community are critical in building these resiliency factors in students.

The School Improvement Cycle and Resiliency Program will supply each community a local liaison, who will be responsible to support asset development from within the community. In addition, these funds will supply training in developing protective facts, creating and sustaining assets, and monitoring resiliency which is a supporting factor of student achievement.

a. Domains of the School Success Cycle and Resiliency Program

The environment where learning occurs is as vital a component to education as the curriculum being delivered. Context, Content, and Process have been identified by the National Staff Development Council as the three critical domains to ensure effective instruction.

Context refers to the physical and emotional environment for the learning. The physical context refers to lighting, colors, sounds, temperature, smells, and spacing. Emotional context has to do with the feelings or emotional impact that results from being in the learning environment.

We use the term Content to mean the specific knowledge, skills, and understandings that we wish the learners to acquire. Content needs to be effectively managed in that it must be carefully determined in terms of specific, observable behaviors that can identify successful learning. In addition, the learning needs to be carefully task-analyzed from the perspectives of what it is, how it fits into varied and valued contexts, and how it can be best learned. And, of course, the last step to managing the content is developing and using effective ongoing and final assessment tools to guide instructional decisions until the desired learning standard has been met.

Process includes the style, strategies, and technique components that are drawn upon to ensure that the learning objectives are met by the learners. Process applies to what we do to manage both content and context. Style refers to who we are as people, the personality, stories, and experiences that we bring to our teaching and learning experience. Strategies are the multi-step procedures we use to establish and maintain an effective context. Design and delivery of the content ensure that the real learning objectives are met. Technique is that special magic that acts as a lubricant to ensure that our strategies work effectively and efficiently, and that they accomplish their intended purposes. Instructors who have mastered effective techniques will have smooth running classrooms in which students learn with pleasure and ease.

b. Tenants of the School Success Cycle

The School Success Cycle contains the following tenants: Focus on Data, Focus on Change, Focus on Measuring Change, and Focus on Accountability.

Focus on Data is the process of obtaining all available achievement data on an individual and analyzing that data. If there is no available achievement data then appropriate assessments must be completed utilizing or developing district assessments. Data Analysis is performed by comparing student learning with the Alaska State Grade Level Expectations (GLE) and highlighting knowledge gaps. All data analysis must be done in cooperation with the administrator, student, teacher, and parent.

Focus on Change is a concept that leads instructional leaders toward understanding that change is necessary and valued. This is the Content section of the School Success Cycle. The content must be clearly articulated amongst teacher, parent, and student prior to any educational intervention so that all stakeholders can participate in answering the following question. This project will supply the training support to create curriculum maps and Individual Learning Plans (ILPs). Curriculum maps are the guidelines of timing and emphasis that each GLE standard receives throughout the year. The ILPs are collaborative efforts that are responsive to each student's needs and strengths. All educational staff will create these documents electronically throughout the year as a part of the professional development process. These virtual documents remain with the school district and can be utilized for new staff to address teacher turnover issues. Research indicates that children in grades K-6 need ninety minutes of sustained reading to achieve grade level reading proficiency. Funding from this program will supply each village site a Reading Specialist, who will receive all School Success Cycle professional development and collaborate with classroom teachers regarding Individual Learning Plans.

WW IDEA is an educational nonprofit that specializes in education technology and school choice options that meet each individual student's needs. Integrated into YKSD's VPSC efforts, they provide student learning management software, training, and support. The software includes features for data collection and instruction/assessment planning that drives instruction through the School Success Model. These systems help schools that are not high-performing to become high-performing schools, and, therefore, additional schools of choice. The student learning management system also provides the data necessary for high-achieving schools to continue to maintain their status and to improve. The software also supports the professional development training for the School Success Plan of the VPSC program. Student data is available for district administration to review district-wide, with the ability to view student and instructional progress before and after exercising choice.

WW IDEA staff members take part in teacher in-service trainings, and they also travel to school choice sites, providing on-site teacher training and participation in community events discussion about the VPSC project and school choice options.

Content — What do we want the students to know after our plan is complete?

Focus on Measuring Change with regards to individual students is a complex process, which cannot be summed up entirely by test results. The School Improvement Cycle and Resiliency Project include two cooperative themes of measuring change: a) Measuring change through context and emerging resiliency factors; and b) Measuring change through student achievement.

i. Measuring Change through measurement of the effect of the learning environment and the development of resiliency.

Many positive change factors are driven by social not academic successes. These positive results are difficult to reflect. There are many variables which affect positive social change, and we strive to identify them through Context and development of resiliency.

