• Colleton County School District (CCSD) in South Carolina serves nearly 6,000 students, across 9 campuses.
  • Over 17.4% of students with special needs, 3% of students identified as English Language Learners.
  • At the beginning of the 2019–2020 school year, the special education leadership was actively working on how to get teachers to draft data-informed high-quality IEPs that targeted highly specific skills.
  • What they eventually landed on was tackling the IEP writing process from its foundation: present levels of performance.

Collaborating on a Specific Plan for Implementation

Not only was Colleton trying to improve individualized instruction for students with special needs, but they also faced the challenge of having a staffing shortage.

This was a challenge on two fronts. First, a lot of newly hired special education staff meant the collective level of experience was lacking, and second, the burden of intentional professional development weighed even more heavily on SPED leadership. They needed a tool that had two critical components:

  • Standards and grade-level aligned resources for drafting IEPs.

AND

  • Embedded professional development scaffolds for all teachers.

Goalbook Toolkit provides both key components and more.

Once Colleton entered into a partnership with Goalbook at the beginning of the ’19 — ’20 school district, our team immediately collaborated with Director of Special Service, Dr. Jacinta Bryant and Special Education Facilitator Karyn Corbett to create a custom implementation plan for the specific needs at CCSD.

Goalbook Partnerships Manager, Kia Britt, went to CCSD and delivered professional development on drafting grade-level and standard aligned present levels statements.

SPED leadership prioritized the most foundational aspect of an instructional plan: present levels. Their rationale was that if teachers could master how to assess for baselines and draft specific skill-based present levels statements, then they would be better equipped to make progress towards strong goals.

Their Theory of Action Worked–Teacher Practice Improved

Once every special education staff member completed training and received their Goalbook Toolkit accounts, they immediately began collaborating to draft solid instructional plans.

Part of the reason for a successful rollout was the fact that Colleton went for a full implementation. This meant that every special education teacher, speech and language pathologist, occupational therapist, and psychologist from grade K — 12 received training and their own accounts. When all staff members are on the same page and referring to the same playbook, success is imminent.

There was buy-in on every level because district leadership chose a specific challenge to target and teachers were hungry for an effective tool to help them improve their practice. One sign of a successful implementation is high usage data and by the middle of March 2020, the data for CCSD teachers was staggering.

Collectively, teachers had accessed over 7,000 resources including present levels statements, goal statements, instructional strategy resources, and assessments. On average, users had individually accessed about 108 resources. These figures move well past what we typically see with an implementation of similar scale.

Goalbook Toolkit Helped Teachers Weather the Pandemic

What’s more, teachers self-reported that using Goalbook Toolkit was indeed improving their practice even after the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. One teacher wrote this note to Dr. Bryant:

Just wanted to share with you a positive vibe that even during this pandemic, Goalbook Toolkit helps a lot. Having this is the best thing that happened to me as an educator. It not only gives us a format, but it widens our options on how to write IEPs more effectively. Thank you so much, and have a great weekend

The usage data showed an increase in accessing strategies with printable resources in Goalbook Toolkit. We’ve talked to teachers from many of our partner districts and printable resources have been immensely helpful as they partner with parents to support distance learning.

CCSD identified its most crucial pain points, put together a plan to address them, executed on that plan, and now they are not only making improvements but they are thriving in a distance learning environment.

They plan to continue working on improving present levels in the ’20 — ’21 school year and really begin to hone in on strengthening the quality of goals.

Here at Goalbook, we are always excited when we partner with a district and we are even more excited when that collaboration produces positive outcomes for teachers and students. If you think Goalbook is a solution for your school or district, click the link below to learn more about how you can become a partner.

Learn more about getting Goalbook Toolkit in your school or district!