Facilitating Communities of Practice

Overview

The issue I am addressing with the community of practice is supporting Students w/Disabilities (SWD) in becoming college/career ready since there is an equity gap at my school site on college readiness. Our school data indicates the A-G Requirements having been met for all 12th-grade students (non-SWD) as 88% on track while SWD are only 41% on track. Our school’s vision is to, “provide a personalized educational experience that supports each student to achieve college and/or career readiness upon graduation.” Unfortunately, our school doesn’t have a plan to personalize the learning experience for SWD and that is evident by the testimony of faculty and the administrator where they mention accommodations are not provided and a lack of evidence-based instruction exists. My administrator mentioned, “lack of a cohesive plan that all teachers commit to.” It seems that our school is in need of a plan that directly aligns with its vision to address the equity gap. The equity gap is also related to our school’s mission since the mission of Polytechnic High School is to build the capacity of faculty and staff to serve all students. Our school has not provided resources to faculty and staff to personalize the learning of SWD. Therefore, the problem of practice (POP) selected by the leadership group which focuses on instructional issues which are observable/actionable and connect to the broader strategy of improvement, involves creating a uniform policy or school guideline to support/accommodate SWD in their academic classes.

To prepare for the facilitation of the community of practice, I invited faculty via email and text message to join me in supporting SWD and help close the achievement gap in college/career readiness. The key members of this project are: 1) Math teacher in the Magnet - National Board-certified teacher who had success working with Students with Disabilities (SWD) and personalizing learning which aligns to our school’s vision as evident from test scores. 2) Math teacher in the Magnet - has a great rapport with Latinx and Black students with IEP’s in both Magnet and non-Magnet which is evident during lunch where students can be seen in his classroom learning math. The well-being of students and student achievement is his priority. He obtained a leadership position in School Governance and is a voting member to help impact student learning. 3) Special Day Program (SDP) Math teacher - she works with 9th and 10th graders who have IEP’s and provides math instruction in Algebra 1 and Geometry. There is an equity gap at our school for SWD and her input is valuable to help address the inequity and advance conditions for student learning. 4) Resource Specialist Program (RSP) teacher for SWD - he can provide insight to the IEP and deepen the team’s learning in providing appropriate accommodations for SWD which ultimately supports all students to learn. 5) Assistant Principal - he oversees the special education department and IEP meetings and can provide additional insight and expertise to our leadership project. All team members were eager to participate since this project impacts their instruction and according to Knowles’ 4 Principles Of Andragogy, “Adults are most interested in learning subjects that have immediate relevance and impact to their job or personal life.” They all agreed to participate because the commonality is that together we can help improve the lives and well-being of our students.

In order to co-facilitate a community of practice, I began with understanding the most pressing issue - How to engage colleagues in a PDSA cycle where collaborative and meaningful professional learning can occur? Thus, acknowledging all stakeholder input in order to transform our public school. The faculty members at my school might not be used to working in a collaborative structure since department and Magnet meetings are conducted in a way where participants are silent unless prompted with a question. Unlike school governance and distinct committees on campus who follow “parliamentary procedures” for conducting their meetings, this concern will be addressed by allowing our group to co-create and revisit norms utilizing a Socio-cultural lens to guide our work as we participate, engage, and contribute to our community of practice. To assist the team in this endeavor and to address my pressing issue, I helped my team understand what “shifting participation” looks like in a Socio-cultural framework by inviting others to speak and acknowledging the ideas of the group by utilization of shared Google Documents (i.e. - Agenda, Minutes, etc…); where I allowed all members access to edit, revise, and contribute to our shared goals.

Main Activities

A community of practice entails having purposeful meetings that are aligned to the goals we are trying to achieve. Therefore, at our first meeting, our team was presented with data showing the equity gap for SWD. At our next meeting, the problem of practice was selected by the group through co-construction of possible reasons/solutions to the equity gap for SWD being disproportionately prepared for college/career readiness than their non-disabled peers. I provided the group evidence-based strategies to address our problem of practice (i.e. - student-led IEP meetings, parent workshops on college/career readiness and understanding the IEP, and SWD supports/strategies as focus target in professional development) and through communal dialogue, the assistant principal mentioned having a school guideline to help support SWD through teacher practices. His idea was receptive by the group and we unanimously agreed to create a list of school practices and guidelines to support SWD.

