In line with the school's mission and vision, this Community of Practice was formed to address student learning and well-being, particularly that of the African American students. Ricardo Lizarraga Elementary School has, for years, shown incremental improvements in the areas of academic achievement and attendance and each year, these two domains have been the focus of its SPSA goals. However, due to the small percentage of African Americans in the school, these issues have never been analyzed through their lens.

Three teachers and an Assistant Principal form the core group for this Community of Practice, however, we all are members of a bigger group, the Black Students Matter Committee. The members of this team, even if it is not an exact representation of our school’s population, offer diverse viewpoints, experiences and skills that I believe will improve the performance of our African American students. Last but not least, each has a good record of improving students’ well-being.

MAIN ACTIVITIES

Investigating Available Data:

As a co-facilitator to the selection of a problem of practice, I gathered and presented simple but straight-forward data, in particular three years of DIBELS and SBAC-ELA scores, and Attendance rates from the California Dashboard and MyData. I used this to collaborate with my Team by initiating a conversation about it, where we all expressed our impression of and posed questions about the data.

Through deliberation, and by leaning on research to back up our discussion, we arrived at the decision to address the problem of chronic absenteeism. The rationale is based on the several studies which purported that chronic absenteeism is a strong predictor of future academic struggles. Furthermore, there is a proven inverse correlation between the number of absences and success in acquisition of foundational skills: the higher the absence, the lower the skills (Ansari & Purtell,2017; Ehrlich, Gwynne, Pareja, & Allensworth, 2014). So, in addressing attendance issues, we also address academic challenges.

Given the complex nature of chronic absenteeism, the Team decided to continue looking at other data to help us understand and identify factors contributing to the problem. These were obtained by looking at disaggregated DIBELS data (yearly mean scores by African Americans) and the month by month attendance rates over the span of three years. To investigate reasons by which our students were chronically absent, we gathered qualitative data using the SPSA, Misis, Parent Contact Logs and held parent and student interviews. An empathy interview protocol was designed for use with target students with chronic absenteeism. This interview aimed to uncover reasons for frequent absences and/or reasons for avoiding schools.

Using the fishbone to analyze the emerging factors for absenteeism, the Team was able to identify institutional biases that contribute to the feelings of non-belongingness among our African American families and students.

Monitoring Impact:

The Team monitored the early impact and initial results by gathering attendance data during the days preceding and days after the program, and then comparing this with previous years’ trend. Each teacher monitored changes in the way families reached out and interacted with the school. Collaboratively, we agreed to look at these changes in behaviors among the families: number of communication attempts by parents on zoom (ex. saying hello to the teacher, reaching out for questions, etc), attendance increases during and after the dialogues and the Black History Month presentation. Parents were also solicited for their feedback during the Black Students Matter Committee Parent Meeting later that week.

Throughout this process, I realized that one of my strengths is that I am able to investigate and analyze data and present it in an accessible manner that allows for group learning and collaboration. By using different types of data and looking at these in relation to one another, the Team was able to identify problems that marginalize students, and later create an action plan to address these. In this case, given the attendance rate of the whole school, we delved deeper and searched for disaggregated data to see patterns in the absences, leading us to plan specific steps to mitigate the problem for specific months. Guided by the norms of collaboration, I was able to present information that encouraged questioning, inferencing and decision-making, as evidenced by how the Team moved from wanting to address a broader issue (academic needs) to a more specific issue (attendance due to feeling of non-belongingness), and in the process, being able to scratch beyond the surface of the absenteeism problem.

In all this, I was also able to put research in the forefront of our discussions and decision-making process.

For areas of growth, I wish to improve my co-facilitation and collaborations skills in ways that are true to the objective of the meetings while having authentic conversations and keeping the meetings organized and focused. There is a lot more for me to discover when facilitating a Community of Practice, and I know this goes beyond the Norms of Collaboration. Thus, I wish to learn further, a variety of facilitation tools and techniques to keep the Team interested and engaged. Lastly, I wish to learn how to release responsibility to other team members and build stronger team work in the Community of Practice.