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Leading Ohio's Next Chapter in Education · At the Table

• 0:08
  Dr. Lolli: Welcome to At the Table, a podcast by the Ohio Leadership Advisory Council.
• 0:13
  Dr. Lolli: I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:14
  Dr. Lolli: Elizabeth Lolli, director of OLAC.
• 0:17
  Dr. Lolli: This is a space where Ohio education leaders come together to explore timely and relevant topics, shaping leadership, learning, and school improvement across the state.
• 0:28
  Dr. Lolli: Whether you're a superintendent, principal, coach, or classroom teacher, there's a seat for you here.
• 0:35
  Dr. Lolli: Let's get started.
• 0:36
  Dr. Lolli: Today, my guest is Dr.
• 0:38
  Dr. Lolli: Melissa Weber Mayer, Chief Academic Officer for the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce.
• 0:43
  Dr. Lolli: Thank you so much for being with us today, Melissa.
• 0:46
  Tricia Couts-Everett: It's a pleasure to be here.
• 0:47
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Thank you for inviting me.
• 0:48
  Dr. Lolli: We have, um, a lot of people that, um, have been with us over time, and I always try to have other, um, all of our audience understand where you've been and what you've done in education so far.
• 1:01
  Dr. Lolli: So if you can talk to us a little bit about your experiences.
• 1:05
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Absolutely.
• 1:06
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So I started my educational career in, in Ohio, uh, working as an educator for Columbus Public Schools.
• 1:14
  Tricia Couts-Everett: I've also taught in three other...
• 1:16
  Tricia Couts-Everett: or two other states, so Ohio, Illinois, and New Jersey.
• 1:20
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, most of my experience is in large urban, so Columbus City Schools, Chicago Public Schools.
• 1:27
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, but I did a little stint in New Jersey outside of Atlantic City in a much smaller, uh, school district where it was one campus, um, of preschool all the way through grade 12, superintendent on, on site as well.
• 1:42
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, with, so I collected, uh, teaching certificates from across uh, the, I guess, the midway, Midwest for a little bit, um, for a bit, uh, before landing at the Ohio State University, working on my PhD in literacy and reading for adolescents and, uh, elementary school children.
• 2:02
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And from there, uh, after teaching in university for a bit, moved, uh, to the department to do education policy work, which is where I sit today as the Chief Academic Officer, uh, for the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, which, uh, means that I have the honor of leading, uh, all academic content areas, kindergarten through grade 12, as well as, uh, a huge, huge focus on the literacy work, um, in Ohio, as you know, as former superintendent with, um, aligned to reading science and, and just ensuring full alignment from preschool, really birth all the way through grade 12 and into higher education.
• 2:42
  Dr. Lolli: You, you've had an amazing career so far, and the literacy work that's been done under your leadership is, is outstanding.
• 2:48
  Dr. Lolli: So I thank you for all of that work and all that time that you've spent.
• 2:52
  Dr. Lolli: It's really an exciting time to be at the department right now.
• 2:56
  Dr. Lolli: What do you find the most exciting thing that's happening at this point in time?
• 3:01
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Well, uh, I have to say that our state has come a very long way, um, as far as literacy teaching and learning in Ohio, um, especially since, uh, the 1980s, I'm gonna say.
• 3:14
  Tricia Couts-Everett: I'll date myself a little bit here Libby.
• 3:17
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, but we started at the state level, we really started on this journey to align with more, more of the evidence-based practices outlined in the research, uh, in about 2016, 2017.
• 3:31
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So I came to the agency in 2016.
• 3:34
  Tricia Couts-Everett: At that time, there was, um, a third-grade reading guarantee administrator, and then there was me.
• 3:39
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So the focus on literacy, um, was not, was not as broad as, as it is today.
• 3:45
  Tricia Couts-Everett: It was not a statewide focus.
• 3:47
  Tricia Couts-Everett: There was no literacy office at the time.
• 3:51
  Tricia Couts-Everett: There had been a literacy office at the agency about 10 years prior, um, but that agency had been dissolved, or that office had been dissolved.
• 3:59
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So I think the exciting piece, one of the really exciting pieces for me, was being hired and, and my main role was to develop a vision for Ohio moving forward with literacy, and specifically focusing on literacy proficiency for all kids, regardless of what grade they're in.
• 4:17
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So while Ohio had the third-grade reading guarantee in place, which in theory was meant to catch kids early, right?
• 4:24
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Identify, provide those intervention services, beef up core instruction, so that we would have, uh, a, a high, very, very high percentage of our readers reading by grade three.
• 4:35
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, unfortunately, that didn't play out as well as it, as it should have in, in, in theory, and the third-grade reading guarantee became more focused on, uh, promotion and retention rather than c- and catching early.
• 4:50
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Fast-forward, we did start with the State Systemic Improvement Plan early literacy pilot work in 2017, 2016, 2017, that laid the foundation for all the literacy work that we have today.
