What We’re Learning

As a developer, partner, and major participant in the Superintendents’ Plan, we are committed to supporting schools and districts in Douglas and Sarpy Counties as they engage in continuous cycles of improvement and innovation designed to enhance quality, expand continuity, and strengthen equity for all children and families from birth through Grade 3.

Highlights From Evaluating the Superintendents’ Plan

To support continuous improvement and learning, the Buffett Institute conducts annual evaluations of the plan in collaboration with colleagues at the Munroe-Meyer Institute at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and the Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools at the University of Nebraska−Lincoln. These evaluations are designed to document, measure, and support implementation of the Superintendents’ Plan and to provide information about shifts in practices and progress in school systems, leadership, instructional practices, and family processes and engagement. Findings from the evaluation are used to improve programming over time.

School as Hub Programming in Full Implementation Schools. Table 3 outlines the enrollment numbers for children birth–Grade 3 in the full implementation School as Hub schools by program or grade level. The totals listed at the bottom of each column illustrate the total number of children on which evaluation data were collected each year. (As shown in Table 1, the number of children affected by all components of the Superintendents’ Plan is much higher.)

*Data represent the number of infants and toddlers enrolled in the home visiting program.

**The number of full implementation schools decreased from 12 to 10.

***Home visiting numbers decreased as a result of birth–Grade 3 staffing shortages and programmatic review by school districts during the transition year.

Despite the diversity of district curricula and instructional approaches, annual evaluation activities taught us many important lessons about specific components of the School as Hub programming in full implementation schools:

• Over the years, children’s development and learning improved, particularly for children enrolled in home visiting.

• Likewise, improvement in classroom quality was observed over the first five years of implementation—prior to limitations in data collection because of COVID-19.

• Home visitors and family facilitators played a key role in helping families experience consistently high levels of support and engagement in their schools and communities. Families also valued and embraced home visiting and family facilitation services.

• School leadership was identified as an essential component for welcoming and engaging families in meaningful and inclusive ways. District and school leadership reported a shift in their perception of the importance of integrating a birth–Grade 3 approach to learning with more emphasis placed on family engagement and community partnerships.

• Schools are advancing School as Hub values (quality, continuity, and equity) through coaching and professional learning and by bringing an equity lens to practices and policies.

Professional Development for All. Yearly evaluation reports indicate that PD for All participants advance their understanding of how to support quality, continuity, and equity in their schools and classrooms. In surveys, participants consistently report high levels of satisfaction with the quality of the presentations, increased knowledge about the given topic, and the intent to integrate what they learned into their work with children. For example, in the Spring 2021 webinar series on equity-focused practices in early education, over 97% of participants reported that they understood new information and planned to use what they learned; notably, over 93% reported a significant increase in knowledge about how to support equitable practices in their teaching. For the webinars on technology-mediated learning in early childhood, over 90% of participants reported that they understood new information, planned to use what they learned, and knew what actions to take to successfully use technology to enhance their teaching and support children’s learning.

With the change to online delivery during the pandemic, we learned the value of using virtual events to expand the reach of PD for All to professionals who were previously unable to attend in-person events. Many professionals were eager to participate in online webinars addressing pressing issues in the field. Even among those who had previously attended in-person events, there was clear value in shifting to remote professional learning during the pandemic. Convenience and the ability to safely connect with others made webinars attractive. By the 2021–22 school year, however, early childhood professionals were no longer logging into webinars in the same numbers, perhaps due to “Zoom fatigue.”101 We also learned that early childhood professionals value opportunities for sustained collaboration and reflection—and we responded with new learning opportunities, including communities of practice, a book study, and a collaborative workgroup to develop the Essential Child Experiences Instructional Toolkit.