WEBVTT

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My name is Charles Vidal.

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I am the Director of the San Joaquin County Office of Education based in Stockton, California,

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and I am part of our state's Regional System of District and School Support,

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which is run out of Sacramento and our state Department of Education.

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One of the things that we have found in working

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with our regional underperforming schools is you can impose an accountability system

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on the district and the schools, and you can tell them what's going to happen

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to them-they are going to get a PI [Program Improvement] ranking out of it

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if they don't produce, but what we fail to realize is do we have enough capabilities,

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enough ability, within a school to get it done.

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And what I found as we walk through classrooms and we do these surveys

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and we do these time audits and we look at whether the content is aligned to grade level,

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what we found is teachers are operating the best they can

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with the information they have and what they know.

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So as we start to be more strategic and we look at the use of time

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and we look how well-crafted the lesson is and we look at student engagement

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and we analyze teacher behavior and we promote this data that comes out of those components,

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teachers-along with the site administration and the staff-find themselves on a path together.

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They start looking at what they could take on first,

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what they could take on second; it starts to take on a life.

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How do we reculture?

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How do we reculture districts and schools to create a level of trust

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to where we can visit classrooms,

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have important discussions around best practices, contents of lessons?

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So it really comes down to strong relationships.

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And Waterford High School has been a flash point for that.

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It was probably one of the very first schools that saw the value in the data we provided

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on how they can use their minutes better, and by collecting more instructional minutes

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and diminishing those off-task minutes, the results they are getting is well deserved.

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The leadership from the district has to be at the table

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because you cannot have this transformation without the district,

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but it takes courage on the district's part

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to recognize how they must recalibrate their technical assistance based

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on the momentum that's going on at their schools.

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Underperforming districts tell underperforming schools to go improve, and that's not enough.

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High-performing districts find a place for their-to contribute

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and recalibrate their technical assistance to support the momentum going on in their schools.

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We start at the district.

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We start there, and we say, "Look, we cannot help your schools improve in isolation of you.

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So, here is what we are going to ask you to do.

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We are going to ask you to be part of a school leadership team,

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it will be a district school leadership team.

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But you are there as an observer, and you are there to listen to the same information

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that the schools are receiving, and you are there to listen to what they need to do

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to take those next steps, and you need to find a way of supporting that effort."

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That doesn't mean what you already have you try to find a way of fitting that in.

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No, this means you have to retool, redefine, redesign,

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seek out people with the ability to support what we are requiring our schools to do.