Component Seven:
External Technical Support and Assistance

A comprehensive reform program utilizes high-quality external support and assistance from a comprehensive school reform entity with experience or expertise in schoolwide reform and improvement.

Introduction

Sustained implementation is dependent on the ready availability and high quality of external support for all eleven components of a school's comprehensive plan. Yet most model developers are not yet prepared to provide assistance for all eleven components. This article provides ideas for possible relationships with external providers. It is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather to serve as a catalyst to thinking creatively about what kinds of assistance a school might choose. In it, the reader will find links to web pages that describe how schools (not necessarily CSR sites) are working with the following organizations:

• SERVE, the Regional Education Laboratory for Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina
• The SouthEast Initiatives Regional Technology in Education Consortium at SERVE
• The Eisenhower Math and Science Consortium @ SERVE
• The Region IV Comprehensive Assistance Center at SERVE, the Region V Comprehensive Assistance Center in Mississippi, and the Region XIV Comprehensive Assistance Center in Florida
• The National Center for Early Development and Learning, SERVE's research partner among the national research and development centers
• Representative institutions of higher education in the SERVE states

World Wide Web

The Reading and School Improvement program at SERVE maintains web pages devoted to the national CSR project and the schools in its region. In addition, the reader will find many other resources dealing with different aspects of the eleven components on the organization-wide SERVE website.  The Comprehensive School Reform Formative Evaluation Database, CSRFED, is an online resources containing formative evaluation instruments for schools to use as self-assessment measures to gauge their level of CSR model implementation. The database contains three sets of instruments for various stakeholder groups in PDF format:

Questionnaires: Surveys for students, parents, and school personnel

Focus Group Protocols: A set of protocols to be administered to students, parents and teachers

Interview Protocols: A set of protocols to be administered to students, parents, teachers and administrators that are direclty involved in the school's CSR effort.

Also included are tips for administering the instruments.

Events and Documents

Each year, the SERVE Regional Forum on School Improvement brings together several hundred southeastern educators for two days of sessions organized around the different issues in school reform. Descriptions of the sessions are published on the SERVE website.

Publications

• Among the Regional Educational Laboratories, SERVE provides Expanded Learning Opportunities in the area of early childhood education and after-school programs.
• SERVE annually convenes Teachers of the Year (TOY) from the Southeast.
• Several SERVE documents concentrate on literacy. Advancing Reading Achievement is a document for elementary school faculties wishing to improve reading instruction. An Introductory Guide for Implementing and Evaluating Volunteer Reading Tutoring Programs is a guide for elementary schools wishing to start volunteer reading tutoring programs. 

Work in the States

• In Alabama, SERVE is partnering with Cranford Burns Middle School in Mobile to develop a professional development infrastructure that allows teachers to collaborate for continuous improvement of curriculum, instruction, and assessment. 
• The SERVE Assessment, Accountability, and Standards Program creates professional development materials for classroom assessment aligned with state standards. The Florida Bay District is a SERVE research and demonstration site. Together SERVE and the Bay District are improving teacher capacity to use classroom assessment for increased student motivation and deep understanding.  
• The SERVE Policy program has formed a long-term partnership with the North Bolivar School District in Mississippi. The SERVE resident team focuses on curriculum, leadership, and strategic planning. The effort is a source of lessons learned for schools and service providers engaged in comprehensive reform.
• SERVE's Senior Project staff works with schools in all six states—Polk County High School, North Carolina, one of these schools, has been doing Senior Project since 1994.

Regional Entities Associated with SERVE

• The Southeast Eisenhower Regional Consortium @ SERVE is one of ten regional consortia. Its online newsletter, The Common Denominator, is a way for educators to learn what is happening in the Southeast.  
• The SouthEast Initiatives Regional Technology in Education Consortium (SEIR•TEC) has recently worked with 14 resource-poor schools. The lessons learned in this work constitute guidelines for schools integrating technology schoolwide.
• The Region IV Comprehensive Assistance Center at SERVE assists North Carolina, and other states in the Southeast. It maintains an online reference tool for planning and developing lessons and units aligned with the South Carolina standards. The Region V Comprehensive Assistance Center in Mississippi serves Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi. SERVE collaborates with both centers to facilitate training in Schoolwide Title I Strategic Planning. The Region V Comprehensive Assistance Center collaborates with SERVE on training in best practices for CSRD schools in Mississippi.
• The Region XIV Comprehensive Assistance Center contributes to SERVE's research study into the implementation of comprehensive school reform.
• The National Center for Early Development and Learning is another SERVE research partner. A recent online publication is Enhancing the Transition to Kindergarten: Linking Children, Families, and Schools.
• Other National Research and Development Centers address such topics as student learning and achievement, cultural and linguistic diversity and second language learning, and post-secondary improvement.

Higher Education

• In a collaborative partnership, faculty from the School of Education at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) form two-person teams with Birmingham Public Schools teachers. The teams plan and teach together while developing and conducting action research in the public school classrooms. In addition, every two years a different outstanding Birmingham teacher is selected to serve as regular full-time faculty in the UAB undergraduate teacher preparation program.
• The Florida League of Teachers is coordinated by the Center for Teaching and Learning at Florida State University and the Florida Department of Education. Recruited from among district, regional, and state Teachers of the Year, candidates for Technology Teacher of the Year, and other subject areas, award winners provide training for school improvement.
• The Georgia League of Professional Schools at the University provides a framework and model for school improvement.
• Mississippi State University's Program for Research and Evaluation in the Public Schools promotes growth of educators and students through partnerships and research, instructional evaluation, and professional development. One hundred one of the 152 districts in Mississippi are in the PREPS network. 
• SERVE is an affiliated research center within the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. One of SERVE's current research projects is a study of implementation in a purposeful sample of ten percent of the schools in the southeastern states that received CSRD grants.
• The University of South Carolina has a network of professional development sites offering opportunities for Pre K through 12 schools, as well as at the university level.

Information on activities and projects can be accessed from this list of universities.

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Disclaimer
The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

This document was produced with funding from the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, under contract no. ED-01-CO-0015.