ARIZONA State Personnel Development Grant Introduction and Need The Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education awarded a five year State Personnel Development Grant (SPDG) to Arizona. This project will create a professional development process that will assist districts and schools in establishing systems change to increase student achievement in reading for students with specific learning disabilities in grades 4-8. Arizona s SPDG will support the Arizona Department of Education, Exceptional Student Services (ESS) in partnering with WestEd, a research, development, and service agency that works with education communities to promote excellence, achieve equity, and improve learning for children, youth, and adults. The SPDG and WestEd teams will create a comprehensive program of online professional development modules that will be piloted by selected Arizona districts with significant gaps in reading achievement for students with specific learning disabilities and their nondisabled peers in grades 4-8. Additionally, selected Arizona State University faculty will pilot the program with graduate students in education and educational leadership programs. The modules will then be available online for all Arizona districts and schools. The modules will promote systems change leading to increased reading achievement for students with specific learning disabilities. The evidence-based professional development system will cover demystifying disabilities, shared leadership with data-driven decision making, implementation science, systemic change, collaboration between special and general education, effective instruction with inclusionary practices, and adolescent literacy instructional and intervention strategies across the curriculum to support struggling readers. After the pilot period, the program of online professional development modules will be available to all Arizona districts and schools. A trained ADE SPDG Cadre will assist districts and schools in presenting the professional development and/or providing technical assistance throughout the implementation process. ADE s K-12 Academic Standards Division has concentrated professional development in reading on grades K-3 due to state statutes. Arizona Revised Statute (ARS) 15-704, also called Move on When Reading, requires school districts and charters to provide effective reading instruction, with initial screening; on-going diagnostic and classroom-based reading assessments, and a system to monitor student progress. ARS 15-211 requires all school
districts and charters with a K-3 program to submit a comprehensive plan for reading instruction and intervention across grade kindergarten through grade three. ARS 15-701 states that if data on the third grade statewide reading assessment is available and demonstrates that a student scored falls far below the student shall not be promoted from the third grade. Also focusing on the Move on When Reading Initiative, through the recently awarded Preschool Development Grant, ADE s Early Childhood Unit will increase Pre-K-3 professional development opportunities in reading by developing online modules. With the abundance of K-3 professional development opportunities, there is a statewide need to create adolescent literacy professional development opportunities. The SPDG allows ADE to fill that void. The funding will assist ESS in expanding professional development through systems change that supports increased reading achievement for students with specific learning disabilities in grades 4-8. The SPDG will further assist ADE in solidifying collaboration between ESS and School Support and Innovation (SSI) to support Focus Schools with a significant gap in reading achievement for students with disabilities in grades 4-8 and their nondisabled peers. Working together through the SPDG, the two units will provide assistance to schools and eliminate any duplication of efforts between ESS and SSI. The SPDG supports one unified initiative with an outcome that provides sustained school improvement leading to increased reading achievement for all students. After the pilot period, ESS and SSI will continue to use the SPDG professional development plan to support any identified school with a significant gap in reading achievement for students with specific learning disabilities and their nondisabled peers in grades 4-8. With the SPDG, ESS and Raising Special Kids, Arizona s Parent Training and Information Center, will collaborate to increase awareness and assistance with school personnel and parents. A parent component will be standard in every module to promote solid parent to school partnerships supporting students with disabilities. Technical assistance for the pilot schools will be provided by a Raising Special Kids specialist. Funding from the SPDG will elevate the work of individual groups to obtain a higher level of impact through collaborative efforts. The grant will establish a sustainable, unified effort to ensure equity, inclusion, and opportunity for all students in Arizona that can be replicated statewide and evolve into the development of additional modules in other specific areas. With 237 school districts and 526 charter schools, Arizona serves 1,232,246 students with 11.8% identified as students with disabilities. An analysis performed by the Arizona Department of Education (ADE), Exceptional Student Services (ESS) to investigate data for the State Systemic Improvement Plan (SSIP), indicated that 66% of students with disabilities were not meeting the Arizona state standards as demonstrated on the Arizona Instrument to Measure
Standards (AIMS) test. Of those students, 41% were identified as students with specific learning disabilities (Figure 1). Figure 1: 2013-2014 Arizona Student Count by Disability Continuing the data analysis, ESS and stakeholder groups examined current state priorities, initiatives, and needs. All groups were in agreement that reading performance was the most pressing issue and had the most impact on the outcomes of all students in Arizona, including those with disabilities. Stakeholders involved in this process included: Special Education Advisory Panel (SEAP) Local education agency (LEA) administrators Directors Institute attendees Secondary transition groups Early childhood groups Raising Special Kids, Arizona s Parent Training and Information Center Participants attending county directors meetings ESS and other ADE leaders Arizona s Institutes of Higher Education (IHEs) Statewide educators, parents, and community members The next step was to look at AIMS reading performance over time. Data collections dating
back to 2009 demonstrated a continuous and significant gap in reading achievement for students with disabilities and their nondisabled peers (Figure 2). Figure 2: Percent of Students with Proficiency in Reading on the AIMS Further findings indicate that only 26.3% of students with specific learning disabilities (SLD) that took the state assessment in 2014 were proficient in reading. Students with SLD in Focus/ Pre-Intervention schools scored even lower at 17.7%. Figure 3 demonstrates the gap in reading achievement results by grade levels for the 2014 AIMS test. Figure 3: Percent of Arizona Students Proficient in Reading on the 2014 AIMS.
