NOVEMBER 2009 (Volume #8, Issue #1) - Packet #16, Article 1
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Stories like Flint Community Schools are beginning to emerge around the state in light of significant school improvement efforts that result in positive outcomes for students. These stories help build understanding about what is working in Michigan schools and offer a coherent frame of reference for other districts. As you read this story, think of your district’s own emerging story and the audience that might benefit from hearing the story.
Flint Community Schools From the Continuous Improvement Monitoring Perspective
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004 requires state educational agencies to develop and implement a monitoring, technical assistance, and enforcement system. The Continuous Improvement and Monitoring System (currently known as CIMS-2) is the Michigan Department of Education (MDE), Office of Special Education and Early Intervention Services (OSE-EIS) system that meets these federal requirements. The CIMS-2 is the recently revised system used by the OSE-EIS to help local school districts and the state monitor, analyze, and interpret data and ensure compliance with the IDEA as well as focus on results for students.
Shirley Young, a monitoring consultant for OSE-EIS, noted that the case opened by state monitors on Flint Community Schools in 2006 has been closed. She explained that Flint was selected for focused monitoring for high numbers of students with disabilities dropping out of school, a high identification rate of students in special education, and high numbers of students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) being taught outside of the general education setting.
See boxed item below on least restrictive environment (LRE).
Flint Community Schools was selected for focused monitoring again in 2008 for rates of suspension and expulsion. Young acknowledged that while the focused monitoring was initially a source of distress for local staff, they methodically reframed the challenge and created an opportunity for reorganizing their operations. The result was a significant increase in the level of engagement of virtually all stakeholders—including parents, students, community, the United Teachers of Flint, Genesee Intermediate School District administrators, and staff. After overcoming initial resistance and progressively engaging in collective problem solving, Flint Community Schools took action and turned focused monitoring into an opportunity for improvement.
Leadership, Community Collaboration, and Teamwork
The Flint Journal newspaper reported on May 11, 2009, “The Flint schools’ once-struggling special education program has pulled an about-face in a little more than a year. Thanks to the dedication of one administrator and her team, more students with special needs have been mainstreamed into general education classes...And the best part is, it happened well in advance of a state-imposed deadline.”
The article is referring to
Patrica Gilcrest-Frazier, Director of Special Education (known as Learning Support Services) for Flint Community Schools, who shared her thoughts about how the process of continuous improvement monitoring has impacted the district. “Because of the focused monitoring, I think that everything that we do now is aligned, and it’s aligned to the data. Everything we do is now aligned to the state curriculum and to the district’s vision and mission. We are now more focused on the main thing, effective instruction for the students in Flint Community Schools.”
Also quoted in The Flint Journal article, Superintendent Linda Thompson said, “The district has pushed for more intervention and support for students with special needs.”
Flint Community Schools hired more certified and qualified special education teachers in recent years. According to Thompson, they have also found alternative ways to support some students who had been misidentified as special needs students because of troubled backgrounds. “The first line of intervention happens in the general education classroom,” Thompson said. “A polished, practiced teacher will know, second nature, the students who are understanding the instruction, and those who are not. The vision is to make sure that a general education teacher practices teaching skills that address that group of students who have IEPs.
“Change the culture of teaching and it changes the culture of the school,” Thompson continued. “We are an urban district with a lot of challenges. We still have a lot of work to do, but we’re getting there.”
In addition to focused monitoring by the state, Flint Community Schools faced a budget crisis and the lowest enrollment of students in 40 years. “In 1968, GM employment peaked at approximately 80,000 workers. About the same time, the Flint Community Schools enrolled its largest K-12 class of 46,557 students. In the 40-year period following the enrollment peak, the school district’s student population declined 70 percent, from 46,557 students to 14,056 students,” according to the district’s 2009 strategic plan Looking Forward: A Plan of Action for Transforming the Flint Community Schools. “The Superintendent’s role was essential,” said Gilcrest-Frazier.
