Using an Ecological and Systems Approach to Support Early Learning Readiness

Abstract

This case is to help district leaders and community partners understand the complexity of pursuing a principles-based approach to improving early school readiness. Wyckoff Public Schools adopted the Boston Basics to support young children’s early learning and readiness for school. It required district leaders and partners to work across organizational and institutional sectors through trial-and-error efforts. The case describes the complexity, learning challenges, and early inquiry cycles that the district pursued to turn this model into a community-embedded educational change and student-readiness strategy. It reflects how systemic improvement theories—particularly the ecological perspective and improvement science—guided their approach and identified areas for improvement.

Keywords

community engagement ecological perspective improvement science early childhood readiness

Background

Urban districts often find that many young children are underprepared to start school (Johnson, 2018; Mistry et al., 2010; Ryan et al., 2006). Even with the expansion of early childhood education programs, through initiatives like Universal Pre-K for 3 and 4 year olds, school and district leaders find these efforts insufficient to enable most, if not all, less-resourced young children to perform as well as their better-resourced peers (Lee et al., 2014). Increasingly, districts are turning to broader initiatives, like the Boston Basics (“Basics”), to engage broad-based family and community involvement in developing young childrens’ early learning skills and school readiness (Ferguson & Friedlander, 2018). The Basics is not a program. Instead it is a set of principles and a framework for family and community engagement that requires unique adaptation in each community and its contexts. Consequently, in adopting this framework, school district leaders must rethink their approaches to working with families and communities to significantly improve school readiness for young children. In this case, school district officials and their multi-sector partners in one small urban city used a trial-and-error implementation process to learn about and engage different systems that contribute and can be modifiable to improve family engagement in early learning. Over time, these partners incorporated two theory-based systems change frameworks to guide their work: an ecological perspective, to imagine the interacting systems of influence for young children and their families, and improvement science, to structure their iterative implementation and change process.

About the Boston Basics

The Boston Basics (www.boston.thebasics.org) is an educational “movement” created by Ron Ferguson and his Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University. It has now become a nonprofit organization that promotes the Basics principles and supports local community adoption. The Boston Basics is based on the recognition that most brain growth occurs in children’s first 3 years. Related research shows that less-advantaged children show learning process skill deficiencies by the time they are 2 years old (Ryan et al., 2006). Additional research showed that there are many opportunities for families and caregivers to enrich young children’s social and educational development, but have been little understood or adopted (Cavadel & Frye, 2017; Mistry et al., 2010; Smith-Adcock et al., 2019).

The Boston Basics campaign is designed around five evidence-based parenting and caregiving principles that can be incorporated into everyday interactions with young children. The five Basics principles are (a) maximize love, manage stress; (b) talk, sing, and point; (c) count, group, and compare; (d) explore through movement and play; and (e) read and discuss stories.

The campaign’s goal is to make such interactions routine within and among families and caregivers through support and encouragement by local institutions and other entities. The campaign uses a socio-ecological saturation approach to encourage adoption and use of the Basics model. It recognizes that families and caregivers can receive support and encouragement from all types of organizations and settings, including schools, libraries, government agencies, health care providers, shelters and housing agencies, faith-based organizations, and frequently used businesses, such as barbers and stylists, as well as local community and family members. The underlying assumption is that through repeated, routine interactions within the community and among its members around the same message (as articulated in the Basic pillars), families and others will be more likely to adopt and use the Basics. Consequently, such a saturation approach is context-specific, requiring awareness of and ability to access and engage various sectors, and their relationships with families and caregivers of young children, strategically.

The Basics movement began in Boston with support from local institutions, foundations, and government agencies. It has subsequently become a model for replication elsewhere, providing handouts, activities, videos, and a guide for other communities to adopt and use. Communities are encouraged to apply their own logos to the videos and handouts to promote their own local Basics campaign. To support local Basics start-up, the Basics nonprofit organization, through its founder, Dr. Ferguson, recommends that communities follow specific steps: recruit a point person and initial champions; Brainstorm ways to use the Toolkit; Engage others; Develop an implementation plan; Print the Basics materials with local branding; Implement; Monitor and update the plan; and Share with the Basics organization.

