SchoolNet

Corpus Christi Independent School District

Corpus Christi, TX
 

Introduction/Overview
Organizational Change
Budget & Finance
Professional Development
Technology Infrastructure
Outcomes
Evaluation
Contact Information
 

Introduction/Overview

In response to a curriculum audit conducted in 2002–2003, the Corpus Christi Independent School District (ISD) established a multidisciplinary team to research technology-based curriculum management systems in order to build instructional coherence and accountability within the school district. Dr. Arturo Almendarez, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction, and Dr. Katherine Conoly, Executive Director for Instructional Support, led a team of teachers, principals, academic consultants, and technicians in this major reform effort. The charge to the team was to recommend the best technology solution for authoring and delivering content, delivering online student testing, and accessing student performance data in an easily understood and communicative format. After 6 months of research and onsite visits, the team unanimously selected SchoolNet as the district’s curriculum management system.

The district purchased three modules within the SchoolNet solution: the Account Module, the Align Module, and the Assess Module. Through the Account Module, SchoolNet allows campus principals and teachers to review student testing and performance data in order to make informed decisions regarding curriculum, instruction, programming, and assessment toward the goal of increased academic achievement. The Align Module of SchoolNet allows teachers to author lesson plans and instructional units and share these with teachers within the campus or across the district. Align also gives teachers easy access to all their students’ data on standardized tests, enrollment, and attendance. And through the Assess Module, online and offline student benchmark testing for both teacher-made assessments and common districtwide assessments is made available to the district.

Loading student information into SchoolNet and customizing the various modules began in January 2004 and was completed by May 2004. Professional development for campus and district personnel on the SchoolNet solution was conducted in June, July, and August 2004, and is currently being sustained. By the 16th week of the school year, approximately 8,000 lesson plans had been authored and banked in SchoolNet, and a majority of the teachers and principals were building custom student performance reports in SchoolNet for parent conferences and academic planning.

SchoolNet provided the district with a technological solution to satisfy the following curriculum audit standards:

• Standard 1: School system is able to demonstrate internal control of resources, programs, and personnel.
• Standard 2: School system has established clear and valid objectives for students.
• Standard 3: School system demonstrates internal connectivity and rational equity in program development and implementation.
• Standard 4: School system uses results from system designed and/or adopted assessments to adjust, improve, or terminate ineffective programs.
• Standard 5: School system demonstrates improved productivity.

Organizational Change

The district intentionally established a multidisciplinary team of educators, technicians, teacher union representatives, and community partners to research and be actively involved in the shared decision of selecting and implementing a curriculum management system. To build readiness for the organizational change that would occur as a result of implementing a curriculum management system, ongoing communications were disseminated to all stakeholders to provide information about the SchoolNet solution and the changes in efficiency and communications that would result from its implementation.

One major focus for successful implementation of SchoolNet included extensive professional development. Every campus and every instructional office selected an individual to participate in SchoolNet Certification Training. Teachers, principals, and educational support staff were selected and provided with an intense 48-hour training program, spanning a 2-week period, that resulted in SchoolNet certification. This empowerment of teachers and principals brought forth the added benefit of developing new educational leadership within the district and advocacy for a new technological innovation at the “grassroots” level. Additionally, all campuses were able to customize their professional development throughout the 2004–2005 school year on lesson plan development, student data analysis, and student programming.

Beginning in the 2005–2006 school year, the district will deliver common interim benchmark assessments in grades 3–11 to monitor student performance on state-mandated curriculum and assessment standards and to guide professional development offerings. A multidisciplinary team was again established in fall 2004 to build readiness and draft implementation strategies for effective assessment practices using SchoolNet. SchoolNet has provided the district with an opportunity for educational renewal in not only assessment practice, but also lesson plan design, parent conference strategies, student interventions, and program evaluation.

Budget & Finance

The Corpus Christi ISD has a student population of approximately 40,000 students and pricing of the SchoolNet solution was based on student population and customer-selected services. First year costs for implementing SchoolNet were approximately $218,000 in software costs and $20,000 in professional development costs.

