District gets $3M grant for schools

The Del Norte County Unified School District has been awarded a $3 million grant to implement district-wide a method of using data to raise student achievement.

The district was one of 23 to win an Investing in Innovation (i3) grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

“This is truly an amazing thing,” said Superintendent Don Olson. “Del Norte County is one of 23 (winning) national applicants.”

With the i3 grant, the school district will create teams at every school to analyze students’ data and then target instruction based on what they’ve demonstrated they know and don’t know.

“They will really examine student achievement and use the information to inform instruction,” said Steve Godla, assistant superintendent of instruction and educational services.

The grant will be used to fund data coaches at every school in the district and professional development for teachers, Olson said. This will take the burden off of teachers to process tests and input data, he said. The coaches will also be planning instruction with teachers and can relieve them in the classroom if necessary, Olson said.

Using student data to inform instruction at Joe Hamilton Elementary School and Crescent Elk Middle School has improved test scores, Godla said.

“It’s quite impressive,” he said. “We’ll be taking what they’ve already done and spread it to places it hasn’t been implemented yet.”

Joe Hamilton has a data coach who looks at the results of student assessments in reading and then works with teachers on instruction. Students are then retested to see if they’ve made progress, Olson said.

With the grant funding, coaches will be looking at data in all core subjects: English language arts, math, social studies and science.

One of the teaching partnerships at Crescent Elk has been teaching a standard a week, testing students on the material and then re-teaching those who didn’t understand it and providing enrichment to those who did, Olson said.

“We have had two local examples where it had worked really well,” he said.

Some school staffs have been trained in working together as a data team or a professional learning community — with the grant funding, all schools can receive this training.

Efforts are under way in the district to reform the school system to better serve Del Norte’s students. A group of educators called the District Educational Leadership Team and Associates (DELTA), with help from the Building Healthy Communities initiative, has been studying educational models.

To receive the $3 million grant, the district has to secure $450,000 in match funding from a private foundation.

Olson said he’s confident the district can find funding from the California Endowment, a foundation that has already supported the school district’s endeavors through the Building Healthy Communities initiative. Other possibilities include the S.H. Cowell Foundation, which has also granted the district money, and Wild Rivers Community Foundation, a local organization. There are also foundations nationwide that help school districts with match funding, Olson said.