“Superintendent Thompson was not the superintendent when we started these initiatives, but she was an administrator. She was here from the beginning. Her transition was smooth, and her leadership was key. Superintendent Thompson has a background in special education. She was a teacher of students with emotional impairments. It also helped that our executive director for secondary education, Cheryl Tate, has a background in special education. Many of our elementary school principals come from special education backgrounds as well.
“Union leadership, building level staff, curriculum directors, the intermediate school district, and others embraced this challenge and understood that the focused monitoring was leading Flint Community Schools toward what we needed to make happen,” Gilcrest-Frazier pointed out. “We partnered with the community by bringing in our community partners, including Community Mental Health (CMH). We talked about student assistance teams and other team processes we used for identifying students for special education. The community is excited to be a part of our team! All the things we did fell into place. The right people were in the right places. The timing was right.”
Gilcrest-Frazier is enthusiastic about the changes that have happened in Flint Community Schools. Her pride for the team, the work accomplished, and the district is evident. “Even though we have been lifted out of focused monitoring, the efforts have continued,” she said. “There is not anything that happens in the planning process anymore where the special education director, the bilingual director, or the title one director aren’t present. We’re all at the table! I think that we realize that because of the special education monitoring, it really wasn’t just about special education. It is about all students and how we we’re serving them. We have so many kids who are at risk. When we improved our practices and our procedures for students with disabilities, we really did help the entire district.”
A common goal of the Flint Community Schools team was to meet the needs of all children regardless of abilities. Communication efforts across the district brought teams together, and activities were centered around that common goal. “We listened to teachers’ thoughts and opinions,” Gilcrest-Frazier said. “We came together to make decisions. We have a very supportive administrative staff.”
Understanding Data Leads to Improved Practice
“Through the focused monitoring process, we learned that we were not understanding the data we were collecting,” Gilcrest-Frazier said. “We now know how to read the data and act on the changes that needed to be made. We had been collecting a lot of data, but we weren’t using it to make the changes that we needed to make. You can be data rich, but if you’re not interpreting the data, making changes because of the data, you aren’t doing anything. The data has helped us to understand where we need to change our practices, and we are using data to show our administration the things we need, including programs and staffing.
“Leonard Bianchi, Director of Research System and Evaluation, did a five-year analysis of our student achievement data in math and reading,” Gilcrest-Frazier said. “We shared the results with the teachers participating in the IEP process. The data helped teachers to see the achievement comparisons of Flint Community Schools students with students in the county and students in the state. It helped us to see that students with IEPs aren’t just spending time in the general education classrooms—inclusion is making a difference in their achievement.
“Students with IEPs are now performing right up there, aligned with the rest of the students in special education around the state,” Gilcrest-Frazier said. “When we look back five years, we can see that math scores were significantly lower. We can see the difference our efforts are making.
“In the past, achievement data for students with disabilities wasn’t taken into consideration by the district,” Gilcrest-Frazier continued. “Now, it’s a given. Dr. Bianchi has since started asking special education staff specifically, ‘What data do we need to collect?’ In addition, data about special education is presented to the Board of Education, and the Board is asking to see more special education data as a result of our work.”
One example of data analysis that has made a significant difference in curriculum planning, according to Gilcrest-Frazier, is observations about reading gains at the elementary grades. Levels appeared to decrease for the majority of students when they reached high school. This analysis encouraged a move toward more content reading activities—often used only for students with special needs—to be used for all students at the secondary level.
Data strategies to monitor the effectiveness of practices implemented due to focused monitoring include the following:
- Increase academic achievement of students with disabilities as measured by the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP), the Michigan Merit Exam (MME), and WORKKEYS.
Measurement/Evaluation: Compare MEAP/MME/WORKKEYS data for students with disabilities for the 2006-2007 school year to the MEAP data for the 2007-2008 school year. Compare data with students that are in basic self-contained settings.
- Increase stakeholders (parents, students, teachers, and administrators) confidence and acceptability for inclusive programming.
