Region 2 Comprehensive Center: Projects

Regional Collaborative for Strengthening the Educator Workforce

The Region 1 and Region 2 Comprehensive Centers are partnering to facilitate a Regional Collaborative for Strengthening the Educator Workforce. The Collaborative supports state education agency (SEA) teams across the Northeast to address educator workforce challenges—including teacher shortages—to ensure all students have equitable access to effective, qualified personnel. At an in-person convening in 2022, participants identified their states’ most pressing challenges, heard from peers about strategies being developed and implemented in each other’s states, and learned about evidence-based and promising talent management policies and practices. Informed by this exploration, teams were supported to craft a policy agenda, an implementation plan, or both for selected strategies to address identified challenges. Following the in-person convening, the Collaborative continued to support state teams by engaging them in a series of virtual cafés to address a common problem of practice—collecting, analyzing, and using data to inform their approaches to strengthening the educator workforce.

COVID-19 Recovery and Strategic Use of American Rescue Plan Funds

This virtual workshop was cosponsored by the Region 2, 13, and 15 Regional Comprehensive Centers in collaboration with the National Comprehensive Network. Attended by SEAs from across the country, the workshop was designed to discuss the implications of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021, assist SEAs in strategic planning with featured examples of states and territories’ approaches, and provide opportunities for SEA-specific and cross-SEA planning and discussion. A discussion and planning tool was provided for SEA use.

Increasing Diversity in Connecticut’s Educator Workforce

R2CC staff have collaborated with the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE), as well as regional and local education agencies, to identify strategies for teacher recruitment and retention that specifically increase educator diversity so that the educators are more reflective of the racial and ethnic diversity of students in schools across the state and to eliminate shortages in every school. To this end, the R2CC team developed a toolkit and other training materials that complement the CSDE’s guidebook Creating a District Plan to Increase the Racial, Ethnic and Linguistic Diversity of Your Educator Workforce. The R2CC has provided training and intensive coaching to both CSDE and Regional Educational Service Center (RESC) staff to strengthen their understanding, knowledge, and skills of using materials in the toolkit, as well as previously developed resources, in their work to support hiring and selection practices at the school and district levels.

Social, Emotional, and Intellectual Habits Framework: A Model for Connecticut Districts and Schools

The Connecticut State Department of Education and Region 2 staff collaborated to develop the Social, Emotional, and Intellectual Habits Framework. It represents the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that form an essential blueprint for students’ social-emotional habits and academic success. The Framework is a model for districts and schools to integrate social and emotional habits into academics so that students will learn and demonstrate essential personal life habits.

Implementing Connecticut’s Statewide Social and Emotional Learning Framework

Aligned with the Connecticut State Department of Education’s (CSDE) commitment to provide integrated support services to meet every student’s social and emotional, mental health, and academic needs, the R2CC team has worked with CSDE to develop the Social, Emotional, and Intellectual Habits (SEIH) for grades 4 through 12. This research-based and grade-level-aligned framework was adopted by the State Board of Education in March 2023. R2CC staff have also worked to build capacity within CSDE, the regional educational service centers, and other relevant partners to disseminate and implement the SEIH in schools.

Refining New York’s High School Graduation Measures

To support the New York Board of Regents and the New York State Education Department’s (NYSED) Graduation Measures initiative—intended to ensure that every student in the state is college, career, and civic ready upon graduation—the R2CC conducted a multifaceted research project resulting in Graduation Requirements and Measures. This report, presented to the Board, NYSED, and its Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) on graduation measures in November 2022, includes a comprehensive literature review, a state and international scan of college and career readiness policies and practices, and a summary of input from thousands of stakeholders across the state.

The R2CC is continuing to support the Board, NYSED, and the BRC by conducting a national scan to better understand the research, policy, and practices regarding the use of performance assessments in high school. This scan will further inform the Board, NYSED, and the BRC as they consider policy and practice changes regarding gradation.

Strengthening Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education in New York

R2CC staff are providing technical assistance to support the New York State Education Department (NYSED) in efforts to strategically and systematically implement the Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education Framework statewide as part of focused efforts to achieve equitable educational outcomes for students through access to high-quality, culturally responsive educational opportunities. To increase awareness of the framework and build capacity to support implementation within schools and districts, the R2CC staff collaborated with NSYED and engaged educators to develop and deliver a robust webinar series focused on principles outlined in the framework.

R2CC continues to support NYSED in engaging administrators, educators, and other key leaders in implementing culturally responsive and sustaining education by developing a second webinar series, this time focused on advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion by elevating student voice. In this series, school and district leaders, educators, and students shared stories about the diverse ways in which they are empowering students to be agents of change in their school communities. The goal of the series is to inspire current and future diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives focused on the power of elevating student voice through the sharing of best practices and transformational outcomes from districts across New York State.

Developing and Implementing Rhode Island’s Blueprint for Multilingual Learner Success

R2CC staff worked closely with the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) to develop the RIDE Blueprint for Multilingual Learner (MLL) Success and the accompanying Strategic Plan. R2CC continues to collaborate with RIDE to support the implementation of high-leverage strategies and key action steps related to the blueprint and strategic plan. In addition, R2CC staff are supporting RIDE to engage shareholders to inform revisions to state MLL regulations, to align the state’s teacher preparation requirements with newly created MLL educator competencies, and to collect data to determine the extent to which teachers across the state are prepared to provide students a pathway to multilingualism.

Creating Culturally Responsive and Inquiry-based Social Studies Standards

The Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) partnered with the Region 2 staff to revise its Social Studies Standards—anchor and content standards. The updated standards inform a culturally responsive and inquiry-based approach to social studies teaching and learning.

Region 2 staff also supported RIDE in developing the companion Social Studies Curriculum Framework to assist educators in designing and using curriculum materials, instruction, and assessment.

Strengthening Coherence Among RIDE’s Curriculum Frameworks and Blueprints for Success

In response to legislation requiring that the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) develop curriculum frameworks for each content area (e.g., English language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, world languages, early learning, and art), R2CC staff have provided technical assistance to support the development of those frameworks and strengthen coherence across multiple instructional blueprints. R2CC staff supported multiple RIDE departments in working together to develop a common vision for instructional coherence along with tools and resources to assist LEAs in utilizing the instructional materials that have been developed by RIDE (e.g., curriculum frameworks, Blueprint for Multilingual Learner Success, etc.). This model will assist LEAs in connecting these resources to ensure effective teaching and learning practices are implemented in their schools.