Networks for School Improvement are professional learning communities that unite educators from multiple schools and sometimes multiple districts to address a common problem using improvement science principles. NSIs exist throughout the country, with some (including DPS’s) receiving funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Continuous Improvement

Continuous Improvement is defined as research that involves multiple iterative cycles of activity over extended time periods. Within the context of College Ready On Track, this means that school Design Teams are encouraged to think of their change ideas as adaptive, in that they may shift over time or as Design Teams learn about what works, what doesn’t, and under what circumstances.

Improvement Science

Improvement science is an approach to generating incremental and sustained change within school systems. Unlike traditional education reform, improvement science positions teachers and school leaders as idea generators and testers — bringing the practitioners closest to instruction into design, prototyping, and evaluation of “change ideas.”

In DPS, this means that DPS teachers and school leadership teams develop and implement small- and large-scale innovations that they believe will improve education systems within their schools.

Liberatory Design Thinking

Liberatory Design Thinking is process in which teams seek to understand the needs of their “users” – the people the seek to serve or impact – in order to develop new solutions to user challenges. In this case, College Ready On Track’s users are students, families, communities, and teachers.

Liberatory Design Thinking enables teams to challenge their own internal assumptions and view systemic challenges from multiple perspectives to identify alternative strategies and solutions that might not have previously been considered.

College Ready On Track makes use of all three of these approaches to ensure that participants center the educational needs and aspirations of Black, Latinx, and MLL students and families within all design efforts.

Network membership is available to any high school in Denver Public Schools. In the current year of the network there are 13 participating high schools. These schools include comprehensive high schools as well as those that offer alternative pathways into career and college. The current schools in the network are…

• Abraham Lincoln High School

• Bruce Randolph High School

• Contemporary Learning Academy

• Denver Online High School

• Florence Crittenton High School

• Gilliam School

• George Washington High School

• Montbello Career & Technical High School

• Northeast Early College

• North High School

• Respect Academy

• South High School

• West High School

District Priority Implementation leading to a Theory of Improvement

DPS Thrives: A Strategic Road Map to the DPS Experience sets the stage for the priorities of our district. Based in continuous improvement, the road map seeks to focus acutely on two main areas—ensuring all students have access to rigorous texts and tasks and creating safe and welcoming schools. Each year teachers along with school and district leaders come together to create a theory of action. This theory of improvement outlines key drivers of instruction that we believe will lead to student growth and our aim. This serves as the basis for school teams design of improvements to be made within the classroom.

School Teams Co-Design Change Ideas to be tested in Classrooms

Teachers use data, feedback and research based best practices to design change ideas. Teachers test these ideas with their students through a series of iterative PDSA cycles. Data is collected during each cycle to inform further testing.

With the help of student feedback and input on design, these change ideas will continue to be adapted in an effort to find solutions that lead to increased proficiency and student agency within the classroom.

“Participating in the cohort has taken down some of the previous feeling or practice of schools competing against each other and instead working towards common goals in collaboration.” – Mia Martinez-Lopez, Principal, West High School

“The tools I have gained by working in the NIC have helped me think and move more strategically and not become overwhelmed by the most exciting and impactful work that is part of my daily job.” – Sarah Peterson, Senior Team Lead, Bruce Randolph School