RCOE Supports Districts Under No Child Left Behind
The Riverside County Office of Education (RCOE) provides direct assistance to school districts requiring support under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. California places districts in this category for at least two years when they do not meet specific academic standards, and it has developed a model of team support for them, known as District Assistance and Intervention Team (DAIT). Districts can contract with outside agencies or their county office to provide DAIT services. In Riverside County, the four districts required to have DAITs have chosen RCOE as their provider. These include Perris Elementary School District, Palm Springs Unified School District, Coachella Valley Unified School District, and Alvord Unified School District. Perris, Palm Springs, and Coachella are beginning their second full year with DAIT, and Alvord is beginning its first.
Given the importance of No Child Left Behind, RCOE considers the opportunity to provide DAIT services to local school districts to be one of its primary roles. Curriculum specialists in mathematics and language arts, school and district leadership, and fiscal services make up the teams for DAIT. Working closely with the superintendent, district-level staff, principals, and teachers, the process begins with a comprehensive study of student information, including test scores, school and district budgets, and information about how teachers use the available math and language arts materials. Then, a small number of very comprehensive school-wide reforms, known as “corrective actions” are developed, and the DAIT works with school and district staff to understand and begin putting them into place.
DAIT also assists districts by:
- Providing fiscal advice so that districts can identify and reallocate the resources they already have, in order to implement the corrective actions. This is an important service, because the many sources of funding that districts receive have complex sets of rules governing how they can be spent, combined, and carried forward from one year to the next.
- Helping the local school board understand the process through formal presentations as well as informal conversations, and responding to concerns.
- Supporting teams of teachers in learning, developing, and implementing improved instruction for English learners, students with disabilities, and any students who are not performing well academically.
- Assisting teachers and administrators in examining and analyzing student work samples, and various kinds of test results, in order to plan the best possible lessons, decide exactly what extra help students may need, and what higher-performing students need in order to be challenged.
- Using the state-approved language arts and mathematics curriculum materials, consistently and effectively in all classrooms, across all the schools in the district.
- Providing any formal training that teachers or administrators need in order to take the actions necessary for improvement.
- Working with principals informally, such as in a coaching role, to help them put the improvements in place in their schools.
- Conducting regular visits to monitor how fully the corrective actions are being implemented.
- In a less-intensive but similar fashion, RCOE also provides technical assistance to other districts that are striving to meet the demands of No Child Left Behind, but have not been required to have a DAIT at this point.
