CMO Newsletters
2020 - 2023
This is the last NIC CMO Roundup, which is, needless to say, bittersweet. It's sad because it's the last one, but overwhelmingly happy because it marks a milestone in celebrating three years of crucial and meaningful work by each CMO and the network as a whole. This work has significantly improved learning experiences, environments, and outcomes for Black and Latinx students with disabilities living in poverty. Thank you for all your work through unprecedented times in service of students and educators.
As we welcome the end of the school year, we are thrilled to celebrate stories of impact and improvement across the network in this month's newsletter. We're sharing the latest updates and inspiring stories that demonstrate our community's commitment and collaboration. From site visit highlights to upcoming events, we're making great strides toward our common objective of achieving dramatic gains in the learning experiences, environments, and outcomes for Black and Latinx students with disabilities experiencing poverty.
Happy Spring! The past month has been filled with learning and collaboration across our network, from productive site visits at many of your campuses to sharing learnings and best practices at the recent Carnegie Summit.
It was wonderful to see so many of you in person in New Orleans during our Spring 2023 Convening. From the Learning Tour to CMO best practice sharing and team time, we came together to learn, collaborate, and plan for how we will carry forward the important work we are doing for our students.
We have been busy enacting second semester priorities within classrooms and school buildings across our networked improvement community this past month, focusing intently on accelerating learning and spreading practices to more students and staff. With our final network-wide convening just around the corner in New Orleans!
We hope you’re all having a great start to 2023! It’s hard to believe we’re in our final stretch of our work together as a Networked Improvement Community. It’s been great to see many of you during winter Site Visits and Improvement Reviews, and inspiring to observe the progress being made towards our Aim of making dramatic gains for Black and Latinx students with disabilities experiencing poverty. In this newsletter, we share some incredible CMO highlights and important information about our upcoming network events including our Spring Convening.
What a year 2022 has been! The first semester of our final year together as a Networked Improvement Community has been filled with lots of activity, as teams have doubled down on running PDSAs, collecting data, replicating and documenting what works for students to prepare to spread and scale within and beyond our network. We remain as committed as ever to making dramatic gains in the learning experiences, environment, and outcomes for Black and Latinx students with disabilities experiencing poverty with the support and collaboration of this community.
A month has passed since we gathered in New York and we are still riding the momentum of our in-person collaboration. There are many impactful learnings coming out of our convening, many of which are being shared at PLC meetings and coaching calls. The next action period of testing and learning is underway, including a virtual post-NY Learning Tour check-in, Marshall mini Site Visits, and preparations for mid-year Improvement Reviews.
It was amazing to see so many of you in person in New York during our Fall 2022 Convening. From the Learning Tour to CMO best practice sharing and consultancies, we came together to learn, collaborate, and carry forward the work we are doing for our students.
Fall is here! We are more than a month into the start of the school year, and our third year together as a NIC. Collaboration and learning have ramped up as PLC groups have been meeting virtually, and our first in-person Convening is just over two weeks away.
As our organizations have been focusing on kicking off the new school year and welcoming students back to classrooms, our network has been launching into learning. August has been filled with productive alignment meetings, planning, and professional development. Our priority as a network is clear: align on what we want to learn and take action to learn it with people on the ground. As such, we are prioritizing check-ins with PDSA testers to support the launch of this year’s learning cycles and PDSAs.
Our final year as a pilot Networked Improvement Community for students with disabilities is here! We are excited to be launching into this third year with each of your teams, and as a network committed to making dramatic gains in the learning experiences, environment, and outcomes for Black and Latinx students with disabilities experiencing poverty.
Congratulations on making it to the end of the school year! We hope you’re all taking some time to relax. Summer is a great time to take a breath, regroup, reflect on the past year and plan for the coming year. Improvement Reviews have been a great way to do some of this, and we have many exciting collaborative and professional learning opportunities coming up this summer and fall.
Even among the many challenges that have continued due to the pandemic, the great resignation, and more our community has remained focused on exploring new practices, interventions and programs to learn what works and doesn’t work for our students. Whether it's creating approaches to transition planning, piloting student support systems, or collaborating to develop inclusive classroom practices, it is inspiring to witness the ways our NIC has been enacting bold changes, sharing lessons learned, and growing together. This newsletter contains highlights from May, bright spots from across our network, and upcoming events designed to continue and enhance our network’s capacity, collaboration and learning.