Case Narrative

To improve student readiness for school, Wyckoff Public Schools adopted the Boston Basics initiative—renamed Wyckoff Basics—to support young children’s early learning and readiness for school. Using a voluntary, multi-agency, and community interest advisory committee, the district and its advisory committee members and volunteers worked through an expanding iterative process to disseminate the Basics model and find ways to support families and community members in adopting various pillars as they engage and encourage young children in learning. The challenge for the district has been to learn about local community systems and relationships to disseminate the model, support families and community members in learning the principles and practices, and sustain use of the practices, without resources or direct involvement of the schools.

About Wyckoff Public Schools

Wyckoff Public Schools is a mid-sized urban school district just north of New York City serving all public school-aged children in the city of Wyckoff. It includes 30 Pre-K–6 and Pre-K–8 schools, five high schools (9–12), two middle school/high schools, and one Pre-K–12 school, as well as an early childhood academy and an adult education school. Most elementary schools have a Pre-K program and full-day Kindergarten program. All schools have a special magnet program that offers choice to all students, district-wide. The district is governed by a mayor-appointed board of trustees and, by 2019, its current superintendent had led the district for over 3 years.

The district serves primarily low-income minority students. According to New York State Department of Education, the district served 25,349 students in 2016–2017, of whom 57% were Hispanic or Latino, 19% Black, 17% White, and the rest Other. In addition, 78% were identified as economically disadvantaged, 17% with disabilities, and 13% as English language learners. The district’s teaching staff is fairly stable—of their 1,541 teachers, there was a 9% turnover rate (12% among those with fewer than 5 years of experience) in 2016–2017. Most teachers are highly educated and experienced: 64% have a master’s degree plus 30 credit hours or a doctorate and only 7% have fewer than 3 years of experience.

Beginning in 2014, through federal and state Universal Pre-K (UPK) funding, Wyckoff Public Schools was able to expand from half-day to full-day Pre-K for all students. Although this was a significant resource to improve readiness for young children, the district faces two organizational challenges. Only some of the eligible students enrolled: In 2016–2017, the district enrolled 1,249 children in full-day Pre-K and 1,963 in full-day Kindergarten (which suggests that approximately 700 children [36% of all students] entered kindergarten without the district’s early learning program). As well, because Wyckoff is a “choice” district, some young children did not attend a neighborhood school and instead were bussed elsewhere. So, teachers and parents often lack opportunities for informal interactions and information sharing about school readiness and family involvement in early learning.

Elementary student academic performance shows reason to be concerned about student readiness for early learning. By Grade 3, 64% of the district’s students were performing below grade level in English Language Arts (ELA) on state assessments (and slightly more, 67%, for economically disadvantaged students), well above the state average of 59%. This below proficiency percentage persists across more advanced grade levels, with 65% of eighth graders scoring below proficiency in ELA. Given that this below proficiency rate has dropped slightly in recent years from 74% in 2015, and there have been modest improvements in other areas, the added Universal Pre-K and curriculum and instructional reforms may be beneficial.

Nonetheless, the district lacks other indicators of early learning readiness. While teachers in the school district administer the nationally developed Brigance assessment for early childhood screening, and to establish each child’s performance baseline (https://www2.curriculumassociates.com/products/brigance-early-childhood.aspx), the scores were never aggregated for planning and evaluation purposes. Consequently, there was little aggregate information on early childhood readiness, however, except as could be extrapolated from student performance indicators in elementary, middle-, and high-school levels.

The district’s high-school graduation rate increased to 83% in 2017, well above other comparable districts. Despite these gains, the elementary assessment results suggest that more needs to be done to help young students be ready and able to perform well in ELA. Consequently, district officials continued to explore means to improve student readiness and school learning experiences, focusing on early education and school readiness.

Focusing on Student Readiness

A citywide emphasis on developing early learning readiness was sparked in part by a federal and state minority youth development initiative. In September 2016, Wyckoff Public Schools became a partner with My Brother’s Keeper (MBK), a federal and state-supported (http://www.nysed.gov/mbk/my-brothers-keeper) citywide initiative to improve the lives of boys and young men of color. Locally, MBK is a collaboration among the Wyckoff Public Schools, City of Wyckoff, and the Wyckoff Community Center. By December 2017, the collaboration included 39 Wyckoff schools, over 100 businesses, community agencies, and universities, and served over 1,000 youth through a wide range of school district and community initiatives.