• 5:01
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So we just kept building on that momentum.
• 5:03
  Tricia Couts-Everett: That was preschool through grade three.
• 5:05
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Then we had a Striving Readers grant, then we had comprehensive literacy state development grants, two of them.
• 5:11
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So we brou- And, and a dyslexia grant.
• 5:14
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So we brought in about$160 million from the US Department of Education so that Ohio could focus on literacy, which got the attention of our legisla- of our legislators here, um, and our governor that said,"Well, we need to have a broader state investment." So I think the most exciting piece is the broader state investment that is, uh, agreed upon by both parties, and with a governor who has really, r- really been the driving force of ensuring that not only kids have the right materials and teachers have the right materials, but their teachers and administrators have the knowledge and skills to be able to implement.
• 5:51
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So the most exciting piece right now is implementation.
• 5:55
  Dr. Lolli: And with that in mind Over the period of time that you've been in the position and your, and your time at O- at Ohio State, uh, working and teaching there What changes, um, have you seen in actual instruction in the classroom for literacy?
• 6:13
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Yeah, that, and that is a great question.
• 6:15
  Tricia Couts-Everett: All right, so I'm gonna date myself again.
• 6:16
  Tricia Couts-Everett: I'm gonna go back to 1988, Libby, when I started my, um, my career in Columbus City Schools, um, and had graduated with my, with my educator's license in kindergarten through grade eight, which meant they could place me anywhere.
• 6:31
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Uh, I started my jo- uh, my career in grade three, Columbus City Schools, with a whole language approach to teaching reading as my tool belt, right?
• 6:41
  Tricia Couts-Everett: As everything that I had in here to teach kids how to read.
• 6:44
  Tricia Couts-Everett: I quickly found out that the majority of my students could not, could not read.
• 6:49
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And while they...
• 6:51
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We, we were, you know, loving looking at books, and we were looking at, you know, whole sentences and, and, you know, really working very, very hard to read text, they couldn't actually decode the words.
• 7:04
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And what I found was that even in my building and across our district, was that most of the educators that were around my age at the time, some o- some a little older,'cause I was very very young at the time, were not as well prepared to teach in a systematic, explicit way how to teach kids how to read, and especially not as well trained in teaching phonics and phonemic awareness.
• 7:29
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So w- pretty well prepared with teaching comprehension skills, fluency, you know, how you dig into text, how you use, you know, some things today that we are saying are not the best ways to teach kids how to read, like the, a three cueing approach to teaching reading.
• 7:43
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Because also at the time, intervention in my building was pull out for, um, either reading recovery at grade one or more of a, more of a balanced literacy level text approach to intervention in, in the older grades.
• 7:59
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So, um, I actually grew up in Catholic school, elementary schools, where we were taught phonics, so I quickly, like, dug into my, you know, teach the way you were taught way and dug into, you know, some, teaching some phonics, but still, I did not, I did not have the, the skills, the deep skills I needed and knowledge to be a teacher to teach phonics explicitly and systematically.
• 8:23
  Tricia Couts-Everett: I just taught it in the way that I remembered and then started pulling my own resources.
• 8:27
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So I think when we look at it, uh, literacy in- instruction across 25 years, the content has been the same.
• 8:34
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Like, the five components of reading have been, have been, you know, in the research for decades.
• 8:39
  Tricia Couts-Everett: The way we focus on the literacy instruction and how we instruct kids has changed, right?
• 8:44
  Tricia Couts-Everett: It went from that kind of very, um, systematic approach to a more whole language approach, and now I believe in my heart that we have found, uh, the best spot where we are approaching those five components of reading And we are teaching explicitly and systematically, but we are teaching in a way with integrity that is meeting the needs of the students that sit in front of us.
• 9:07
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So it's not this way or that way.
• 9:10
  Tricia Couts-Everett: It's a combination of using what we know research tells us is the best way to teach reading to move forward for all kids, knowing that historically in Ohio, we've been promoting kids in third grade at a promotion rate and not a third-grade proficient rate.
• 9:24
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So we have, we have our students in fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade, all the way in high school or even graduated now, who were promoted at a promotion rate but not, still not able to read proficiently at grade level.
• 9:35
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And that still sits with me, um, you know, inside here and also, you know, inside my brain.
• 9:40
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And, and when our team works together, we are constantly thinking about the students that will be coming, the students that came, the students that left, the students that are there now, and the students that will be coming.
• 9:52
  Dr. Lolli: You know, I think literacy has been one of the focus areas for my career as well.
• 9:56
  Dr. Lolli: If you, if you spoke to someone in any of the districts that I've been in, either as a curriculum director or as a superintendent, everyone would always tell you,"Libby always starts the same thing.
• 10:06
  Dr. Lolli: She always talks about literacy.
