Literacy in Action: Spotlight on Converse County School District #1

Elise GuestSenior Education Improvement Specialist

The first post in this series described how the Wyoming Department of Education (WDE) contracted with us at Marzano Research to enhance data literacy for districts and schools across the state. The blog shared how the Marzano Research team used the 5D process with educators to enhance their data literacy skills and gain a set of district-specific key focus areas for school-wide teaching and learning improvements.

This week, the road trip continues with a stop to visit Converse County School District #1 (Converse 1) and learn about their literacy journey.

Buckling Up: Background

Converse 1 is located in east-central Wyoming, serving approximately 1,649 K-12 students across ten schools. Their goal is to apply research and evidence-based practices to their three strategic initiatives:

Learning Capacity – Increase achievement and growth for all students
Leadership Capacity – Execute a robust process of continuous improvement
Resource Capacity – Increase organizational efficiencies and effectiveness

In 2021, Converse 1 received a Wyoming Believing in Literacy Together (WY BILT) subgrant from WDE to evaluate and improve their literacy system.

As part of this process, Converse 1 contracted with our team at Marzano Research to conduct a comprehensive literacy review.

The purpose of the review was to use data to uncover the district’s strengths and challenges as well as pinpoint key recommendations for a focused approach to continuous improvement. We collected data through surveys, focus groups, document analysis, and a deep dive into student literacy outcomes.

Reading the Map: What We Discovered

Revealing our literacy review findings opened a collaborative dialogue centered around continuous growth. We first presented the findings to district leadership, highlighting the school’s clear commitment to supporting all students’ literacy development. This commitment manifested in strong teacher collaboration structures, protected time during the school day for conducting reading interventions, and access to high-quality curricula and assessment materials.

By first presenting our findings to Converse 1 leaders, we garnered influential support to hone in on literacy achievement as a system-wide priority. We then shared the findings with the rest of the staff. Taking the time to celebrate their efforts up to that point brought leadership and staff together to renew their commitment to strengthening student literacy going forward.

However, there were also some key areas in need of improvement—namely, inconsistencies in how teachers implemented key literacy strategies across grades and schools. In addition, while resources were available, they weren’t always being used systematically or effectively.

There was also a lack of clarity around the district’s multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) for students requiring extra reading assistance. Responsibilities were disjointed rather than seamless from teacher to coach to school leader.

In short, we found that while Converse 1 had strong building blocks in place to deliver high-quality literacy instruction, execution was fragmented rather than unified across the district.

“The literacy review has been invaluable to our work in developing a district literacy plan and a systemic K-12 MTSS framework,” said Dr. Andrea Gilbert, Converse 1 assistant superintendent.

Navigating Bumps in the Road: Data Literacy Professional Development

Armed with insights from the review, Marzano Research designed a custom professional learning program to strengthen Converse 1’s literacy strategies and develop a shared commitment around related challenges.

Gilbert envisioned a district where all staff were trained on using the 5D process when looking at school and student data. (See the first post in this series for a more detailed look at the 5D process.)

“Our vision for the 5D process across Converse #1 is to have a systemic data analysis methodology for all PLC collaborative teams,” Gilbert said. “We have a uniquely configured district with many student transitions. The 5D process is helping us dive into the root cause of our student learning data results at all levels.”

Over the past two years, our team of school improvement specialists and researchers traveled to Converse 1 several times to deliver hands-on training grounded in our 5D process. We guided district and school leaders, coaches, and teacher teams through analyzing their own student literacy data, including:

state standardized test results (Wyoming Test of Proficiency and Progress, or WY-TOPP),
ACT scores,
district literacy screeners and reading inventory data,
and school-based common formative assessment results.

During these sessions, the 5D process helped Converse 1 educators to:

DEFINE: Ask insightful questions to guide their inquiry
DIG: Take stock of the data sources available for answering their inquiry
DISTILL: Select, organize, and display data
DISCOVER: Identify trends and patterns in student literacy performance, and pinpoint root causes behind these trends
DECIDE: Develop actionable improvement goals and create implementation plans to achieve these goals

Using the 5D process, the Converse 1 leadership team developed an improvement plan focused on building consistent, high-quality data-informed literacy instruction across each grade level. Specifically, to begin the 2023-24 school year, Marzano Research facilitated the 5D process with all K-12 administrators and teachers across Converse 1. The overarching question the educators defined was, “What do we need to prioritize for students to achieve excellence in literacy?”

After analyzing the WY-TOPP English Language Arts (ELA) and Math summative data, the educators noticed Converse 1 students were not performing to the level of rigor reflected in the WY-TOPP assessment. Together, administrators and teachers named the lack of rigorous instructional and assessments practices as a K-12 district priority challenge and set an improvement goal to increase academic rigor in both ELA and Math.

To achieve this, they identified the need to bolster their Professional Learning Communities to focus on providing evidence-based interventions for students who score “not proficient” and enrichments for students who score “above proficient” on common, standards-based classroom assessments. They also chose to focus on developing strong MTSS and producing a K-12 playbook of high-impact instructional strategies to use across all classrooms and levels.

These planning activities were well-received, with participant feedback including praise for the helpfulness of the 5D process, the built-in time to have group discussions and work with the data in collaboration with colleagues, and the convenience of the handouts and materials provided.

Fueling Up for the Long Haul: What’s Next

Early indicators point to tangible improvements in Converse1’s data literacy and student literacy growth after just two years of partnership. However, the journey isn’t over yet.

This year, we’re continuing to coach district and school leaders in applying the 5D process to drive continuous improvement cycles. We’re also working with Converse1’s literacy team to develop a comprehensive literacy plan—creating stability and consistency districtwide. Additionally, we’re helping the team build a clearer MTSS process so students who require intervention get the right support.

“As a result of our collaboration with Marzano Research, we plan to implement our district Literacy and K-12 MTSS frameworks fully. These frameworks will provide tools, resources, and structures to ensure every student graduates ‘life ready,’” Gilbert said.

Interested in how Marzano Research can help your district or school make data-informed improvements to your literacy systems? Browse our literacy related services, which include system reviews, coaching for literacy leaders, and assistance for literacy MTSS.

This blog is Part 2 of a series about Marzano Research’s partnership with the Wyoming Department of Education to improve literacy and use of data for districts and educators statewide.