MBK is designed around six milestones.¹ MBK Milestone 1 is to ensure that all children enter school cognitively, physically, socially, and emotionally ready, and, by design, MBK encourages inter-agency collaboration to achieve this goal. In January 2017, Wyckoff’s superintendent attended a presentation on the Boston Basics and recognized that it could be a means of achieving MBK Milestone 1 and engage the schools and other public and private sectors to promote family engagement and early school readiness.

Wyckoff Basics Start-Up

Wyckoff became one of the first school districts in the greater New York City area (following another local district) to adopt the Basics campaign for their own use and renamed it Wyckoff Basics. The initiative was rapidly developed, revised, and implemented through four developmental phases during its first 18 months, as outlined below.

Phase 1: Initial formation

Between January and May 2017, Deputy Superintendent Dr. Michelle Griffith became the point person for exploring adoption of the Basics model for Wyckoff. Her first challenge was to determine how to approach adoption. She quickly formed an advisory board, reaching out to other district staff and representatives from public and private organizations including the mayor’s office, library services, Chamber of Commerce, Parks and Recreation, early childhood providers, health care, Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA), civic organizations, and institutions of higher education. Membership was sought primarily through word of mouth, networking, and encouraged participation. The district eventually formed an advisory board of 60 members, including 25 core members. It is now cosponsored by the Wyckoff Public Schools and the City of Wyckoff.

In this early phase, Deputy Superintendent Griffith worked closely with the district’s director of early childhood education, a higher education faculty member (a math trainer in early childhood education), PTSA official, and the mayor’s liaison to the Wyckoff downtown business association to plan the initiative’s start-up. She and the advisory board consulted frequently with Dr. Ferguson about the Basics model, resources, and recommended implementation process. To formally adopt the model, the district purchased the rights to customize the Basics materials (US$5,200 in all) for the videos, booklets, pamphlets, and other handouts. The district also created its own Wyckoff Basics webpage on the district website.

Wyckoff Basics was officially launched with a formal kickoff on May 10, 2017. The event was well attended by state and city officials and Wyckoff early childhood educational community, nonprofit organizations, and community agencies, with Ron Ferguson, the Basics founder, serving as an invited speaker. This event generated strong local support and interest in the Basics, particularly to promote multi-agency collaboration.

Phase 2: Initial branding and dissemination—Identity formation

Following the initial launch, the advisory board began to address the question of how to disseminate the Basics principles. They initially experimented with an initial branding and dissemination process, making this a priority from October 2017 through June 2018. At first, the committee tried to launch by focusing on one Basic principle at a time. They quickly decided it would be better to implement the Basics model as a whole (given the interrelationship of the principles) and work on general awareness using existing community forums. They created brochures, flyers, and Wyckoff Basics Facebook and Twitter pages. Their first public forum was to distribute materials at an annual citywide event, in September 2017. They followed up by distributing materials at various local community events, at the city libraries (February 27, 2018).

At the same time, the district and advisory board members began to provide Basics awareness training for school district staff, particularly principals, assistant principals, Pre-K teachers, social workers, and community liaisons. They started to conduct various awareness workshops and training on the Basics for some Pre-K teachers and in various community sectors, and developed a Train-the-Trainer plan, presentation materials, and feedback survey. They also started to work with high school student groups (particularly the Kiwanis Key Clubs) to train them on the model and engage them in disseminating information. Such awareness training was limited by the lack of funding to pay for teacher and administrator participation in training and thus was reliant upon voluntary participation, limiting the reach.

Phase 3: Focusing and saturation—Strategy formation

Six months into the early dissemination efforts to create awareness and distribute materials, the advisory board members concluded that they wanted most to reach the intended target audience: parents and family members of young children at risk of low ELA proficiency by the third grade. As a result, they decided to shift their focus to the area of Wyckoff with a high concentration of low-income families. At the same time, the group was able to obtain small monetary and goods and services donations (total of US$10,000) from various community agencies to support its outreach efforts.

The question the advisory group wrestled with was how to refocus their efforts to target specific parents and family members. One advisory board member encouraged the group to make explicit use of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological framework (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) in framing and guiding their work. This framework underscores how children’s lives are nested within their families and neighborhoods. Consequently, the Wyckoff Basics advisory board adopted a multi-sector saturation within a community approach, built on this framework, in one geographic area in Wyckoff and evaluated the outcomes, before working on other areas of the city. They selected the area where there was high concentration of low-income children and families and downtown businesses.