• 10:08
  Dr. Lolli: She always talks about the five pillars.
• 10:10
  Dr. Lolli: She always talks about making sure that all kids can read." Um, because I think it's extremely important that, that we make sure that, that students can read because it opens the door to everything else.
• 10:22
  Dr. Lolli: And, and I've always, always, uh, focused in on literacy as you have, and I'm so glad that Ohio has done that.
• 10:29
  Dr. Lolli: You know, the state's invested a huge amount of money, uh- Mm-hmm in the science of reading.
• 10:35
  Dr. Lolli: And as you said earlier, those five pillars or whatever you wanna call those five things, you know, the phonics, phonemic awareness, comprehension, fluency, and vocabulary, those have always been around, but we never really focused on them as, um, the whole picture.
• 10:51
  Dr. Lolli: So why is that so important?
• 10:54
  Dr. Lolli: And, and why has Ohio invested that kind of money?
• 10:57
  Dr. Lolli: You touched on that a little bit, um, earlier, but I mean, it's such an important investment.
• 11:04
  Dr. Lolli: Why now?
• 11:06
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Well, when, when we look at the research, um, and another thing that I was thinking about, too, as, uh, you were asking the last question is I do remember being an, an early-on teacher and, and thinking that, that the bridge between the research and practice seemed so wide.
• 11:23
  Tricia Couts-Everett: I don't know if it's because I'm older and wiser- or because we've just gotten a lot better at making sure the research is accessible f- to practitioners, and making sure practitioners are informing research.
• 11:35
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So I think that's a, that's a, that's a big component that I wanted to add in there, too, and I think that has also helped us with the investments that Ohio's made in, in reading achievement.
• 11:45
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, and when we look at what we've learned and, and to your question about, you know, comprehensively teaching all those five components, plus writing, and now there's a lot of conversation around handwriting, um, is really goes back to I'm like, I'm living in the ei- 1980s, goes back to the 1980, I think it's seven or nine, the, the Gough and Tunmer si- simple view of reading- Mm-hmm which is word recognition and language comprehension, and that's where all of the pieces and parts of learning how to read, uh, are, are merged together and kind of identified through Hollis Scarborough's rope, where she breaks down the components for each as we move forward.
• 12:20
  Tricia Couts-Everett: But we've really learned that, um, that, you know, we could go back to, uh, you know, learning to, learning to talk is natural, uh, learning to speak is natural, but learning to read is not natural.
• 12:34
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And so the more we model talking, the better kids talk, right, when they're, when they're younger, right?
• 12:40
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Or the more vocabulary that they have, um, which is the same that we wanna continue that for our literacy instruction, especially earlier on.
• 12:47
  Tricia Couts-Everett: The bigger your vocabulary, the easier it is gonna be later for you to figure out, figure out words.
• 12:52
  Tricia Couts-Everett: But also, um, the English language is so complex.
• 12:55
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We know from research it comes from multiple languages.
• 12:58
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We know that there are, um, very, very different ways to pronounce one single letter, let alone combinations of letters, let alone even a word can be pronounced differently depending on how you're using it.
• 13:10
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So I think what we've learned is that, is that the r- the research is closer to the practice, the practice is closer to the research, but also that the way a person's brain learns to read is, has to be broken down into, uh, uh, very explicit and systematic processes.
• 13:27
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Will some people get it faster than others?
• 13:29
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Yes, of course.
• 13:30
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And will it, will it come a little more naturally to others?
• 13:33
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Yes.
• 13:33
  Tricia Couts-Everett: But the natural is still being modeled by somebody else, right?
• 13:37
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Maybe not as explicitly as sitting down at a table like you and I are and, and teaching skills, but we also know that doing that is not going to hurt anybody.
• 13:45
  Tricia Couts-Everett: It's actually going to advance all learners and all learners reader, l- all learners as readers and writers.
• 13:52
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And so when we think about, um, you know, what we've learned, I think it's, it's, it digs back into that, um The, the components are the components, but the way we approach them in teaching reading and the way we approach them with each student and, and how to look at where each student is and what they need is what really the focus is now.
• 14:14
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And Not accepting that kids are not reading at grade level and not accessing grade level text.
• 14:20
  Tricia Couts-Everett: I think that's an, that's a big piece in Ohio.
• 14:23
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We're, we're high expectations for all kids.
• 14:25
  Dr. Lolli: And, and that's where we need to be.
• 14:27
  Dr. Lolli: Exactly.
• 14:27
  Dr. Lolli: Uh, absolutely.
• 14:28
  Dr. Lolli: You know, the science of reading has been a statewide implementation.
• 14:33
  Dr. Lolli: Um, that's a major, major effort.
• 14:36
  Dr. Lolli: So what lessons have you learned about implementing something statewide, uh, at that magnitude?