Funding for the project was made available from the state of Texas Technology Allotment Fund. Ongoing costs for the next 4 years are approximately $288,000. The increase in cost results from additional services requested by the district in years 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Professional Development

A trainer of trainers model of professional development was used to train all teachers, principals, and instructional personnel in the district. Corpus Christi ISD has 62 campuses and 26 instructional support offices. In June 2004, a cadre of 88 trainers was identified to participate in a 6-day SchoolNet certification-training program. These 88 SchoolNet certified trainers then provided “turn-around” training to 500 district teachers and principals in July 2004 during an event recognized as the Superintendent’s Leadership Conference (SLC). During the SLC, campus leadership teams designed a yearlong staff development program for the 2004–2005 school year to train more than 2,000 teachers and instructional support staff on SchoolNet. Five goals were identified for SchoolNet training: (1) navigate the Account Module to generate preformatted reports; (2) navigate the Account module to generate custom reports; (3) navigate the Align Module to access the state-mandated instructional standards; (4) navigate the Align Module to access the state-mandated assessment standards; and (5) navigate the Align Module to develop lesson plans and post to the course calendar.

Technology Infrastructure

SchoolNet is a Web-enabled curriculum management system that requires the following minimum specifications:

Platform 1. 200 MHz PC or Macintosh computer 2. 32 MB RAM 3. 5 GB HDD 4. Microsoft Windows (98, ME, 2000 and XP) Operating System or 5. Mac (OS 9 and OSX)

Operating System Browser 1. Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or above 2. Netscape Navigator 4 or above

Minimum Workstation (Client) System Requirements 1. Operating system: Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0 (SP 6a required), Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional (SP2 recommended), Windows 2000 Server (SP2 recommended), Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Home Edition, or Windows NET Server 2003 2. Computer/Processor: PC with a Pentium III-class, 600 MHz Processor 3. 64 MB memory if using Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 4. 96 MB if using Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional 5. 192 MB if using Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition 6. 160 MB if using Microsoft Windows XP Professional 7. 160 MB if using Windows.NET Server 2003 8. 500 MB hard disk on system drive 9. 1.5 GB hard disk on installation drive

Outcomes

First year implementation (2004–2005) of SchoolNet has produced both anticipated and unanticipated outcomes. The Account Module of SchoolNet has allowed teachers and principals to have real-time access to student information and performance history due to nightly uploads. The district has placed heavy emphasis on using data for decisionmaking for many years, but the data has always been static. SchoolNet reports are regularly used in campus and teacher planning to analyze student achievement at the campus, teacher, and student level. Because SchoolNet is an intuitive application and generates informative and easy to read reports, teachers are regularly using the SchoolNet reports for parent and student conferences and for instructional improvement planning. Central staff accesses information regarding failure rates for each grade-reporting period and for decisionmaking on professional development efforts, grant writing, and program evaluations. Approximately 60% of the teachers were using SchoolNet for lesson plan development by the end of the first semester. Such adoption of a technology solution was not anticipated so quickly. The district will implement interim common district assessments through the Assess Module of SchoolNet in the 2005–2006 school year. To prepare for interim common assessments, a team of educators spent 5 months studying research and best practices on student assessment. A strong sense of professional community resulted from this work, as well as a shared set of beliefs, mission, and action for deploying the Assess Module and interim benchmark assessments. Introducing a technological solution such as SchoolNet, provides school districts with a unique opportunity to build community and professional renewal, not only at the local level, but also statewide. Another unanticipated outcome to implementing SchoolNet was the networking opportunities afforded through the Texas SchoolNet Users Group (T-SNUG). This group was initiated by Texas school districts to share best practices with each other and to recommend product enhancements to SchoolNet. SchoolNet has been supportive of T-Snug and is facilitating the group work and communication.

Evaluation

The success factors that contributed to the successful implementation of SchoolNet in the Corpus Christi ISD were the following:

1. A Vision: What will be different as a result of implementing a curriculum management system?
2. Assessing Current Status: What is our current reality and what is our desired state with respect to student data and curriculum and instruction? Are sufficient resources available to the project?
3. Commitment to the Long-Term: Are school board members, superintendents, principals, teachers, and central staff supportive of a districtwide curriculum management system?
4. Creating a Context for Implementation: Is the district ready for change?
5. Project Planning: What planning must take place to ensure successful implementation?
6. Project Management: Who will monitor and coordinate all tasks, timelines, and communications at the district level?
7. Project Evaluation: How will project success be determined/evaluated? 

Contact Information

Katherine Conoly
Kaconoly@ccisd.us
361-844-0278