The target area is a 2.2 square mile portion of Wyckoff, covering the southern and western communities of Downtown and southern Wyckoff. According to the U.S. Census, this area includes 3,600 children under the age of 6; 77% of the total population (41,596 in 2016 according to the American Community Survey, almost 10% greater than in 2010) is non-White or White Hispanic. According to zipdatemaps.com, this zip code area is classified as lower middle class, with 53% earning under US$50,000 annually and 5% unemployed; 65% of the public-school students are eligible for free or reduced fee lunch.

Throughout the spring and early summer 2018, the advisory board planned for and initiated several saturation activities in this area, while continuing broader citywide efforts were feasible. These included library events, downtown business area efforts, and parent training and outreach, all aimed to build connections with families in this community.

Library efforts

Advisory board members formally reached out to the local libraries and made presentations on the Basics in both English and Spanish at all three locations for parents and other community members. Advisory board members also asked library and Parks and Recreation staff to advertise the Basics during their events and movie days. As well, school district leaders took steps to connect the Wyckoff Basics to the Wyckoff 1000 Books Before Kindergarten initiative, launched at the library in March 2018. This is a national initiative adopted by Wyckoff’s three public libraries, to encourage reading and school readiness for kindergarten.

Local area businesses

Several advisory board members were affiliated with the Wyckoff business community and helped to develop several awareness and business engagement strategies. In collaboration with the downtown business association,² the advisory board created a series of awareness and involvement activities. Working with a local artist, the business association created a mural for the business area to present the Basics as part of a dedication on March 15, 2018.

The advisory board and business association representatives decided to involve local businesses in encouraging reading with young children by collecting and distributing children’s books among types of businesses where children might frequently be waiting—barbershops, hair stylist salons, and laundromats. Using the same design as the mural, the group hired the artist to create a series of book boxes to use for this local business-based reading initiative. They solicited book contributions from various organizations and institutions, including over 600 books from a local college (whose professor of applied developmental psychology is on the advisory board). On May 10, 2018, district officials and advisory board members distributed boxes of children’s books to dozens of barbershops, hair stylist salons, and laundromats, as part of their Wyckoff Basics and reading campaign. Eventually, they distributed boxes of books among 24 local shops. At the same time, some advisory board members were able to recruit and train 10 barbers and hair stylists (and one laundromat operator) on awareness of the Basics. In follow-up conversations with local merchants, Downtown business association representatives learned that some of the local business people have responded by creating reading challenges with children of their clients, like reading every book in the box.

Meanwhile, the advisory board members continue to explore ways of collecting and distributing more books, particularly in multiple languages, including Arabic and Spanish that reflect the city’s diversity. As part of this, these members have been reaching out to local business groups, like the Kiwanis and Rotary clubs, for book or monetary donations (through Wyckoff Public Schools).

Parent and facilitator training

Several advisory board members have been providing free training for some families, family support workers, and other community members. The district obtained a Mommy & Me grant from the NY state legislature, which was used to train grandparents who are raising their grandchildren or who are school volunteers. Initial training focused on Basics awareness, but further training will provide more background on the Basics, in hopes that some volunteers, particularly grandparents, can become facilitators and train other families. Through the advisory board, the district has been reaching out to other community groups. For example, one advisory board member engaged a local Latino club to disseminate information on the Basics and provide training and skits (in Spanish) for Spanish-speaking parents.

Other saturation efforts

As part of their saturation effort, the advisory board has continued to establish a presence at various community events throughout the spring, summer and fall, including: Arts Celebration, Hispanic Day Parade; citywide fall festival, Holiday tree lighting and NAACP monthly meetings. They have also been soliciting books and toys to share through a local church, Toys R Us (until it closed) and a local private college.

A few advisory board members began to work with local preschool and daycare programs to participate in Basics awareness and information dissemination. Wyckoff collaborates with seven community-based organizations for Pre-K–4 programs, all of which were contacted and invited to attend Wyckoff Basics–sponsored events. Some directors have been trained and Wyckoff Basics information has been turn-keyed to key staff members such as Family Center liaisons.

Saturation challenges

Further saturation, particularly into health care networks, remained challenging. The deputy superintendent created a formal invitation to send to various public and private agencies to ask them to adopt the Basics, disseminate information in their offices and participate in training. A few public and private agencies have representatives on the advisory board that are beginning to engage and invite others, and other new agency relationships are being formed. Individual advisory board members have tried to identify personal connections with local hospitals and health care providers, but forging a more consistent engagement remains challenging.