• 14:44
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Yeah, a c- a couple things that we have learned and we are continuing to learn about Um, one is that, uh, early on when we started the work at the agency in 2016, we focused on educators and classroom and classroom practices, which is great.
• 14:59
  Tricia Couts-Everett: That's where, that's where the work happens with kids.
• 15:02
  Tricia Couts-Everett: But one of the import- important pieces that we learned very early was that principals and leaderships and leadership in buildings mattered the most.
• 15:12
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, superintendents also matter but they're a critical component.
• 15:17
  Tricia Couts-Everett: But in order for a teacher to feel successful and confident in their classrooms, they have to be supported by principals who are, um, confident in supporting teachers to implement.
• 15:27
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So the state, as you mentioned, has invested, uh, millions of dollars in high-quality instructional materials.
• 15:33
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Great.
• 15:34
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Everybody has them.
• 15:35
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We have reports in our AMIS at the department that, um, here's what people are using for core instruction, here's what people are using for intervention.
• 15:43
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, but what we don't have is, is every teacher usin- are, are all teachers using those materials?
• 15:50
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Are all teachers using those materials for the full literacy block?
• 15:53
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Are they supplementing with other materials?
• 15:55
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Are they using it for 20% of the time, 13% of the time?
• 16:00
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And there is a RAND study where Ohio teachers did participate, about 300 and 317 or 350 teachers participated, which actually gave us the data that said, you know, while 40% of those teachers said,"Yes, we all have high-quality instructional materials in our classroom," and this was before, um, the data's a little old, but, um, we have the materials, but we're using it 25% of the time.
• 16:24
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, very few were using it 100% of the time.
• 16:27
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So this is where principals really matter.
• 16:29
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And, and us at the department level, um, and at our regional structure, supporting principals with implementation is critically important moving forward.
• 16:39
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Having said that, the other thing we learned was that we need to rely on our regional structures.
• 16:43
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So we need to rely on our state support teams and our educational service centers who have been working alongside us for the past 10 years, building their knowledge and skills around literacy instruction, literacy implementation, high-quality instructional materials, and supports for administrators.
• 17:01
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So relying on, on those highly qualified, um, colleagues to, to help on the ground in districts is critically important.
• 17:09
  Tricia Couts-Everett: The other thing is communication.
• 17:11
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So in 2017, we wrote Ohio's plan to raise literacy achievement.
• 17:16
  Tricia Couts-Everett: That plan, plan served and still continues to serve as our consistent language and our consistent vision for literacy instruction, birth all the way through grade 12 and even into higher education, and we have, we have not wavered from that in 10 years, which is maybe unusual for a state agency to not like,"Oh, now we're gonna go this direction." So I think that was, that was another thing we learned very early on, was that communication was key, and repeating, right, coherence and consistent of language.
• 17:46
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And then data, sharing data, critically important.
• 17:49
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We have to keep the public informed.
• 17:51
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We have to keep parents informed.
• 17:52
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We have to keep ourselves informed of what's working, what's not working, and we have to change up in real time, and not wait until the end of the year or the end of two years to fix things up because children have one time in third grade and one time only, and so we need to get it right.
• 18:10
  Dr. Lolli: You know, the, the new integrated MTSS model is gonna provide a new leadership framework or is providing that framework at this point in time.
• 18:19
  Dr. Lolli: What are the key components of that new framework?
• 18:23
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, so I'm actually very excited about, about our, uh, i- integrated MTSS framework.
• 18:28
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, as far as I remember, the department, our state has never really rolled out a framework.
• 18:34
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We've talked about improvement processes.
• 18:36
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We've talked about, um, response to intervention.
• 18:40
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, we've talked about the triangle, but we haven't put out, um, a framework around what does an integrated multi-tiered system of support look like in, in action.
• 18:50
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And so when the team was developing this, it, uh, they kept, they kept getting stuck on,"Well, what's the graphic gonna look like?" And I finally had to say,"Don't worry about the graphic.
• 19:00
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Let's worry about what's in it and what we need to do, and if we need a graphic later, we'll come up with one, but let's not, let's not focus on that." But what we did focus on were what are, what are the studing l- student learning components that must be, must exist within an integrated multi-tiered system of supports framework?
• 19:19
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And those are the universal screening, which we already have in place.
• 19:23
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Database decision-making, which most people u- do at, at, at varying levels, degrees.
• 19:29
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Third was the continuum of supports, and that's where the triangle kind of focus was on core instruction, targeted intervention, and intensive intervention.
• 19:37
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, progress monitoring, where that fits and how that looks and how you move kids in and out of flexible, uh, interventions.
• 19:45
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And then team-based problem solving.
• 19:47
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So all of those five student learning components are not new to anyone in the state.
• 19:51
  Tricia Couts-Everett: They're not new to leaders.
• 19:52
  Tricia Couts-Everett: They're not new to classroom teachers.