Measurement/Evaluation: Have stakeholders (parents, students, teachers, and administrators) complete pre/post surveys at the beginning and end of the 2007-2008 school year.
- Increase the school attendance of students with disabilities for the 2007-2008 school year.
Measurement/Evaluation: Collect data regarding the number of days students with disabilities did not attend school during the 2006-2007 school year as compared to attendance for the 2007-2008 school year. Compare attendance of general education students.
- Decrease behavioral office referrals and suspensions of students with disabilities.
Measurement/Evaluation: Collect data regarding the number of students with disabilities who had office referrals and/or suspensions during the 2006-2007 school year as compared to office referrals and/or suspensions during the 2007-2008 school year. Compare data to general education students.
“In the past, we were always changing policies and practices mid-stream, but we no longer do that,” Gilcrest-Frazier said. “We really work to continue this change process together. It belongs to the whole school community. With written policies and procedures in place, we know, each year, where we need to focus our energy. For example, we know we want curriculum improvements, strategies to help kids pass algebra, and strategies to help kids to read better. We have data not only for last year but also comparison data including the past five years. I feel good, and the staff feels good because we are making improvements. The bar is going up. We are moving forward.
“This process got us to look at not just the students in special education, but how all the students in our district were being served,” Gilcrest-Frazier said. “Our executive director of curriculum and instruction, Eugene Rutledge, used focused monitoring data to develop a district curriculum that is not just textbook driven. We built differentiated instruction into the new curriculum from the start. All staff are now focused more on differentiated instruction. There is a common understanding that the first line of intervention will take place in the general education classroom.”
Practices That Made a Difference for Flint Community Schools
Flint Community Schools got busy with professional development according to Gilcrest Frazier. “We talked about the difference between an accommodation and a modification. Flint teachers learned about effective co-teaching practices, student assessment teams, response-to-intervention, positive behavior support, differentiated instruction, and other effective classroom practices. We concentrate now on the main thing, which is instruction.”
Learning Support Services created a handbook to assist all teachers and the Flint Community Schools in understanding terminology, language from the IDEA, and practices being implemented in the district. The handbook is titled, Learning Support Services Handbook: A Guide to Services, Flint Community Schools.
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Michigan's Integrated Behavior and Learning Support Initiative (MiBLSi)
Funded by the Michigan Department of Education (MDE), MiBLSi is designed to help schools develop schoolwide support systems in reading and behavior. MiBLSi is a Response to Intervention (RtI) model that takes approximately three years to fully implement. Schools that participate in MiBLSi have a series of trainings designed to help implement reading and behavior systems.
The training sequence is heavy in the first year and tapers off in the second and third years. Schools typically have a leadership team of five to seven people participate in the trainings. Principal attendance is essential.
MiBLSi is one improvement initiative within Michigan’s Integrated Improvement Initiatives (MI3). For more information, visit www.cenmi.org/miblsi.
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“We are working on getting Algebra II training for our teachers. We make sure that the right staff get the right professional development and that students get the right interventions. We can really focus on that now. I think that we are so in tune to being in compliance that the new activities are becoming habit.”
Flint Community Schools applied for a grant from Michigan’s Integrated Behavior and Learning Support Initiative (MiBLSi) (
see MiBLSi boxed item). “Training from MiBLSi has been so effective that the superintendent wanted the whole district to apply,” Gilcrest-Frazier said. This year, five new schools are participating in MiBLSi training.
“All the elementary principals are interested and taking the time to learn from one another since MiBLSi,” Gilcrest-Frazier continued. “Principals and teachers are rallying each other around new initiatives to help students. So many staff really took the ball and ran with it. They are doing great things and they are self-motivated to get things done.
“It’s funny,” Gilcrest-Frazier mused, “I had wanted to apply for the MiBLSi grant for a while, but didn’t get the required interest from the district. Because of focused monitoring, we applied, and suddenly it’s a program that everyone wants! The initiative has reduced expulsion and suspension at the elementary levels to almost nothing.