At the same time, it was difficult to encourage Wyckoff Public Schools’ principals to adopt the Basics for dissemination purposes, without training funds. By June 2018, only one principal had formed a Mommy & Me group and was sharing the Basics strategies through the school’s Family Welcome Center. The adult education principal has been training a staff member in the Basics model to encourage dissemination and released Family Center liaisons to be trained as turn-key trainers.

Meanwhile, the district’s early childhood director worked through the Pre-K teachers to disseminate the Basics, and a few assistant principals began working with high school civic and MBK clubs on learning the Basics for dissemination purposes. Some prekindergarten teachers throughout the district attended awareness workshops and were given information to display in their classrooms and distribute to parents.

Nonetheless, Wyckoff Basics complements most of the district’s early childhood curriculum: the UPK guidelines, a program for social-emotional development, a reading program, play-based centers in classrooms, the Math Modules, and the push for more classroom conversations. Yet, the teachers, according to the Early Childhood Education director, were having trouble seeing the intersections between these curricula priorities and Wyckoff Basics, particularly as a means of extending early learning support to involve parents.

Working to disseminate the Basics model through faith-based institutions had proven to be even more challenging. Efforts to engage local ministers proved fruitless, and so, advisory board members have been trying to identify education directors of local churches and other faith-based institutions or use personal connections to forge a link with one or more houses of worship. The deputy superintendent requested to meet with the Mayor’s Advisory Committee of faith-based leaders, hoping to generate further interest within faith-based organizations.

As one advisory board member explained, the effort to disseminate through other public and private agencies and organizations needs to be continuous and sustained, beginning with identifying the key agencies, figuring out how to partner with them and support their participation, and creating next steps for embedding the Basics. The assumption is that once a few agencies participate, they can serve as a model for others. Consequently, permeating and engaging each sector requires unique research, networking, and participation strategies, which are learned through a trial-and-error process, supported by the advisory board brainstorming and updating processes.

Phase 4: Adding structure

As the school district and its advisory board expanded its work, the district took steps to add structure and support for the work, recognizing the significant organizational work required, despite the lack of resources. In Spring 2018, the district added a part-time community liaison, a long-term PTSA officer, for Wyckoff Basics. Other structures included formalizing the advisory board’s process, celebrating accomplishments, developing research, presenting results, and continuing consultation with Dr. Ron Ferguson.

Advisory board

The group continued to meet monthly and adopted a formal advisory board process to its regular monthly meetings. During a typical advisory board meeting, the 20+ members in attendance began with a review of minutes and updates. Next, the board planned together how to design and implement new strategies to integrate the Wyckoff Basics into the community, followed by planning for upcoming meetings. Board members discussed means of evaluating the impact on early childhood health, well-being, and school readiness. Finally, working in small groups, they brainstormed how each sector could help to implement and use the Wyckoff Basics (e.g., the schools group proposed that principals commit to teacher training on the Basics, share information with their teachers’ union, create a Pillar day, incorporate the Basics into parent meetings and post the Basics throughout their schools; the health care group recommended that providers have the Basics materials available in their waiting areas, play the Basics videos, incorporate discussions of the Basics into health care visits and discussion of developmental milestones, and collect and distribute children’s books). The group ended the meeting by reciting the Basics Caregiver’s Promise.

District leaders characterize the advisory group as a good, committed board. After almost 2 years, the board continues to rely upon the active, voluntary participation of its members, reflecting a strong commitment to early learning and Wyckoff. Over time, the school district has been able to support a part-time coordinator, a long-term Wyckoff PTSA leader, who facilitates communication and scheduling. The group remains challenged by the lack of funding to expand its work. To address this problem, the group, through the deputy superintendent’s strong encouragement, is making a more concerted effort to have each subcommittee document and report its goals, activities, and outcomes, as evidence to use in seeking funding.

Expanding the training

According to one advisory board member who is also a facilitator trainer in the Basics, she and other trainers expanded the training to provide individual support to families. The conventional training model was to offer in three sessions of community-based training. Consequently, these trainers shifted to provide individual work with families to help embed the Basics. Yet, this requires qualified trainers and facilitators who can support families by modeling use of the strategies and answering questions, along the early childhood development continuum.

