2: TRANSFORMATION PLAN

All guiding questions are aligned to the element criteria located in the Portfolio Guide. Use the questions to guide your reflection on the artifacts to narrate your journey on the goals.

Transformation plan is your sustainability plan. Adjust the template to incorporate your school goals and action steps from your sustainability plan. Use the space on this page to write out the goals from the sustainability plan.

Dorothy Height created the following sustainability plan by using data from the past 2 years in the VILS program and by including the input of key stakeholders like the VILS coach, School Leader, IT Manager, TLC, and DCIs. Teachers and other faculty were able to complete surveys that were created by both the National VILS Program and DHCS Leadership Team to contribute their input. This plan will continue efforts of meaningful tech integration to improve student engagement and academic achievement for both students and teachers with the support of the DHCS Leadership Team and VILS Coach.

We also use data from weekly formative assessments, quarterly cumulative assessments, additional survey data, and classroom observations to shape specific aspects of the Sustainability Plan to best meet the needs of our school community. 

Guiding questions:

1. What is your progress on the action steps?

We are currently creating strong foundations to execute many of the action steps in our Sustainability Plan. With the transition of a new VILS coach at DHCS,  the beginning of November was spent onboarding the new coach to the VILS program and DHCS community. Now, many systems and structures have been put in place to ensure that the action steps are carried out with fidelity during the second half of the year. 

Some of the action steps that are priorities for January 2023 include: 

• Starting VILS co-coaching meetings with the DCIs and Tech Ready teachers

• Pushing teachers to use Google Forms and other digital platforms to assign and grade two exit tickets a week

• Supporting 3-8 ELA teachers in implementing strong Module 2 Performance Tasks (including but not limited to: podcasts, infographics, virtual trading cards, and ebooks) 

2. What systems have you put in place to create flexibility to adapt and change the plan?

• When the new VILS coach joined the DHCS team, the School Leader and VILS Coach met to ensure the Sustainability Plan met the needs of our families, students, and educators. Following this original meeting, the VILS Coach and School Leader meet biweekly and part of the standing agenda is making sure that the Sustainability Plan is adapted and updated as needed.  

GOAL 1: Dorothy Height will have a clear shared vision with goals for the school, its culture, and teaching and learning. There will be opportunities for ongoing support for the leadership team, including professional conferences, webinars, online communities of practice, etc. There will also be modeling of strong leadership by adopting and utilizing powerful and innovative technology strategies.

• Action Step 1: Continue TIM observations and coaching cycles. 

• Action Step 2: Principal and DCIs co-plan with instructional coach to support staff, reinforce staff expectations of collaboration with coach and promote integration of technology into teaching practice. Help with staff accountability on deliverables and implementation.

• Action Step 3: Ensure planned time and budget for VILS coach and DCIs to attend ed tech conferences and training on new practices, techniques, and programs.

GOAL 2: Dorothy Height will align technology integration, school, and district goals and initiatives to increase powerful learning for students and has the flexibility to adapt and change the Transformation Plan as needed.

• Action Step 1: Meetings with Directors of Curriculum in May, and during the summer to discuss the implementation of VILS in academic instruction during summer PD, including the new VILS Immersive Media Lab - coming in 2022. Sharing of plan occurs through the inclusion in communication to families via Student Handbook and to staff via staff handbooks/PDs.  

• Action Step 3:  Bi-weekly DCI meetings to discuss academics and leveraging technology to support and transform instruction. Professional Development opportunities designed and facilitated during the year that address academic and tech needs, including co-planning for VILS coach to have access to larger topics to plan virtual field trips, Immersive Media Lab usage, etc.

Goal 4: Dorothy Height will develop an accessible plan for repairs and replacements that is clear and known by all teachers, students, and families. The school will also offer ongoing digital citizenship training. In addition, there will be designated a school IT support contact who manages and maintains device support and inventory and coordinates with district contacts for school needs.

Action Step 1: Set time at the beginning of the school year to train teachers and students in best practices, device care, acceptable use, tech expectations, and how to receive support before rollout. 

• VILS Technology Rollout Plan for SY 2022-2023

• Beginning of Year Teacher Technology Training 

Action Step 2: Set bi-monthly tech checks to review devices, troubleshoot, retrain, and make sure Chromebooks are in the best shape. Provide a checklist to homerooms to facilitate quarterly maintenance checks.

End of year check-in process: All VILS devices inventoried/damage check before last day of school - fee invoices generated, replacement items ordered, warranties filed. 

Action Step 3: Dorothy Height Charter School will continue to follow the current repair process for devices VILS Filing a Repair Claim. Dorothy Height Charter School will also fund the replacement of devices and accessories with MFP funds. 

Goal 5: Dorothy Height will provide multiple opportunities for families to stay informed and involved in their child's use of technology. The school will promote equity in parent and family engagement by delivering the information in multiple formats and languages. In addition, the school will offer opportunities for engagement in areas such as digital citizenship, help desk information for broken devices, community building etc.

• Action Step 1:  Continue to build a reference library for families to learn and troubleshoot at home. 

• Action Step 2:  Create a schedule of tech offerings for the larger school community, potentially with outside partners to include tech tutorials, Q&A, digital citizenship resources, at-home tech resources, and Coffee with the Tech Coach/Principal. 

• Action Step 3: Continue to build out a network-wide website with additional digital citizenship resources, student tech support, and other resources curated alongside the Student Tech Team.

Goal 6: The VILS Coach at Dorothy Height will connect with the school community to understand and collect information on the needs in technology use, knowledge, or concerns, and will use that data to help identify indicators of diversity in our student population. The coach will plan opportunities for additional resources and program support for students from marginalized communities. 

• Action Step 1: Parent survey, Teacher survey, and Student survey at the BOY, MOY and EOY, asking about technology use, knowledge, or concerns to identify the needs of our students and the larger community.

• Action Step 2: EOY Survey to inform what mindset shifts we need to make as a school for the following school year around technology usage and using that data to plan for BOY professional development sessions. 

• Action Step 3:  Intentionally planning for, providing, and teaching students from marginalized communities how to access and leverage tools and programs that address their specific learning needs. Providing resources for families to support scholars at home. Train staff on the VILS Learner Variability Navigator.

• Self Reflection on the Element: (Choose one: Emerging, Aligning, or Optimizing)

• • I believe that we are aligning in this Element. 

• Strengths: How did your campus exemplify illustrating this element?

  • Based on our curriculum and digital platform purchases, I believe our strength in this element is our alignment with technology integration, school, and district goals to increase powerful learning for students.  We are also in the process of using our Interim data from November to shape our tech-integration initiatives moving into the new year.  

• Next Steps: What could you have done differently to better align with this element?

  • I think that our Sustainability Plan could be a lot more specific. Many of our action steps and goals are vague, lacking data or quantitative information to substantiate them. This makes it challenging to track growth/progress as we move through the school year relative to our Sustainability Plan and makes it more challenging to turn some of these goals into actionable initiatives within the VILS program.