With the data analysis results, feedback from the stakeholders, and advice from the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) during the agency s visit to ESS in November, 2014, Arizona created the following State Identified Measurable Result (SIMR): Increase the percent passing on the state assessment in reading for students with a specific learning disability in grades 3 8 in Focus and Pre-Intervention schools. ADE further recognizes that low-performing districts and schools may be receiving overlapping and duplicating technical assistance; therefore there is encouragement for internal collaboration. Both ESS and School Support and Innovation (SSI) support schools with a need for increasing reading achievement for students with a specific disability. The SPDG presents an internal collaborative framework for both departments to provide the same professional development and technical assistance to create systems change leading to sustainable, positive outcomes. In addition to aligning with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) waiver regarding reading progress for students in schools designated as Focus and Pre-Intervention schools, the SIMR aligns with Arizona s State Performance Plan (SPP), Indicator 3C, and Arizona s Move On When Reading initiative. The SPP Indicator 3C measures the proficiency rate for children with IEPs against grade level, modified, and alternate academic achievement standards. The Move On When Reading initiative is in response to Arizona s statute, ARS 15-701, that all third grade students who score in the Falls Far Below range in reading on the AIMS shall not be promoted from the third grade with possible exceptions for students who are English Language Learners and students with Individual Education Programs (IEPs). State-level professional development for reading in general education grades K-3 has been the priority since the Move on When Reading initiative. ESS attempted to provide professional development to supplement that, but at that time it revolved around reading for all students, including students with disabilities. There was no pin-pointed emphasis on students with disabilities. Both K-12 Academic Standards and ESS sections continue to move forward with similar professional development regarding Response to Intervention (RTI) and Multi-tiered Systems of Support that provide tiered instruction, progress monitoring, and interventions. Currently, the ESS, K-12 Academic Standards, and Early Childhood sections provide professional development in Dr. Louisa Moat s Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) for K-3 teachers. Several ESS program specialists are certified LETRS trainers for grades K-12. The Arizona SPDG includes LETRS training for selected staff members of the pilot districts and schools to provide foundational support for teaching reading in grades K-3. This allows for a seamless transition for teachers and students in grades 4-8. The need for state level professional development for reading beyond third grade is critical in
Arizona. ESS will lead the way by creating a comprehensive, online professional development program to increase reading achievement for students with a specific learning disability in grades 4-8 through systems change that will benefit all students. The availability of online modules will revolutionize ADE s ability to reach all districts and schools across Arizona. Arizona is a vast state that includes many rural and isolated rural areas (Figure 4). Of 273 districts in Arizona, 70% are located outside of the Phoenix metro area. To attend two days of training in Phoenix, the location of ADE s home offices, some school teams have to include two more days for travel. Even when scheduling trainings at the northern (Flagstaff) and southern (Tucson) ADE offices and regions, many school teams still have a oneway six hour drive. Figure 4. Arizona 2010 Population Density by Census Block Geography, University of Arizona Another contributing factor supporting the online professional development program is the high number of teacher vacancies in Arizona schools. The Arizona Department of Education asked a recruitment and retention task force to examine historically high turnover rates that are resulting in higher numbers of vacancies in schools state-wide. An analysis of the 2014-15 job openings in Arizona K-12 schools showed there were still 527 vacancies after the start of the school year. The lack of teachers perpetuates the problem by causing a lack of substitutes. Districts and schools cannot provide coverage for teachers to attend trainings because available substitutes are covering the vacancies. The SPDG pilot plan will create a system of embedded professional development by providing training onsite at each pilot district and school. SPDG technical assistance and coaching from WestEd and a trained ADE SPDG Cadre will occur onsite to support the district professional
development and coaching personnel within the school systems in order to foster capacity building for sustainability and replication with other schools in the district. The pilot modules used by Arizona State University (ASU) faculty and graduate level students in education and education leadership courses will determine how the modules can be used in future courses at ASU s Mary Lou Fulton College of Education. Aligned with the findings of a meta-analysis on 50 research studies on parental involvement in middle school indicating parental involvement was positively associated with achievement for students in middle school (Hill and Tyson, 2009), the SPDG Cadre includes two representatives from Raising Special Kids, Arizona s Parent Training and Information (PTI) Center. These representatives will provide guidance for including a comprehensive parent component in each SPDG module and additional training each year to pilot districts and schools. With the addition of related parent components, the SPDG will pioneer professional development that is inclusive of everyone involved in the education of students with specific learning disabilities. After the pilot period, the online modules will allow districts that have strong professional development providers to create their own training calendar. The modules will include everything needed to present, implement, and sustain the material; however the SPDG Cadre will be available to offer onsite technical assistance to ensure complete success. Additionally, the SPDG Cadre will be available to deliver the professional development modules for those districts and schools that need that onsite assistance. The SPDG plan will allow ESS to transform professional development to include thorough guided external and internal technical assistance, coaching, and support for implementing and sustaining changes to increase achievement for students with disabilities. At the same time, the Arizona SPDG will fulfill the critical need for statewide professional development and support in adolescent literacy; thereby having the potential to increase reading achievement for all Arizona students with specific learning disabilities in grades 4-8.