Learning Environment

The PEAK Teaching for Excellence Model™ integrates the effective works of the nations leading educators, researchers, authors, school systems, and classroom teachers into a comprehensive approach with proven results. PEAK teachers utilize effective processes integrating curriculum, instruction and assessment then deliver it in a fashion and in an environment that empowers learners.

This model includes The Six Keys: Safety, Success, Love and Belonging, Freedom and Independence, Fun and Enjoyment, and Valued Purpose. When these Six Keys are used effectively as a decision screen in the planning and execution of instruction, high motivation and performance can be expected. But when the keys are "broken" for students, we can expect resistance, inappropriate behaviors, and low performance.

The Six Keys

Safety

People have a need to feel and be safe from fear, physical harm, embarrassment, or loss of dignity. In order to keep students engaged, we need to be certain that they believe they are safe in our teaching situations. With some learners, this is not easy to do and takes time. But with excited learners, the only worry is unintentionally creating situations in which they begin to feel unsafe and withdraw or attack. One implication of this key is that students need to be able to opt out of any activity that they perceive as unsafe.

Success

For sustained motivation, learners need a sense of success. This manifests itself through recognition for past and ongoing accomplishments while simultaneously providing visible progress toward of new and challenging objectives. First and foremost, students need to feel respect and recognition for their previous successes and accomplishments. They need to know we value what they have done so far. For reluctant learners, this requires deliberate efforts on our part, but for the others, it just requires that we do not accidentally, or deliberately, do or say anything that could possibly lead to students doubting their worth, skillfulness, knowledge, creativity, and/or accomplishments.

Second, throughout the teaching and learning process, students need regular, convincing, and valued evidence of their progress toward reaching challenging goals, and finally, the mastery of them. In a classroom, this cannot be satisfied by moving from unit to unit with less than what the student considers mastery, unless the student is only interested in "just getting through it." Learners must see themselves continuously learning more and more at levels they consider to be challenging.

Love and Belonging

Feelings of inclusion, respect, acceptance, and being cared about are vital to people. This key is critical in several ways. For many people, when they are not supported, held accountable for standards, taught things deemed worthwhile, protected, and respected for their uniqueness, it is interpreted as the "teacher doesn't care enough". Too often this results in the learners withdrawing, losing interest, or behaving inappropriately.

From another perspective, it is critical that our instructional practices: prevent all put-downs and sarcasm; protect every learner from any situation in which a student could feel excluded or not respected; incorporate effective leadership for building and maintaining collaborative, mutually supportive and respecting behaviors on the part of everyone; and, use varied and safe cooperative, class-building, and team-building structures to ensure mutual respect, support, and protection across the group.

Freedom and Independence

Choice, individuality, and freedom from what might be perceived as excessive control or manipulation is important to all people. To that end, we must determine what is really important for students to be learning, what constitutes convincing evidence that the desired learning has truly occurred, and what is critical in how they learn what is being taught. Then let everything else be an option. When our instruction is effective and our techniques are good enough, our students will most likely do whatever we ask of them.

Fun and Enjoyment

When students consider instruction fun and enjoyable, they are more likely to significantly exert themselves. But, there is more to it than that. As soon as they begin to become bored, afraid, or frustrated, they tend to "dropout of the flow" and lose interest.

Valued Purpose

If we want learners to diligently apply themselves, we must create situations in which they consider the efforts we desire from them to be worth their efforts and sacrifices. This can be done in one of several ways.

We can teach topics in which the students already have an intense interest; teach something that will, from our students' perspective, solve a problem that they believe they have and want solved; build and maintain strong enough relationships with our students for them to willingly work at learning what we are teaching — even if they do not find enough value in it to otherwise justify the time, energy, discomfort, or expenditure of resources.

The bottom line is that students will work hard to learn what is being taught, if they see enough importance in either learning the content or in meeting the needs of others they value. From Ruby Pane's book, Framework for Understanding Poverty, we can easily interpret much of the problem encountered with motivation and achievement in school across SES levels. Students at different ends of the scale are motivated by significantly different factors.

Developing Resiliency

The development of resiliency skills is a key factor in facilitating enduring learning. The need for resiliency skills is a priority when working with Alaskan Native populations. The Search Institute identified forty assets or protective factors in two major categories: Internal and External factors.

