Closing out the week with conversation #3 featuring Ruth Corley, Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction at Barrington Public Schools in Rhode Island.

I've known Ruth for several years. She is a committed instructional leader who led PK-12 math instruction for Providence Public Schools along with several other coaching roles. Ruth understands both the complexities of designing quality professional learning and scaling better curricular strategies across district schools with very diverse needs.

Her transition to a suburban district has required new problem solving strategies and change management skills, but she's maintaining her commitment to equity and quality regardless of district, school, or classroom.

"Suburban districts nationwide are continuing to expand and diversify. With changing demographics, how do we teach and empower a more diverse student body than we’ve known in the past? This responsibility cannot be siloed within one job role alone (like a multilingual learner specialist or a special education director)."

With this opportunity in mind, district leaders like myself are searching for professional learning that is content and curriculum agnostic, focused on essential questions like:

• How do you unpack a unit?
• What does strong lesson study work look like?
• What processes and tools can principals use to facilitate high-impact learning walks?
• In districts that lack the funding to employ a large team of instructional coaches, how can we continue to build the capacity of principals as instructional leaders?

Recently, our district’s greatest impact on student learning occurred when we focused on forming relationships; embraced a growth mindset; and managed to strike a balance between personalization and shared instructional routines and assessments."

Thank you to everyone who has engaged with our first three installments of #100DistrictConversations this week. We have some exciting conversations teed up for next week so stay tuned!