Hosting a Successful Technical Assistance Visit

The purpose of a High Schools That Work technical assistance visit is to help school leaders and teachers take stock of where they are and where they want to go in school improvement. A technical assistance visit is not evaluative; rather, it represents efforts by the visiting team and the school to improve student learning.

If your high school is scheduled for a visit, the site coordinator and the school staff can take steps to ensure a beneficial experience:

# Read SREB’s Technical Assistance: A Guide for Local Sites. The guide explains "who does what" and describes expectations before, during and after the visit.

# Contact your state HSTW coordinator, who will provide support and help select team members.

A technical assistance team is composed of high school academic and career/technical teachers, a superintendent or a principal, a principal from a feeder middle school, a counselor, a business leader, a postsecondary administrator or teacher, and at least one person from the state department of education. Occasionally, a local school board member, a parent or a state legislator may serve on the team. Site leaders choose representatives from business or industry and postsecondary education. The state coordinator helps identify other team members.

Before the Visit

Team members will receive a briefing from the site coordinator, including the importance of arriving on time and staying for the entire visit. Business and postsecondary representatives may need an overview of the HSTW initiative.

Two or three weeks before the visit, the site coordinator will send team members the information listed in the guide. These items include the executive summary of data from the most recent HSTW assessment as well as other pertinent data; a class schedule; an agenda for the visit; and maps to lodging and the school. He or she will also gather materials for the team’s work room, including the school’s assessment data from HSTW and other sources, course descriptions, and sample four-year programs of study. The team will need access to a computer or to someone who can take notes during the visit.

The site coordinator makes motel reservations for the team, reserves parking spaces at the school, and prepares name tags. An agenda is developed collaboratively between the site coordinator and the team leader. The site coordinator will schedule interviews and set up the exit conference with the superintendent, other administrators and teachers.

It is important to prepare the school staff for the visit. The best way is to have teachers, counselors and administrators complete the self-study and the data profile in the Technical Assistance: A Guide for Local Sites.

The school may administer the self-study and data profile to HSTW teams or other school teams and combine the results, or it may administer it to academic and vocational departments and combine the results.

Administering the self-study and data profile will help staff members understand the purpose of the visit and the progress the school is making in raising student achievement by implementing the HSTW Key Practices. The school should also make students and parents aware of the visit and what it means.

 
During the Visit

At the beginning of the visit, site representatives will present the school’s outstanding practices, the next steps planned by the site, and the challenges faced by the site in implementing the Key Practices and raising student achievement. This report will help the technical assistance team focus on the school’s accomplishments and needs.

Technical assistance visits and reports are critical components of the services provided to High Schools That Work sites. The reports guide school improvement by helping school leaders change how they lead and by helping teachers change what and how they teach. They describe outstanding practices at the school, identify the school’s major challenges, and recommend actions that administrators and teachers can take to raise student achievement.

The most important aspect of a technical assistance report is what the school does with it. Leaders and teachers at successful schools use their reports as vital resource documents in writing, implementing, evaluating and revising three-year school improvement plans. Here are steps a school can take to get the most from a technical assistance report:

• Make the report available to the entire faculty. Each teacher should know what the technical assistance team urged the school to do.
• Discuss the report. Ask small groups of five or six teachers per group to meet with a facilitator and a representative of the district or school leadership team. These groups can meet during monthly faculty meetings or at a faculty retreat. Each group will address one of the challenges outlined in the technical assistance report. (Since there are more groups than challenges, some groups will work on the same challenge.) Encourage the groups to use school data in their discussions.
• Reach consensus. Ask each small group to decide on actions that can be taken each year for the next three years. Groups addressing the same challenge should meet together to reach consensus and determine specific actions.
• Develop a plan. A few key members of each group will work with the school’s focus teams (curriculum, staff development, guidance/public information and evaluation) to develop an improvement plan. The plan will include objectives, strategies, activities, an organizational structure, a time line and projected costs.
• Present the plan to the faculty, the superintendent and the school board. With these approvals in hand, school leaders and teachers can begin to carry out the plan.
• Implement the plan. The small group of key members will see that the plan is carried out and will report progress at faculty meetings.
• Evaluate and revise the plan. Use data to determine what is working and what is not working. Ask the small group of key members to suggest ways to revise the plan for the coming year.

Schools that use the technical assistance report as an essential tool for improvement will get the most mileage from this HSTW service and will be most likely to make progress in raising student achievement.