Internal Assets

Positive Values	Caring, honesty, responsibility, integrity, restraint, and a sense of equality and social justice
Skills (social competencies)	Planning, decision making, communication skills, and the ability to "say no" and to resolve conflict.
Commitment to learning	Motivated, does school assignments, enjoys reading, cares about school
Positive identity	High self-esteem, optimistic about future, feels in control, life has purpose

External Assets

Support	From family, other adults, neighborhood and school
Boundaries & Expectations	Clear rules, consequences, and high expectations from family, school, neighborhood, adult role models and positive peer influence
Constructive use of time	After school activities; creative pursuits, youth programs, religious activities
Empowerment	Youth given useful roles in community involved in service activities; feels safe and is valued by adults.

The development of resiliency skills is designed to involve all stakeholders in discovering and sharing how to best build the developmental assets that this population group needs. The design of this project is built on the following premises:

All students need assets. It is crucial to pay special attention to those youth who have the least; all young people can use more.
Every stakeholder has a role in building assets. Asset development requires consistent messages across a community.
Asset development is an ongoing process. Asset development continues from early childhood through high school and beyond. Asset development requires the provision of ample opportunities for the students to participate and contribute in meaningful ways.
Relationships are key. A central key to asset development is strong relationships between adults and young people, young people and their peers, and teenagers and children. Asset development requires the presence of at least five caring, supportive adults and peers in each student's life.
Consistent messages. Asset building requires consistent, positive, and clear messages about high expectations and what is important.
Redundancy. To build assets, students need to hear the same positive messages and feel support over and over again from many different people.

The emphasis when conducting resiliency activities is not on providing specific programs that are focused on the "deficiencies" we see in these young people. The emphasis is on providing these young people with the caring and support, high expectation and the active involvement in building on their strengths to add to their assets. Developing resiliency is about changing the way we view these individuals, moving away from identifying and serving their "problems" and towards finding and building on their strengths.

Emerging resiliency factors will be measured by this project through assets surveys and observations involving the local assets liaison the teaching staff. In addition funding from this project will be utilized to provide professional development regarding the six keys of successful teaching, assets development, and will develop the electronic databases to monitor emerging resiliency.

Integrative Youth Development™ (IYD) is based on asset, resiliency, and other relevant research and combines the research into especially effective principles and practices. IYD efforts target three areas: creating measurable supports for each individual youth, increasing caring and connection within school environments – the critical component to any systemic school reform effort, and working to support caring and connected communities. Therefore, IYD is one additional important component for fulfilling VPSC requirements and goals.

b. Measuring Change through measurement of student achievement.

Measuring Change through student achievement is actually the Process or processes an instructor utilizes to narrow the learning gaps, which were identified by analyzing previous achievement data.

How do we know that the student understands what has been taught to him?

What do we do when a student struggles with concepts?

To ensure student progression, consistent assessment must be implemented. The analysis of the assessments must result in either a corrective loop or progression toward the next standard. In order to articulate the dynamic nature of an Individual Learning Plan, the ILP can be consistently monitored and amended. In addition to ILP amendments, progress reports and work samples are required as evidence of change and must be presented at all staff bi-monthly collaborative meetings.

The final tenant of the school reform cycle is Focus on Accountability.

How do you prove that you made any positive effect on student achievement?

A full evaluation document would be written and distributed throughout all stakeholders. This document would include all instructional goals set by the program and results of those goals. The document would also include the revisions that resulted from data analysis.

Focus on Data

Utilizing student achievement data to identify learning gaps
Align learning gaps with Grade Level Expectations
Identify "targeted" standards as grade groups, grade levels, and individuals
Align school curriculum with Alaska State Grade Level Expectations

Focus on Change

Recognize and admit that the current process is not successful
Develop electronic Individual Learning Plan (ILP) system to track individual progression through standards-based instruction
Provide training for all school staff and parents on utilization of ILP system to monitor individual progression through standards-based instruction
Create Curriculum Maps for K-12 Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies

Focus on Measuring Change

Training to recognize or develop appropriate assessments to monitor mastery of standards
Development of Corrective Loop
Training and support to develop all school staff collaborative bi-monthly meetings

Focus on Evaluation

The final process is review and revision of the School Improvement Cycle and Resiliency Program, based on student achievement data. Accountability is the process where all stakeholders reflect on what goals were met, how they were met, and, conversely, what goals have not yet been met and why. This time of reflection is the navigation information that sets the course for the next year. If accountability data is analyzed and revisions made correctly, then a school will continuously improve.

Data collected regarding Objective #2

Student Connectivity Survey
Professional Development Survey
Coaching and Progression to Goals Report (includes coaching progression and implementation of PEAK strategies)
Technology use surveys (new tools)
State Corrective Action Report
Integrated Youth Development implementation report
Total number of students taking Reading and Writing State Assessments
Total number of students taking Math Assessments
Total number of students proficient on Reading, Writing, and Math Assessments