April wrapped-up Spring Learning Month with Improvement Team retreats, and Spring Site Visits with CMOs across our NIC commenced. We’ve been seeing evidence of strong data practices, and teams taking what they learned from the Teaming session to think strategically about priorities and who to bring into the work in the coming year. As we enter the final month of testing and learning this school year, teams are making a last big push to collect data, finish this year strong, and plan for next year.
What a month! March showcased the commitment, determination and passion of our NIC community, and pushed cross-CMO collaboration to a new level. More than 100 NIC members joined Spring Learning Month (SLM) sessions, and 23 people were on the ground in Los Angeles for our first in-person NIC event, the LA Learning Tour. From in-person activities to virtual events, we have been gathering together to learn, share ideas, and get inspired by the work we’re all doing for our students with disabilities. This newsletter contains a summary of the month’s innovative events, as well as bright spots from across our network and upcoming events to calendar into your schedule.
We are just past the midpoint of the initial phase of implementation of our project charters and improvement efforts, and entering a season of many cross-CMO collaboration opportunities. A lot has happened in the past month in our NIC, and Spring Learning Month has arrived!
January was all about defining strategic priorities for testing and learning, data infrastructure, and improvement routines to ensure the NIC is making strides to reach our Aim of dramatic gains for Black and Latinx students with disabilities experiencing poverty. This month’s newsletter covers activities and engagements set up to support these strategic priorities, including the Spring Learning Month, Spring Site Visits, and cross-CMO Professional Learning Communities.
From Site Visits to Improvement Reviews, the NIC is abuzz with activity. This month’s newsletter covers news about the Learning Month, highlights from the Improvement Reviews, and a Spotlight about improvement work at Summit Everest. Keep reading to learn more!
While 2021 is winding down, our community’s PDSA efforts are winding up. Since the beginning of the school year, the NIC has collectively run 57 PDSA cycles! There have also been a lot of activities to evaluate our impact on students—across the network, CMOs are participating in FITs, DCAs, and ICAs. Keep reading for announcements and upcoming events.
Happy Halloween! This spooky season had some fang-tastic events, including PLC meetings and cross-CMO working groups. Keep reading for highlights, announcements, and resources.
It was amazing to see your smiling eyes during our CMO Fall Convening. From CMO Sharing Rounds to kicking off Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), we came together to learn, collaborate, and carry forward the work we are doing for our students. Let’s keep the learning and collaboration going! Keep reading to explore opportunities to work and learn together.
This month, we have a few announcements:
- Registration for CMO Convening - Fall 2021 is now open! Please register by September 3.
- Given the unfolding conditions posed by the Delta variant of COVID-19, Marshall is currently surveying school teams to take an individualized approach to Site Visits this fall.
- SWIFT will be scheduling virtual FITs this fall.
In this edition of CMO Roundup, we want to take a moment to spotlight stories from the field and celebrate learnings and progress from the network. Learn how Improvement Teams across the network are trying out PDSA cycles, organizing change, and working with school leaders.
As Alice Cooper eloquently declared: School’s out for summer! This means we get a minute to take a break, regroup, and plan for the next school year. This summer, we have a series of events to prepare you for enacting your plans. Keep reading to learn more about these events and sign up!
As the school year ends, we are nearing the completion of our “planning year” as a networked improvement community. Let’s celebrate the many accomplishments of this past year.
It’s hard to believe nearly six weeks have passed since we gathered for our inaugural CMO Convening. Over this time, many of you have navigated the complexities of school reopening alongside closing out the 2020-2021 school year. We continue to celebrate the impactful work of our network community for students, families, and staff and live out our commitment to share learning and offer ongoing engagement with one another.
January 2021 marks one year of our pilot community. This year, we launched the network, onboarded new team members, met many CMO partners for the first time at inaugural site visits, met others for the first time virtually, didn’t let school closures get in the way of school improvement, created Rapid Response resources that were implemented far beyond the scope of our network, made Revised Plans in light of the COVID impact, began conducting tests of change using the tools of improvement science, and built meaningful relationships that set the stage for ongoing continuous improvement.
In this first quarterly issue of The CMO Roundup, we're excited to share profiles of each CMO partner as we kick off the 2020-21 year — with spotlight moments on Improvement Teams at Collegiate, STEM Prep, and STRIVE Prep. Around the network, CMOs are creating solutions for remote instruction, distance co-teaching, and virtual coaching/PD. We invite you to learn about each CMO's focal work in the profiles here.
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