It's incredibly fitting that conversation #42 with Dr. Dr. Tom Kenworthy and Dr. Dr. Liz Viveiros is going live the day after the announcement of our Fuse AI network and offerings. They lead the Portsmouth School Department in Rhode Island and you'll see how our original Fuse RI Fellowship led them to design an incredible home-grown coaching model.

"Our focus has been on building robust embedded support systems for our educators. A key evolution was the transition from our 1:1 device initiative (supported by Throughline Learning’s Fuse program) to a more comprehensive professional learning model. When we debuted our tech coach positions, they supported device integration. These roles have since evolved into Instructional Systems Coaches (ISCs), each based in a school, fostering strong daily connections and buy-in.

Our ISCs have been particularly impactful during the implementation of our ELA curriculum. Leveraging a Train-the-Trainer model, ISCs facilitated curriculum roll-out and distributed professional learning across grade-level and department-level Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). Their leadership has established them as key drivers of our district-wide professional learning strategy. Currently, we have ISCs in each elementary and the middle school. At the high school level, in recognition of its distinct instructional dynamics, we have expanded the model to include a STEAM ISC and a Humanities ISC, each of them also carry a partial teaching schedule to maintain a strong instructional connection.

We are really proud of the innovative staffing and scheduling work that we’ve done at the high school. A recent high school learning walk, with our school committee, highlighted our commitment to supporting students with special needs. We have moved beyond a co-teaching model that often defaults to parallel teaching, implementing a dedicated time for every student to receive additional support or 1:1 teacher interaction, which frees up special educators for targeted work. We call this time our 'Patriot Block' after our mascot.

We have also established an Academic Support Center, accessible to all students during the Patriot Block for work with special educators. Data from Achieve3000 (ELA) & ALEKS (Math) at the high school informs instruction by meeting students at their individual levels. Importantly, the Patriot Block frees up content area teachers from hallway duty, repurposing that time for academic coaching. This model is yielding positive outcomes and teacher satisfaction. The teachers view this coaching time not as additional prep, but as focused time to address achievement gaps.

We are participating in the KhanMigo AI pilot in Rhode Island, and exploring AI for lesson development and student tutoring, building on our deep integration of ALEKS and Achieve. This raises important questions about assessment and assignments in a world where students have access to vast resources outside of school. We recognize the need to carefully consider our AI approach to ensure equitable, ethical, and meaningful evaluation."