Partners: Paradise Unified School District

Collaboration between general education, special education, and specialists is the lynch pin of our system change and is reflected in each team. Teams at each site have evolved to the point where there is little distinction between teachers and various specialists. As a result, all staff participates in frequent assessment of student progress, analysis of progress, and planning to improve progress. Collaboration between teachers and support staff is basic to the team process. Individual schools arrange time to facilitate meetings of the site teams on a regular basis. District-level meetings to discuss academic support are held five times per year. In addition, teachers meet informally to discuss issues regarding intervention, achievement data and students. Grade-level and curriculum meetings also serve to reinforce the collaborative model and resolve problems.

Parents play an integral part in our collaborative model. Parents are involved at the site level as classroom volunteers, as vital members of school site councils that have helped design and review the collaborative model and as key participants in student study teams and Individual Educational Plan meetings. Parents of students targeted to receive academic support, sign a compact with teachers and their child defining individual responsibility. Each site involves parents in numerous evening programs to support student academic achievement. At the district level, parents have been encouraged to attend parenting workshops on love and logic and to participate in an intensive Autism series. Parents are also involved in our district advisory council that meets monthly with the superintendent. The district community newsletter, distributed two times a year, provides a general overview of the collaboration and student achievement. Data showing dramatic increases in student achievement each year has resulted in overwhelming parental support.

Classroom teachers are held accountable for all their students, including identified special education and at-risk students, through the shared gathering of assessment results, team meetings, and academic interventions. Through differentiating initial classroom instruction and supplementing instruction through easily accessed academic interventions, teachers see themselves as effective instructors for all students. The academic success of students within their classrooms fosters the willingness to continue the collaborative model.

PUSD has sustained this collaborative model for the past eight years through constant communication to staff and parents facilitated at the site and district level. A clear mandate requires principals provide supervision and monitor the instructional progress of each site’s collaboration. PUSD implements an assessment database that supports the collection of student data and facilitates instructional decision-making. Time is allocated for support team meetings at the district and site level. Professional development opportunities enhance educational, behavioral, and school climate objectives. The most powerful incentive for advancement of this collaborative model within PUSD has been the dramatic increase in student achievement. Success breeds success!