Rethink Education Training and Technical Assistance (TTA): Preparing Schools for Future Learning Disruptions

Disruptions significantly impact student learning and the COVID-19 pandemic was a recognizable learning disruption that affected every student across the nation. Other learning disruptions may occur at a local or regional level, including severe weather events, such as hurricanes; community change or unrest; or delayed response to disruptions as we saw with teachers converting from in-person to remote instruction, seemingly overnight.

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) recognized the need to support districts during the COVID-19 pandemic in a variety of ways, including through the Rethink Education program. In 2020, NCDPI was awarded a federal grant, the Education Stabilization Fund – Rethink K-12 Education Models, which enabled them to support LEAs (Local Educational Agencies, also known as school districts) across North Carolina to meet three goals: (1) stabilize or improve student achievement during contingency learning circumstances, (2) empower resilient and adaptive teachers who are equipped for digital-age instruction, and (3) strengthen LEA and community preparedness for future learning disruptions. 

In summer 2020, NCDPI partnered with RTI International to collaborate closely with more than one-third of LEAs across the state, working at school and district levels to provide tailored TTA to ensure that leaders and educators had the knowledge, resources, and sustainable practices they needed to respond to current and future learning disruptions.

RTI supported each of NCDPI’s goals, concentrating efforts and resources in the most rural and economically disadvantaged communities, which were most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.  The team oriented their TTA support for rural, suburban and urban partner LEAs into four workstreams: strategic consulting, instructional coaching and quality, leadership coaching and development, and family and community engagement.

To start, RTI met with leaders from school districts across the state to assess their existing and emerging needs. After meeting with district leaders, the RTI team outlined a partnership plan, aligned to the four workstreams, with specific supports available through Rethink Education. After the district reviewed the partnership plan and provided feedback to ensure the alignment of goals and supports, it was approved to start implementation.

Empowering resilient and adaptive educators through training

As the pandemic evolved, NCDPI recognized that schools and districts would benefit from training on blended learning models, curricular resources on virtual instruction at the elementary and middle grade levels, and TTA on the most pressing needs within their district.

RTI provided TTA to school- and district-level educators in various roles, such as teachers, instructional coaches, curriculum specialists, educational technology specialists, executive directors of accountability, assistant superintendents of curriculum and instruction, and superintendents. RTI’s TTA translates research into practice for LEAs; it is rooted in evidence-based practices that lead to capacity building and change management in schools and districts with a central focus on sustainable practices. RTI’s training through Rethink Education is designed to improve instructional quality for in-person, remote, and hybrid learning environments; establish instructional frameworks that are applicable to various modes of learning; ensure that school and district leaders are able to support, understand, and evaluate blended learning along with traditional models of instruction; and strengthen partnerships between LEAS, schools, families and communities before, during, and after any learning disruptions. 

RTI experts provided customized training virtually and in person to more than 30 participating LEAs to meet their specific goals and build connections. RTI’s TTA supports districts in developing the necessary knowledge and practices, including 

• developing strategies for implementing blended learning instructional models, 
• establishing and supporting the collection of LEA-specific resources through an online curriculum database,
• creating and updating district-wide instructional frameworks, 
• applying best practices for technology integration in the classroom,
• establishing new classroom walk-through resources for administrators,
• leveraging new and emerging instructional leaders across the LEA, and
• developing instructional coaching skills with an emphasis on blended learning in the classroom.

By building the capacity of schools and districts to engage in data-driven and effective practices, the team helped them prepare for today’s educational needs and future learning disruptions.

Building capacity for local school districts to better strategize, lead, and implement

A small RTI project team with a dedicated project lead managed the TTA for each partner district. This team developed relationships, identified key contextual factors in the LEA, and provided flexibility and adaptability in implementing TTA as LEAs were continuing to navigate and acclimate to the pandemic and education’s new normal. Therefore, each LEA had a dedicated team collaborating with them on their partnership plan to make progress toward their goals and adjust the plan as needed year after year.

RTI also provided 45 community-of-practice sessions for all educators across North Carolina to support them in networking, celebrating successes, and navigating challenges they were facing as they worked on recovering from the pandemic. RTI and colleagues at NCDPI were able to build community and establish connections across LEAs and offer additional resources to support local districts.

In addition to providing direct customized TTA to LEAs and hosting virtual communities of practice, RTI developed a Blended Learning Toolkit; wrote a whitepaper on Rural Family and Community Engagement emerging from our TTA work with LEAs; and supported LEAs in working through strategies to close achievement gaps, focusing on multilingual learners and the opening of an alternative learning campus that meets the needs of a diverse student population.

The team’s TTA support for NCDPI’s Rethink Education program has supported more than one-third of LEAs in North Carolina through training, consulting, capacity building, the Blended Learning Toolkit, direct resources for rural communities, communities of practice, and most recently the co-design of a framework for a Remote Academy Blueprint with NCDPI’s Office of Virtual Instruction. 

Ultimately, the Rethink Education program improves blended learning statewide by empowering teachers to adopt their own innovative ideas for instruction while providing LEAs the capacity to address barriers to uninterrupted learning directly in the event of future learning disruption. RTI has led the Rethink Education TTA work since 2020 and is positioned to provide support at the state and national levels in the future.