• 19:53
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We all know that, and if you asked everybody,"Do you have MTSS?" They'd say,"Sure, we have MTSS." But how do those five student learning components work together?
• 20:02
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And how do we talk about them together?
• 20:04
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And then the bottom part of our frameworks really focuses on the adults And what we need to do to, to best prepare that learning setting for students, and that goes with sharing leadership, right?
• 20:16
  Tricia Couts-Everett: The leadership, yes, there's a building leader, there's a district leader, but teachers are leaders in their classrooms, and we're leaders as far as everyone who's a- who's accessing or supporting students.
• 20:26
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Clear and communication is another piece, and collaboration.
• 20:30
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So I'm not alone in my classroom where I shut the door and I do, I do all the things that I do with my 25, 26, 36 students.
• 20:37
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, I actually have a team that helps me with implementation and with supports.
• 20:42
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And then third is b- uh, capacity, building capacity, professional capacity, and that may be with instructional materials, it may be with implementation supports, it may be with how do I look at this data?
• 20:54
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Do I have decision roles on the data looks like this, I have these instructional materials, here's how these things work together.
• 21:01
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, and, and knowing what it feels like to be, you know, a, a teacher's fresh out of the classroom, um, you know, the, who thought they were prepared and maybe weren't so prepared.
• 21:10
  Tricia Couts-Everett: But I know today if I went back into the classroom, I would think I was prepared, but I'm sure there would be things that would come in front of me that I would have to go to my peers and ask for or build my professional capacity to be able to really serve the students with the mo- most effective instruction.
• 21:25
  Dr. Lolli: Several years ago, almost 20 now, um, the Ohio Leadership Advisory Council created a leadership framework, and now we have, uh, this integrated MTSS framework.
• 21:39
  Dr. Lolli: Yeah.
• 21:39
  Dr. Lolli: Um, how do you see the similarities and differences in those two frameworks?
• 21:46
  Dr. Lolli: Um, because the, the OLAC framework is, is, um, older and it's being moved a- a- away, it's being moved off to the side at this point in time.
• 21:55
  Dr. Lolli: But the integrated multi-tiered systems of support framework is new.
• 22:02
  Dr. Lolli: How do you see them, um, working together and/or similar and different?
• 22:08
  Tricia Couts-Everett: That is a good question, especially thinking about leadership, educational leadership, because a lot sits on their plate, right?
• 22:14
  Tricia Couts-Everett: The plate never gets bigger, but the pile always gets higher.
• 22:17
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, and so when we think about leaders within buildings or leaders within districts, we, we, we have to think about all the components, right?
• 22:26
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We have to think about, well, the leader has to, has to think about safety.
• 22:30
  Tricia Couts-Everett: The leader needs to think about, um, hiring teachers, hiring qualified teachers, filling the gaps.
• 22:36
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And so when we released our integrated multi-tiered system of supports framework, we really focused on those student learning components at the top, and started to dig in and look at prior frameworks as far as how do our pri- prior Ohio frameworks really support instructional leadership?
• 22:52
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And it was there.
• 22:53
  Tricia Couts-Everett: It's there, but maybe it didn't dig as deep into or break those components up in a way that, that breaks them up for clear and concise understanding, but also supports leaders with how do you implement?
• 23:07
  Tricia Couts-Everett: How do you keep track of all these things, right?
• 23:09
  Tricia Couts-Everett: How do you, how do you do universal screening at the beginning of the year and not set it aside and don't look at it until the beginning of the next year?
• 23:16
  Tricia Couts-Everett: How do you take that and say,"Oh, no, no, we're gonna keep looking at this." Um, and what h- what decision-making protocols do you have in place as far as building leaders?
• 23:25
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And these were things that even when we heard from principals early on in our Striving Readers grants and even in our State Systemic Improvement Plan Early Literacy Pilot, we asked principals,"What do you, what do you need?" And they would say,"Well, we, we n- we kind of need an implementation guide.
• 23:41
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Like, we just need guidance or a roadmap or, or things to focus on as we think about instruction.
• 23:47
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Like, we, we got it.
• 23:48
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We, we understand, like, we gotta balance budgets, and we have to purchase materials, and we have to make sure the schools are clean and safe, and we have to make sure teachers show up.
• 23:55
  Tricia Couts-Everett: But how do we become instructional leaders to support that instruction in the classroom and also be able to talk to our parents and our families, um, about the, the education that their, their students are receiving in our building?" The other piece, um, when you look at, uh, the, the leadership framework, which is not published yet- Mm-hmm we're still, we're still working, we're still working out some kinks with that and some, um, you know, kind of clarification too, um, is looking at both academic and non-academic.
• 24:24
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So for example, universal screening is one of our components.