While, the district makes Wyckoff Basics awareness sessions available to teachers and other staff, it can only do so on a voluntary basis, so teacher participation is limited. Moreover, the Basics model lacks curriculum and strategies for teachers to use themselves or as part of their parent outreach. A few schools and teachers have taken initiative to use the model to foster more parental outreach, but there is no means of documenting these efforts or tracking their impact. According to the Director of Early Childhood Education, there needs to be a more universal language among teachers and parents to express what parents can be doing at home to develop their children’s educational and social-emotional readiness.

Continued consultation

Dr. Ron Ferguson, who created the Basics, continues to advise the school district and advisory group on the development, implementation and reach of the Wyckoff Basics. By Spring 2018, he and his team were working with 23 cities and communities nationwide and facilitates resource sharing, research efforts, and implementation guidance. In terms of research, he reported in the Wyckoff Basics June 2018 meeting, that his team had developed and was willing to share their logic model, measurement tools, a rubric to measure maturity of implementation and a questionnaire for checking in with families on use of the Basics. He also encouraged the Wyckoff group to switch from directly training parents on the Basics model to become a trainer of facilitators who would engage in training.

Celebrating accomplishments

As part of its structures and support, the district formally recognized the work accomplished. At the end of the first year, the district hosted a city-wide celebration. On June 13, 2018, the school district and its partner My Brother’s Keeper Wyckoff hosted the Wyckoff Basics First Anniversary Recognition at Wyckoff Middle High School. These celebrations became an annual event, with a second one held in May 2019 at the Wyckoff Public Library. School district officials and advisory board members began making state and national presentations on their start-up work with the Basics model, throughout 2018–2019 school year.

Phase 5: Adopting improvement science principles

At the same time as she launched Wyckoff Basics, the deputy superintendent became immersed in a leadership development improvement science initiative, through a multi-district/university partnership. Through this experience, she brought improvement science principles (Bryk et al., 2015) to the forefront of the Wyckoff Basics development and implementation process. Her intent was to incorporate improvement science into the problem-solving process, as a means of understanding the work, staying focused, and monitoring and evaluating improvement efforts over time.

Improvement science, as outlined by Bryk and his colleagues (2015), stresses using a continuous inquiry approach for problem-solving and improvement on school outcomes. Six principles are at the core of improvement science. Among these are (a) to make the work be problem-specific and user-centered; (b) focus on variation; (c) see the system that produces the current outcomes; (d) improve through measurement; (e) anchor practice improvement in disciplined inquiry, and (f) accelerate improvement through networked communities. The specific improvement science principles the deputy superintendent began to incorporate were measurement, clarification of the theory of action, engagement in iterative cycles of plan, do, study, and act (PDSAs) and forming a Network Improvement Community (NIC) with other local districts that were adopting the Basics strategies.

Articulating a theory of action

During the advisory committee meetings and in presentations about their work, the deputy superintendent made the incorporation of improvement science principles more explicit, including articulating the theory of action. This helped to clarify the dual approaches of place-based and sector-based saturation efforts and the need for measurement of student readiness. Figure 1 summarizes the group’s emergent guiding theory of action.

Figure 1.

Theory of action.

Establishing measures

Historically, district officials and building staff had assessed incoming Pre-K young children for developmental readiness using the Brigance, a short assessment administered one-on-one within the first 30 days of school. Until 2019, the district lacked documentation that tracks the level and nature of early childhood readiness.

Beginning in academic year 2018–2019, the Director of Early Childhood Education arranged to have the test results reported at the readiness indicator level and include zip code identification for purposes of analyzing by neighborhood. It confirmed that children from the targeted community area were less ready for school than their peers from other, more resourced areas, particularly in visual motor skills (drawing), language development, and understanding quantities in math.

The advisory board begun to explore how to track measures of implementation and impact of their saturation work, by keeping a very detailed timeline and monitoring possible effects, particularly on family participation and book giveaways. Participant feedback on satisfaction with the parent and facilitator training, learning, and intended use is collected whenever there is a Wyckoff Basics training or workshop. By Spring 2019, approximately 250 surveys had been collected, and a scan of the results showed that participants were positive about the training and have ideas about how to incorporate the Basics into their lives.

