HCPS FL Logo Curriculum and Instruction
Action Item
DATE: Tuesday, May 7, 2013
TO: School Board Members
FROM: MaryEllen Elia, Superintendent
SUBJECT / RECOMMENDATIONS
Approve Partnership with the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas and Agile Mind to Co-develop Assessment Processes, Tools, and Implementation Strategies to Meet the Specific Needs of Educators and Students in our District (Curriculum and Instruction Division)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Dana Center, Agile Mind, Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS), and a small number of additional co-development partner districts will collaborate to develop powerful tools and processes that mathematics teachers can enact with consistency and that will significantly enhance the learning of every student, every day, in every mathematics classroom.  This initiative will go beyond traditional item banks and technology solutions by helping every teacher use the evidence collected from assessment processes to make instructional decisions that continuously improve student learning.   This partnership will benefit our district by:

  1. Building our district's capacity to implement formative assessment processes and tools consistently in mathematics classrooms.
  2. Equipping teachers and leaders with the most promising practices for using next-generation assessment tasks and the resulting evidence to improve instructional decision-making in every classroom.
  3. Providing tools and processes for educators, students, and parents to use real-time data in powerful ways to benefit the achievement of all students during instruction rather than a post-instruction analysis.
  4. Increasing through an assessment lens educators’ knowledge and fluency demanded by the instructional shifts of the Common Core State Standards Mathematics (CCSSM).
  5. Inform instructional decision-making through the use of PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) aligned formative assessments that will enable mathematics teachers to gauge student progress in meeting the CCSS expected student outcomes.

The co-development partners will work together for three years.  Year 1 (2013-2014) will focus on building the capacity of a team of up to 35 teacher-leaders at the district and school levels to implement the processes and tools during the 2013/2014 school year and building a viable scale-up model for reaching all the districts' mathematics classrooms.  In Year 2 (2014-2015) and Year 3 (2015-2016), these teacher-leaders will implement the scale-up model with support from the Dana Center and Agile Mind.

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES
• Demonstrate consistent and effective teaching methods • Challenge and support all students with an appropriate curriculum • Align the performance management system with the district’s priorities
FINANCIAL IMPACT (Budgeted:  Yes)
Each co-development district partner will contribute $145,000 per year for three years.  Both the Dana Center and Agile Mind will make comparable financial contributions to this initiative.  Funds are available from the Supplemental Academic Instructional (SAI) funds.
EVALUATION
This project is a collaborative development process; formative evaluation elements are embedded in the design and will inform improvement of the activities that will engage our teachers. The district is also committing to work with third party researchers to ensure data are available, analyzed, and used.
SUBMITTED BY: 
Wynne A. Tye   Gretchen Saunders
Assistant Superintendent, Curriculum and Instruction
(813) 272-4221
  Chief Business Officer
(813) 272-4270
    A 6.09
Hillsborough County Public Schools (Florida) * Mtg.#20130507_561 (Board Meeting) * Section A Item# 6.09