“We are also looking at including what we’ve learned from MiBLSi at the secondary level. The district has decided to go forth with positive behavior support (PBS) at the secondary level. Planning is underway,” Gilcrest-Frazier said.
Points of Pride and A New Vision of Special Education
“The synergy that came from the focused monitoring carried over into our practice,” said Tony Sitko, principal at Potter Elementary School. “We got everyone on board at the building level by modeling the process taking place at the district level. We used the same protocol and procedures across the district. We all spoke the same language and stayed on the same page. Data review is incorporated into our procedures. Everyone is more proactive when looking at our achievement, discipline, and attendance data and using it to make improvements in their work. Focused monitoring opened up everyone’s understanding and created a purposeful mindset.
“We no longer think of ourselves as ‘special education people,’” said Suzie MacWilliams, Department Chair, Southwestern Academy. We think of ourselves as teachers of all children, and I think that has made a major difference in our work and our approach with general education. In my building, there are two special education staff on the leadership team. We are no longer doing things separately. We are able to see what we do well and that’s helpful. The focused monitoring process helped us to see not only our weaknesses, but our strengths, and we do have some strengths. The focused monitoring reports were never negative. The reports explained what we do well and what we needed to do to improve. We tried to keep that same tone when we went to work on our improvements. Everyone took ownership of the improvements we needed to make.”
Flint Community Schools has changed the name of their special education department to Learning Support Services. “This is not just a name change in writing,” Gilcrest-Frazier said. “It was about sticking with the positive. We knew that some of our students felt bad about saying that they received special education services or that they were in a special education classroom. We changed our name to reflect just what we do. We asked people all over the district about what they thought the name should be. There were several suggestions, but we decided on this one because it represents what we do. The Board members love it. Even general education teachers now think of us as a support in a good way. We have some people say, ‘I don’t know if this department is special education or not.’ I smile and think, good!”
“Flint people are resilient people,” said Sitko. “Our intent is to do what is best for children. We kept our students and their families in mind first as we set about fixing the problems. We’re all a part of the plan for improvement. Every time we peeled a problem away, we found others, and as we continue to work on those problems we are making improvements in areas that weren’t even identified.”
“There’s hardly anything that goes on around here now that one of the learning support supervisors—Linda Burroughs, Samuel Dykstra, or I—are not included in,” Gilcrest-Frazier concluded. “Special education is represented, we bring the special education voice to the district table at every level. You can tell that I’m really happy about all the work that’s going on,” Gilcrest-Frazier exclaimed. “There’s just so much going on!”
State Closes Flint’s Corrective Action Case
According to Shirley Young, all corrective action for Flint Community Schools in the areas of identification, LRE, drop-out rate, and suspension and expulsion for students with IEPs are complete. When asked about the key factors in the Flint Community Schools improvement process, Young stated that the following key corrections have been made:
- The district’s psychologists have been retrained to consistently implement the required eligibility criteria for the identification of students with a cognitive impairment (CI).
- Written procedures for the involvement of general education teachers in the multidisciplinary evaluation team (MET) process have been developed, and principals are monitoring the teachers’ participation.
- The Student Assistance Team (SAT) process has been revised and is being implemented in all buildings with oversight from principals (see Figure 1). Each building has a designated, trained behavior intervention team who consults with the SAT when needed.
- A district-wide PBS team reviews and recommends models for principals to implement based on each building’s suspension data. Professional development has been provided to all teams.
- Data from the Michigan Compliance Information System (MICIS) shows a decrease in the identification rate of students with CI over the last three years.
- Professional development has been provided to staff regarding the development and provision of accommodations in general education.
- Behavior intervention teams were created in every building and trained.
- MICIS data shows a marked increase in the amount of time students with disabilities spend in general education settings over the last three years.
- The special education department provided training in evaluating students’ behavioral needs and completing functional behavioral assessments (FBAs) and behavioral intervention plans (BIPs).
