KY State Personnel Development Grant FY18-FY22

The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) is proud to submit our 2017 State Personnel Development Grant (SPDG) proposal to the Office of Special Education Programs at the U.S. Department of Education. Our proposal is a collaborative effort led by the Division of Learning Services, within the Office of Teaching and Learning, working closely with the University of Louisville and Kentucky as well as other partners. The proposal is aligned to existing statewide initiatives focusing on improving academic and behavioral outcomes for Kentucky’s students with disabilities, including Kentucky’s State Systemic Improvement Plan (SSIP), the Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability and Reform (CEEDAR), Kentucky Center for Instructional Discipline, Academic and Behavioral Response to Intervention, and the Kentucky System of Intervention. The purpose of the 2017 SPDG proposal is to support the refinement, replication, and sustainability of Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) framework in Kentucky. Two goals will be addressed to support Kentucky’s MTSS efforts. The first goal is to support the establishment, implementation, and evaluation of MTSS at the district-level. Second, MTSS will be operationalized at the school-level within the context of high leverage, foundational instructional practices and mathematics, literacy, and behavioral evidence-based practices. These components will be enhanced by a strong family and stakeholder engagement component. 2017 is an exciting time to develop this comprehensive proposal to improve instruction and to support rigorous academic standards for students with disabilities that will facilitate coordinated activities across KDE, leading to a coherent, sustained program of professional development. As KDE drafts an accountability plan to respond to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), we have a natural opportunity to ensure every student is ready for the next step in his/her academic development. House Bill 307 provides a legislative mandate that requires K-3 teachers to receive MTSS professional learning and that KDE develop an approved universal screener list that districts must pick from. The KY SPDG will support three cohorts of three LEAs and three of the LEAs’ K-8 schools to improve their MTSS implementation. During the first year of each cohort, SPDG systems trainers and coaches will facilitate district-level MTSS implementation, focusing on the State Implementation and Scaling-up of Evidence-based Practices Center’s Active Implementation Framework (AIF), components of a MTSS framework, data systems to support and sustain MTSS, and leadership development. In a cohort’s second year, professional learning will be facilitated to improve school-level MTSS implementation (effective core instruction, screening and progress monitoring tools, tiered interventions, data-based decision making). The school-level MTSS professional learning will be augmented with training and coaching on high leverage practices (i.e. making content explicit through explanation, modeling, representations, and examples; eliciting and interpreting individual student’s thinking) to support quality core instruction. During the last year of each cohort, participating schools will focus on the use of evidence-based practices in either mathematics, literacy, or behavior, within the context of goal 2 activities – MTSS implementation and high leverage practices. SPDG coaching will fade during the third year, as districts and schools gain the capacity to sustain MTSS implementation. Intended systems outcomes include an enhanced capacity of state, regional, and LEA personnel to integrate AIFs into existing initiatives, greater alignment of MTSS-related initiatives at the state and across LEAs (such as Kentucky’s SSIP), and better capacity to support and sustain MTSS in schools. School outcomes include improved MTSS to support quality core instruction, screening and progress monitoring, tiered interventions, and data-based decision making; enhancement of teachers’ capacity to use high leverage, foundational instructional practices and specific evidence-based practices to improve academic or behavioral outcomes; increased student achievement, and greater family engagement.