The CA Dashboard on college/career readiness is relevant to understanding why SWD are disproportionately not ready for college in comparison to their counterparts without disabilities since my school’s data reveals an average equity gap of 36.27% across three years between the two groups. A similar gap exists with the A-G Requirement School Data, measuring on-track for college, where the average equity gap across 3 years is 49.37%. These data measures not only inform us of the inequity to SWD but allows us to investigate further as to why this is occurring. According to the CA Dashboard, data for 2019 shows SWD in the Los Angeles Unified School District as 7.3% prepared for college/career while students without a disability (SWOD) are 37.7% prepared. In 2018, the district showed a similar pattern where SWD were 6.4% prepared for college/career and SWOD were 38.2% prepared. The data indicates an equity gap at the school and district level. The qualitative data from both student and faculty surveys collected at my school indicate “classes are difficult” and “accommodations/modifications are not provided”. The student body demographics consists of: Hispanic or Latino - 91.9%, Black - 0.9%, Asian - 2.2%, Filipino - 2.5%, White - 2.1%, Pacific Islander - 0.2%, Two or More Races - 0.1%, English Learners - 13.7%, Students w/Disabilities - 13.4%, Socioeconomically Disadvantaged - 92.4%, Foster Youth - 0.4%, and Homeless - 3.4%. Furthermore, the student body is more than 90% Latino and more than 90% is considered low income. According to Flores et al. (2015), Latinx students have the lowest levels of college completion compared to other racial/ethnic groups. Dahir (2020) states “Low-income students, many of whom reside in urban environments, often lack the support they need to prepare for postsecondary education, identify the best-fit schools, apply for financial aid, enroll and persist in their studies, and, ultimately, graduate with a degree.” The quantitative data shows a college/career readiness inequity for SWD and considering the demographics of the school community in which a majority of SWD belong, we are able to understand that not only a need exists for SWD, but a need coalesces with other demographic factors that have deepened the marginalization for SWD.

The group’s rationale for selecting this POP is that we all have SWD in our classrooms and we have not been able to adequately support their learning needs. Ensuring equitable math instruction for SWD through additional supports as a school practice will help increase their opportunity for college/career readiness. To monitor the impact of our strategy to address the POP, the math teachers in our group will select a focus student in each of our math classes and implement the SWD Poly Practices and see the effect after one month of implementation. We plan to garner student testimony as well to provide additional data in terms of the effectiveness of our strategy.

Reflection

In analyzing my strengths in co-facilitating a community of practice to address an instructional problem, they include: 1) Being attentive to the needs of my group and ensuring I was leading with consensus. I made sure to do this by restating group decisions to ensure the group was on board in the direction we were headed and inviting group members into the discussion to hear their points of view. Ensuring my team’s needs were being met, helped to ensure the energy of my team was productive and positive which is mentioned in my group’s norms “be collaborative and have fun.” 2) Co-Facilitaing the meeting by being in charge of the Agenda which includes the Welcome and Purpose of the meeting. My strength in this aspect is having a positive, caring, and welcoming energy which helped to create a safe and caring meeting where my group was respected and valued. Setting the agenda also meant planning “inclusion activities” which helped to deepen our collaborative relationship as we progressed in the community of practice.

In analyzing my areas for growth in co-facilitating a community of practice to address an instructional problem, they include: 1) Allowing myself to “step back” as mentioned in the Norms by asking if someone else would be able to create the agenda. The norms mention step-back in terms of dominating conversations, but I interpret stepping back in that I need to allow others to take the lead and responsibility in starting the meetings as that would help to ensure equity in co-facilitation. To address this area for growth, I plan to ask my group if someone would be able to take minutes or be in charge of the inclusion activities for the next meeting. By inviting others to step up I am also building their leadership capacity and ensuring co-facilitation in meetings. 2) Plan out the meeting dates of our communities of practice in lieu of planning each meeting a month before. This would help to ensure all stakeholders would be able to attend every meeting. In one instance, I had to reschedule our meeting because I was double-booked for another school meeting. Luckily, my group understood since I told them in advance and we were able to reschedule that meeting. In another instance, a group needed to reschedule our meeting because one of our group members had a COVID vaccine appointment. Having all our meeting dates in advance might have helped to avoid shifting meeting dates. To address this area of growth, I plan to include the meeting dates on our shared Google Agenda so everyone has ongoing access to our meeting schedule.