• 24:28
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We want to help build the capacity of leaders to be able to look at data like attendance data, behavior data, and math data, and l- literacy data together, um, instead of, you know, well, let's focus on this at this point in time, and then we'll focus on that over here.
• 24:44
  Tricia Couts-Everett: But how do we really model and provide tools for administrators to not be so overwhelmed by it, but to look at it consistently to really get at root cause and, and why students aren't, aren't learning to read?
• 24:55
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So, um When we think about the rollout of the framework, we wanna be, we wanna be very intentional, we wanna be very clear.
• 25:04
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, and what we'll, what we will do is likely roll it out much like we've rolled everything else out, is kind of the here's the big picture, continue to get feedback, and then continue to develop resources to support implementation.
• 25:18
  Dr. Lolli: And is that rollout coming this fall?
• 25:21
  Dr. Lolli: Is it coming, you know, next spring?
• 25:23
  Dr. Lolli: When, when should we anticipate, uh, the beginnings of the rollout?
• 25:27
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Yeah, good question.
• 25:28
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Beginnings of the rollout should happen this fall for, for this coming school year.
• 25:33
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We know with the full investments in science of reading as far as high-quality instruction materials, professional learning, the, the Read Ohio coaches that are out there, and now the governor's directive for these, um, implementation, instructional implementation teams for the science of reading, it is critical for us to support leaders um, yesterday, but definitely moving forward.
• 25:57
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So you will see some rollout in, in August, September.
• 26:00
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We'll see some opportunities for principal networking within different parts of the region to pull together to really look at that framework, um, and really identify, you know, where, where are things that already exist that principals feel supported in, and where are the gaps so that we continue, continue moving forward.
• 26:17
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Okay.
• 26:18
  Dr. Lolli: For schools that are, that are feeling, um, a bit overwhelmed by multiple initiatives and competing priorities that are both local as well as statewide, how can integrated MTSS help create a more aligned and cohesive approach?
• 26:35
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Ooh, good question,'cause what we don't want is for this, for the message to be,"Here's another thing," right?
• 26:40
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Or,"Here's something different." It's not different.
• 26:43
  Tricia Couts-Everett: It's what districts, it's what, um, central offices are looking at.
• 26:47
  Tricia Couts-Everett: It's what building leaders are looking at.
• 26:49
  Tricia Couts-Everett: It's what classroom teachers are looking at, and really implementing every day in their classroom.
• 26:54
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So when we think about, um, this cohesive approach from the agency, we are going to do our very best to not come at this from multiple angles with different messaging.
• 27:07
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So one big piece from an agency perspective is coherence on messaging, so that will be one of our biggest strategies at the agency.
• 27:15
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, and e- and that means that the messaging coming out of, uh, from, from, from m- from our team, right, uh, all the academics K12 will be the same messaging.
• 27:25
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Academic, non-academic.
• 27:27
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Those coming out of our whole child support section, same messaging.
• 27:32
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Those coming from our, um, our Office for Exceptional Children, same messaging.
• 27:38
  Tricia Couts-Everett: School improvement, same messaging.
• 27:40
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So what we're really looking at as far as our integrated multi-tiered system of supports framework is that it will serve as the foundation for school improvement.
• 27:49
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And because there's nothing new in there, all the language that's in there, everybody knows, it's just more focused, whereas before when we used, um, the Ohio Improvement Process, right, and people would say,"Well, I'm doing OIP." Okay, but you're doing...
• 28:04
  Tricia Couts-Everett: What are you doing OIP on, right?
• 28:07
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So now your improvement process is I'm really digging into universal screeners, or I'm really digging into my continuum of supports that are academic and non-academic at the same time.
• 28:17
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So when we think about, um, our strategy and, and thinking about s- stronger alignment, we are definitely looking at it and, and going to be better internally as an agency.
• 28:28
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We are building the knowledge and skills and capacity of our regional structures, of re- so our state support teams, our educational service centers, our partners, like you, to be consistent so that if a principal goes anywhere and they hear integrated MTSS, they're hearing the same language.
• 28:44
  Tricia Couts-Everett: They may be getting different support as far as how to implement, um, and deeper at dif- different levels, but the language is still the same.
• 28:51
  Dr. Lolli: You know, I think that's so important to have the same language and, and for all of us to be on the same page.
• 28:56
  Dr. Lolli: We have so many school districts in the state of Ohio, and, you know, they can go any different direction that they want to go.
• 29:05
  Dr. Lolli: We've seen that.
• 29:05
  Dr. Lolli: And students, students, uh, suffer- Yeah whenever that happens.
• 29:08
  Dr. Lolli: So it, it's good to have the coherence.
• 29:09
  Dr. Lolli: It's good to have the, the, uh, everyone at the table working together on, on these things.
• 29:15
  Dr. Lolli: So I'm, I'm really, uh, pleased to hear that.
