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Nov-Dec 2005 | NW REPORT

Major Contracts Ensure New and Continued Services to

NW Schools and Communities

It has been a pivotal year for NWREL. Staff members have been working on proposals to provide research and development assistance on a wide range of education and community improvement efforts, and as the year draws to an end, we are notified regularly about newly awarded work. While the Regional Educational Laboratory contract is the single largest contract under which NWREL has been operating since 1966, the breadth of our work expands well beyond it. This sampling of recently awarded contracts underscores the wide range of NWREL's services.

Assisting NW States To Close Achievement Gap and Meet NCLB Goals

NWREL will serve Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming through the Northwest Regional Comprehensive Center (NWRCC). The new nationwide network of comprehensive centers will serve as field agents for the U.S. Department of Education to further states' understanding of the provisions and purposes of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act and other federal programs, and to help states adopt proven approaches to achieve the school improvement and student performance goals required by NCLB.

Three main components comprise the scope of work under this five-year contract:

Assisting NWREL to perform the work is RMC Research. NWRCC Director Kit Peixotto commented on the partnership: "We look forward to collaborating with RMC and see their expertise from operating the National Reading First Technical Assistance Center as a critical asset of the NWRCC." NWREL is also partnering with Alaska's Comprehensive Center, primarily working with schools that have been identified as needing improvement to design and implement school improvement teams.

Community Service at NWREL: Training and Supporting Volunteers

The Volunteer Leadership Center (VLC) at NWREL was recently awarded several contracts from the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), allowing VLC to continue to provide training and technical assistance to major national and regional volunteer programs:

In addition to supporting these volunteer programs, as it has done for the past 10 years, VLC is now funded to partner with the Oregon and Washington Commissions for National and Community Service and ESD 112 in the new Consortium for Effective Practices. This partnership—beginning in the Northwest and eventually to be rolled out nationally—will build capacity of volunteer program staff. VLC's role is to identify best practices in participant recruitment and development and transform these practices into high-quality adult education resources for program staff to use.

Another exciting grant just funded by CNCS involves the recruitment of baby boomers in schools to coordinate service learning projects.

Center Director Nancy Henry says of her team's current and future work, "All of these projects are about galvanizing a full range of adults to serve in areas such as education, the environment, public health and safety, disaster relief, and poverty alleviation. We are honored to be a part of this collective effort by helping to strengthen programs that meet critical community needs through volunteerism."

Visit the Web site (www.nwrel.org/vlc/) to learn more about the Volunteer Leadership Center.

Supporting the Transformation to Smaller Learning Communities (SLC)

NWREL's Recreating Secondary Schools Program received its third contract to continue its role as technical assistance providers to the U.S. Department of Education Office of Elementary and Secondary Education's Serving Smaller Learning Communities (SLC) program. The new cohort of SLC grantees brings the number of grants awarded to 477, with 1,074 high schools receiving support to implement smaller learning communities since 2001.

NWREL coordinates the nationwide partnership of eight regional centers, which provides research-based information, training, and on-site assistance to high schools with more than 1,000 students. These schools are charged with designing and implementing a transformation that will create more personalized learning environments and more challenging curriculum with the goal of increasing student performance. Schools frequently use such strategies as interdisciplinary teaming of teachers, freshman transition programs, and/or career academies.

One focus in the latest round of grants has been to emphasize the district's role in aligning school improvement work for these high schools and in sustaining their new structures beyond the life of the grant funds. Diana Oxley's summary of the research (available at www.nwrel.org/scpd/sslc/SLCBooklet.pdf) reiterates the importance of having districts "support SLCs' instructional innovation through professional development that recognizes the centrality of SLC team collaboration and resources needed for it." With this in mind, NWREL staff connects with district staff when conducting their site visits and workshops for the grantees.

A number of the grants are supporting SLC formation here in the Northwest. For example, one new grantee is the Salem-Keizer School District with student enrollment of 38,236—the second largest school district in Oregon. Three of the six district high schools, McKay High School, North Salem High School, and South Salem High School will implement SLCs with emphasis on rigorous academic courses; relevance of the school to future success of students in postsecondary education and adult life; and relationships among students, teachers, and other adults. With strong support from the district administration, all three high schools are committed to bringing about the institutional changes necessary to improve academic performance.

Visit the Web site (www.nwrel.org/scpd/sslc/) for information about the Serving SLCs Partnership as well as resources on planning for, implementing, and sustaining SLCs.

Project ExCEL in Head Start: Building Language for Literacy Plus

Project ExCEL (Excellence in Cultivating Early Literacy), an Early Reading First project funded by the U.S. Department of Education, began this fall. The project provides training to classroom staff of Head Start—a national preschool program serving children from low-income families—using a curriculum called Building Language for Literacy Plus (BLL+).

BLL+ integrates the research-based best practices in literacy development to ensure that effective literacy content instruction is well implemented. Training in BLL+ gives teachers the skills to use a variety of effective instructional strategies such as explicit alphabetic instruction in one-on-one interactions through scaffolding. The training also includes the effective use of screening and ongoing assessment data to individualize instruction, as well as the development of print-rich environments.

Participants will receive intensive, ongoing training and technical assistance through annual institutes; site visits from a literacy coach; videoconference meetings; and electronic communications, materials, and resources. Multi-method, quasi-experimental research using five comparison classrooms will provide evidence of the project's effectiveness.

For more information contact Steffen Saifer, project director/co-principal investigator (saifers@nwrel.org).

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