Preparing for Success: How One District is Building a Foundation for HQIM Implementation

The Center for Education Market Dynamics • September 05, 2024

Guest Author: John Drake and Jody Guarino, Co-Founders, Teaching, Learning and Instructional Leadership Collaborative, Orange County Department of Education (CA)

Imagine an entire district—from cabinet-level leadership to classroom teacher and every role in between—coming together proactively and regularly to align an instructional vision with the systems and structures needed to make that vision a reality.

Founded by John Drake and Jody Guarino, the Teaching, Learning and Instructional Leadership Collaborative (TLILC) at the Orange County Department of Education (OCDE) works alongside districts to build coherent systems of instructional improvement with new instructional initiatives, such as the adoption of high-quality instructional materials (HQIM). With nearly a decade of experience supporting HQIM adoption and implementation, Drake and Guarino have learned the importance of determining what is needed for successful implementation, prior to implementation.

We know the importance of HQIM in improving student outcomes and have seen its impact on adopters across levels, from the classroom to the county. But getting HQIM in the hands of teachers and students is just one piece of a larger implementation strategy. Teachers, school leaders, and district leaders need to create a framework where learning how to use the materials is supported at every level.

The TLILC at OCDE has the privilege of learning about the role of HQIM selection within districts. We’ve seen how districts can be proactive in understanding HQIM, and how they can set up conditions to leverage HQIM and support high-quality math instruction for all students. In our work alongside Maggie Villegas Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services for Tustin Unified School District) and her team, we set out to learn what knowledge, practices, and structures would be critical to impact change at all levels. To achieve this, a lab school has been established two full years prior to adopting and implementing new high-quality math materials.

At the lab school, teachers, an instructional coach, the site leader, and a district teacher on special assignment (TOSA) work alongside TLILC to implement high-quality, problem-based math instructional materials. The team participates in publisher training on the materials along with ongoing learning as a staff and as grade-level teams. Ongoing opportunities include:

• Monthly site-based learning such as deeper study of instructional pedagogies, like facilitating a lesson synthesis or rehearsing a math language routine
• Weekly grade-level collaboration using a protocol that includes looking at student work, doing math together, reading the lesson narrative to understand the goal of the lesson, and identifying instructional moves to advance student learning toward the goal
• Individual classroom coaching with a math teacher educator to work on pedagogical moves, such as facilitating a math instructional routine or selecting and sequencing student work to lead a lesson synthesis.

This space gives Maggie and her team insight into the training needed to support a shift to high-quality math materials. During this time, she collects data and insights to answer questions such as: What knowledge and pedagogies (of teachers, coaches, site leaders, district administrators) is necessary for change to take hold? What spaces and structures make this learning possible? What tensions are likely to emerge?

Maggie and Tustin Unified School District are investing in the conditions needed for success prior to implementing the new curriculum—including professional learning, infrastructure, resources, communication, and assessment tools. In conjunction with the lab school, the district is building a shared instructional vision by engaging district and site administrators, teachers on special assignment (TOSAs), and instructional coaches in a learning community. District and site administrators along with TOSAs will spend over 30 hours learning together: watching and discussing videos and artifacts of teaching and collaboration, reading papers, doing math, participating in math learning labs, learning with and from the work at the lab school. Instructional coaches will participate in similar experiences and develop content and pedagogical knowledge, an understanding of teacher learning, and coaching pedagogies in community—dedicating more than 50 hours across the year to their own learning.

Tustin Unified School District, engaged in focused, district-wide learning to understand the conditions necessary to support sustained instructional change and improvement prior to adoption and implementation of HQIM. Studying the change at one school provides a manageable space for the district to deeply learn and understand the contexts, capacities, processes and structures required in their district to support the change that will accompany district-wide implementation of HQIM.. Gaining this information prior to adoption and implementation will help Tustin respond proactively once they adopt and implement HQIM.

We plan to share our learning with and from Tustin in the future with other districts. In the meantime, what spaces for learning in your district do you need to create so that you can respond proactively when implementing HQIM?

To learn more about the selection and implementation processes of adopting math HQIM, read CEMD’s six-part series, Driving High-Quality Math Materials: A District Leader’s Guide.