• 29:18
  Dr. Lolli: Whenever, um, we think about this rollout that's coming up in the fall, what are some other supports or resources that we can look forward to from the department or, or other agencies?
• 29:28
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Yeah, we're working on several things, uh, at the moment.
• 29:32
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We've had really good success with literacy, with our...
• 29:36
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We call them, uh, we call them the, I think we call them the literacy tip sheets, and they are, they are kind of one-pagers, one-pagers front and back, but one-pagers, you know, one-pagers nonetheless.
• 29:47
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Two, two pages, I guess.
• 29:48
  Tricia Couts-Everett: But, um, but they really dig into specific components.
• 29:52
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So what we plan to do is to take each one of the student learning components and adult components and create tip sheets, um, for that.
• 29:59
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We've gotten great feedback from principals, from parents, and teachers on those, on the tip sheets for literacy.
• 30:05
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, and we wanna be consistent.
• 30:06
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So like our math team is creating them for the, for the math plan.
• 30:09
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We'll create these for the integrated MTSS framework.
• 30:12
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We'll create them for the leadership framework once, once the, that is published.
• 30:16
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, and it digs into kind of a, a, a quick elevator speech, bulleted points at the top explaining what these are, and then gives a practical example.
• 30:25
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So it would be, um You know, uh, marvelous Melissa is, is the sup- is the superintendent of, um, of, of the OLAC school.
• 30:35
  Tricia Couts-Everett: I don't know.
• 30:35
  Tricia Couts-Everett: I'm ma- making up the word, the words now.
• 30:37
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, she's, uh, looking at her universal screening data and wondering, um, how to help her teachers make decisions moving forward with which instructional materials to use, and then it will walk through kind of the different scenarios in there.
• 30:52
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Principals really like that.
• 30:53
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So that's one piece.
• 30:54
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Another piece is we are working on a learning management system course, um, so modules for, uh, principals to be able to access as well as educate, as well as teachers, um, which will walk through the components again, but also practical application, and really think about different student groups.
• 31:13
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So when we are, when we have high populations of multilingual learners, um, what kind of leader do I need to be?
• 31:20
  Tricia Couts-Everett: What does my multi-tiered system of support need to look like?
• 31:22
  Tricia Couts-Everett: What other universal screeners am I using, and how do I include that data in my everyday look at, um, look at what's happening across schools?
• 31:31
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, and the other piece is the team is developing an implementation rubric for the integrated multi-tiered system of supports framework that'll be directly tied to each one of those components with specific look fors.
• 31:44
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So not just a blank like here are the five components, did you see it, but here are the, here are the components across the top, the...
• 31:51
  Tricia Couts-Everett: I'm gonna, I'm gonna mix get, I'm gonna confuse people.
• 31:53
  Tricia Couts-Everett: The student learning components, um, and look for so the people could, administrators could kind of check what, what they see there.
• 32:01
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Did I see this?
• 32:02
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Did I not see it?
• 32:03
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Am I not sure?
• 32:04
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And our whole, our, our, our goal is that administrators will use this for, um, implementation supports for their educators, so to plan professional learning opportunities, to bring up the data during their, um, team meetings, et cetera
• 32:22
  Dr. Lolli: You know, I know that, um, that the department's done well over 60 sessions and presentations on the integrated MTSS Uh, just, just during the past year or so.
• 32:32
  Dr. Lolli: I'm, I'm sure that you'll continue to do much more work on that, um, as, as we move forward.
• 32:38
  Dr. Lolli: What positive changes and long-term impact do you hope that Ohio schools will see from all the work and a- and all the, um, focus that has occurred both in literacy and in the integrated MTSS?
• 32:52
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So the positive changes, uh, uh, long-term impact that I hope to s- well, first of all, we're seeing some of them, right?
• 32:58
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So in many of those districts that we started working on, working with early on, we saw great increases in student outcomes in short amount of times.
• 33:07
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We didn't see it necessarily like full building or full district, but we saw, we saw these pockets of excellence, and the pockets of excellence were where teachers didn't give up, right?
• 33:18
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Teachers stayed the course, and principals supported their implementation.
• 33:22
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, there's a, we have, we have several spotlights on the department's website, um, for literacy.
• 33:28
  Tricia Couts-Everett: One is Riverside Elementary School, which was before COVID, um, and it, that, that district was able to increase their third grade, uh, proficiency rate, um, strikingly within a, a few years.
• 33:43
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Then COVID happened, and when they came back, what they shared with us was the, was when, when those kids that were in those early grades had those year, almost a two year of non-traditional school, um, came back and were in fifth grade, they were the highest scores their fifth graders had ever had.
• 34:03
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So that long-term impact for those kids, even with that interrupted COVID time, was huge.
• 34:09
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, the other piece is we know that when we have fully engaged, um, admin, uh, administrators and administrators meaning like, like you and I too, fully engaged, staying the course, a, a, a, a state director who stays the course, um, principals and superintendents who stay the course, w- we're, we're gonna see more things happen.