- A “Community of Learners,” consisting of parents, staff, and community members, was organized with the collaboration of a local foundation and has begun to explore the factors that affect the district’s drop-out issues.
- Transition assessments have been administered to all students age 14 and older and a “Summary of Academic Achievement and Functional Performance” has been provided to all graduating seniors.
- All students receiving special education services now have Educational Development Plans (EDP). Aligning EDPs with transition plans is underway.
- Teacher consultants have been assigned to provide services to students with disabilities who are enrolled in the district’s aternative education settings.
- All students with disabilities are now coded as such in the district Student Performance Manager (SPM) program. The SPM is updated every 30 days. General education administrators can now determine whether a student has a disability at the time of a potential suspension. Special education chairs have been trained and have access to the discipline records in the SPM system.
| Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) |
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The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004 states that, to the maximum extent appropriate, all students with disabilities, birth through 21 years of age (birth through 25 years of age in Michigan) are to be educated with age appropriate peers, both with and without disabilities. This is known as least restrictive environment (LRE). The LRE is the appropriate balance of settings and services to meet the student’s individual needs. The district shall have an array of services and a continuum of educational setting options available to meet the individual LRE needs of each student.
An appropriate LRE is one that enables the student to make reasonable gains toward goals identified in an Individualized Education Program (IEP). The student’s IEP shall indicate the LRE for the student and explain to what extent, if any, the student will or will not participate in the general education environment...and extracurricular or other nonacademic activities. The provision includes students with disabilities placed in public or private institutions or other care facilities.
Special classes, a separate school, and other removals of a student with a disability from the general education environment may occur only when the nature or severity of the disability is such that education in the general education class, even with the use of supplementary aids and services, cannot be achieved satisfactorily.
Source: Learning Support Services Handbook: A Guide to Services, Flint Community Schools, Office of Curriculum and Instruction, August 2007.
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| Glossary of Terms |
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Behavioral Intervention Plan (BIP)—A plan comprising practical and specific strategies designed to increase or reduce a definable behavior. These strategies address preventive techniques, teaching replacement behaviors, and crisis management, if necessary.
Differentiated Instruction—Techniques in which the teacher proactively plans/carries out varied approaches to content, process, and product in anticipation of and response to student differences in readiness, interest, and learning needs.
Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA)—A systematic process for defining problem behavior and gathering medical, environmental, social, and instructional information that can be used to hypothesize about the function of student behavior.
General Education Curriculum—The curriculum designed for all students, usually consisting of a common core of subjects and curriculum areas adopted by a district that are aligned and defined by the Michigan Content Standards.
Least Restrictive Environment—The 2004 requirement under IDEA
that students with disabilities, including those in pubic or private institutions or other care facilities, be educated with students who are nondisabled, to the maximum extent possible.
Multidisciplinary Evaluation Team (MET)—A group of people, including the parent or adult student, charged with the responsibility to make recommendations regarding evaluation, assessments, and eligibility. This team includes the same membership as the IEP team (although not necessarily the same individuals) and other qualified professionals.
Student Assistance Team (SAT)—A general education team established at the local level, with the purpose to problem-solve regarding the educational needs of any student. Procedures, meeting schedules, and team membership are established locally. The team is likely to include general educators and administrators and could include counselors, specialists, and special education personnel. Parent participation is valued but not required.
Source: Learning Support Services Handbook: A Guide to Services, Flint Community Schools, Office of Curriculum and Instruction, Learning Support Services, 08-01-07.
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| Figure 1: Student Assistance Team Flowchart |
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Patricia Gilcrest-Frazier, Director of Special Education (known as Learning Support Services in Flint) was presented with the Michigan Association of Administrators of Special Education (MAASE) “Award of Distinction” for 2009. The annual award recognizes the outstanding service and leadership in the role of a local district special education director. For more information, visit www.maase.org.
To learn more about Flint’s Learning Support Services Department, contact: Pat Gilcrest-Frazier at (810) 760-1022, ext. 118 or pfrazier@flintschools.org.