NCEE's Jason Dougal talks about how great improvement takes constantly measuring where a district is as it moves closer to the goal of high performing schools. The Madera Unified team, after analyzing their current environment, focused on two starting points: enhancing the curriculum at its elementary schools with visual and performing arts and STEM, and the support of teacher collaboration during the school day, through adjustments to the school schedule.

One of the places to start the transformation of the district, post-pandemic, was with the addition of more visual and performing arts opportunities in elementary school. These enhancements to the curriculum were designed both to increase student engagement after students had been away from in-person schooling for almost two years and to support the characteristics of the Graduate Profile. In this video, a principal and members of the district team describe the initiative and its impact on students.

The third initiative is creating time in the busy school schedule for teachers to have an opportunity to work together. With that time, teachers are refining how they deliver instruction so students achieve more. While the teachers are improving their craft, the students are taking advantage of the additional arts and STEM lessons. Adding those new courses provided the time in the schedule for each teacher within the school day for collaboration. A win-win. In this video, Madera Unified leaders describe why this collaboration is crucial for improving student achievement.

See collaboration time in action: in this video, a teacher and a principal describe how the increased time for collaboration is changing their practice.