• 34:30
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We're gonna see kids', um, the longevity of their reading teaching early on stick with them as they get into more advanced courses and are reading more complex text.
• 34:41
  Tricia Couts-Everett: The other thing when I think about, um, positive long-term changes is we're putting a lot more effort into adolescent literacy, which we haven't done in the past.
• 34:49
  Tricia Couts-Everett: And so that means upskilling our middle school, high school, even fourth grade, fifth grade teachers to be able to recognize when a student is struggling and, and be able to, if they aren't the intervener, but be able to connect them through that shared leadership, um, and team-based problem-solving with, with colleagues that can help with that implementation.
• 35:11
  Tricia Couts-Everett: The other long-term effect that I, I'm seeing already, um, but am- have a hypothesis we'll see moving forward is that content area teachers pay more attention to literacy within their content area.
• 35:26
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So teaching those vocabulary words like explicitly and systematically, talking about comprehension, talking about how your comprehension is different when you are, when you are thinking like a scientist or a mathematician versus reading a re- reading a novel for fun.
• 35:41
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So I think we'll see some long-term effects there.
• 35:43
  Tricia Couts-Everett: I think we'll see long-term effects within the state work.
• 35:46
  Tricia Couts-Everett: I mean, that could all change.
• 35:48
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We're gonna have a new governor, um, elected in the fall and, and in office in, in January.
• 35:54
  Tricia Couts-Everett: But I think Ohio's story is, is a pretty good one right now.
• 35:57
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Are we there?
• 35:58
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Have we a- arrived?
• 35:59
  Tricia Couts-Everett: No.
• 35:59
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Do we have a lot of work to do?
• 36:00
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Yes.
• 36:01
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Do we have a lot of work to think about what this is gonna look like moving forward with more technology and artificial intelligence and things like that?
• 36:09
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Yes.
• 36:10
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Constantly going to have to keep up being updated.
• 36:13
  Tricia Couts-Everett: But as far as what it means to take-- to, to teach reading or learn how to read, we know that.
• 36:18
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We don't need to fear.
• 36:19
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We don't need to go in different directions.
• 36:21
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, we just need to continue to get better at it.
• 36:24
  Dr. Lolli: For the educators listening today, what's one thing that integrated MTSS is doing or will do that you would like for them to remember?
• 36:37
  Tricia Couts-Everett: I would say that probably...
• 36:40
  Tricia Couts-Everett: That's a good question.
• 36:41
  Tricia Couts-Everett: At the end of the day, um, I think real impact happens when we all work together, when we are coherent, when we are consistent, when we recognize the challenges and we address them immediately.
• 36:52
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We don't hide them.
• 36:54
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, we don't veer off.
• 36:56
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We work together to solve those problems.
• 37:00
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Um, I think the other is really thinking about, uh, using this framework.
• 37:05
  Tricia Couts-Everett: So right now, no one disagrees with the framework that's there.
• 37:08
  Tricia Couts-Everett: No one disagrees with any of the words that are there, but we know we can provide more support, but we also need educators and leaders, um, in buildings, and district leaders and leaders like you to continue to give the state, uh, team feedback so that we can provide the best services to you.
• 37:29
  Tricia Couts-Everett: But also, we can, we can talk to our legislative friends, right?
• 37:32
  Tricia Couts-Everett: We can talk to folks, um, around, you know, what does it mean to be the best implementers for not only science of reading and following, following the research, but also following the research on an integrated multi-tiered system of support, which is really the research on best teaching.
• 37:49
  Dr. Lolli: Well, I wanna thank you for being here today as a guest.
• 37:52
  Dr. Lolli: Um, I know that you're extremely busy with the work.
• 37:55
  Dr. Lolli: I know that you're extremely involved in the work, and I've always appreciated that about you, that you are there working hard and making sure that that literacy especially progresses around the state.
• 38:07
  Dr. Lolli: And now with the integrated MTSS, uh, you're working even harder making sure that, that we have that framework in place and ready to go with that.
• 38:14
  Dr. Lolli: So I wanna thank you for being a guest today.
• 38:16
  Tricia Couts-Everett: Well, thank you for having me.
• 38:17
  Tricia Couts-Everett: I'm very honored to be asked.
• 38:19
  Dr. Lolli: Thank you.
• 38:20
  Dr. Lolli: I'm Dr.
• 38:21
  Dr. Lolli: Elizabeth Lolli, and it's been a pleasure to have you with us.
• 38:24
  Dr. Lolli: If you found today's conversation valuable, be sure to subscribe and share with your colleagues.
• 38:30
  Dr. Lolli: For more information and tools about leadership and professional learning, visit ohioleadership.org.
• 38:37
  Dr. Lolli: And until next time, keep leading with purpose