Soliciting input from early childhood teachers

In Fall 2018, the Director of Early Childhood Education was able to engage 13 PK and K teachers from four schools (one of which has some funding) in a three-meeting for a Wyckoff Basics introduction and feedback on the readiness needs of entering young children. As part of this meeting, the director solicited the teachers’ feedback on early childhood readiness. The teachers agreed that entering 3 to 4 year olds were generally not ready for school, but primarily for social/emotional reasons, and voiced strong interest in helping parents support their children’s readiness.

Forming a NIC with other basics districts

Wyckoff has joined with other local school districts that have adopted the Basics model, to form a networked improvement community (NIC)—The Valley Regional Basics Network—around the implementation and dissemination of the Basics pillars. Wyckoff hosted one convening of the member districts in the fall and more convenings are being planned to be held in nearby districts.

Accomplishments, Challenges, and Next Steps

The district made tremendous strides in its first 2½ years of adopting the Basics model for Wyckoff, remaining focused on how to improve young children’s school readiness through the foundation of engaging in early learning readiness with family, caregivers, and the community at large. These strides were made possible by district leadership and a large, diverse, and committed advisory board who dedicated considerable time and garnered local resources to promote Wyckoff Basics.

By engaging and fostering a robust voluntary multi-sector advisory committee, the district was able to tackle the problem of early learning by working in both directions: continuously investigating the problem and learning about the different public and private sectors and opportunities for disseminating the Basics pillars and supporting families use. Over the course of the first 2 years of adopting the Basics, Wyckoff educational leaders investigated the feasibility of two dissemination approaches, which represent the “secondary drivers” for activating the Basics practices locally—a place-based saturation model to broadly reach families within a high need area of the city; and a sector-based approach that strived to adopt dissemination of the Basics information and use through four core sectors (education, health and social services, faith-based, and business).

Adopting improvement science practices proved to be challenging because the district lacked both data and resources to investigate the problem and contributing systems. Using the Basics’ key primary and secondary drivers of change—focusing on sector- and place-based saturation to reach and support families in using the Basics pillars—the district was able to move forward to experiment with these improvement practices, while circling back to investigate the problem—early childhood readiness needs of incoming Pre-K students—and the systems that contribute and offer opportunities for improvement.

The saturation approach has been informed by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory of understanding the community (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). According to this theory, an individual interacts in five environmental systems, including one’s own immediate family, immediate community context (including schools, religious institutions, neighborhood and peers), and the interactions among these, such as between the parents and schools. It also includes the broader context in which one lives, and the cultural influences relating to poverty, socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, and political structures. The interactions of these over time shapes children’s development.

The sector-based approach combines both systems theory (Hargreaves, 2011; Katz & Kahn, 1971; Senge et al., 2000)—understanding the existing systems within community that have contact and influence with parents and guardians—and social capital theory (Lin, 2002)—recognizing and working through social networks within and between sectors to find means of distributing information, engaging collaborative support, and exploring how to support families in adopting and using the Basics with young children.

The primary challenge for the deputy superintendent has been to continue driving both inquiry and implementation of change approaches through various sectors. By convening the advisory board monthly, having members work in sector-based work groups for part of the meeting, and asking them to document their goals, efforts, and accomplishments, she has facilitated knowledge development about the problem and sector potential, while learning with the committee members about what works and how to improve practice. This is a complicated approach, highly reliant on voluntary, inter-organizational collaboration and distributed leadership (Hartley, 2010), reinforced through publicly celebrating shared accomplishments and individual contributions, through a variety of public events, celebrations, a Wyckoff Basics website, and regional and national conferences.

Discussion Questions and Teaching Activities

Instructors should use this case study and teaching notes to explore the challenges of tackling an ill-defined problem through inter-agency collaboration, despite limited resources and mechanisms for change.

Discussion Questions

What are the advantages and disadvantages of working through a voluntary advisory committee process, as illustrated here, to simultaneously learn about the early learning needs of children in the different sections of the district and to try out solutions? What assumptions appear to have guided the initial approaches and what can be learned from these?

What questions should the district bring to foster rapid learning within their new NIC with other local districts in promoting families’ use of the Basics principles? How can working with other districts benefit Wyckoff?

Integrating the Basics pillars into the schools’ Pre-K programs has been particularly challenging for the school district. The lack of funding for teacher and leader professional development on the Basics and the lack of guidance materials on how teachers could work with families and caregivers on the pillars, along with their other curricular and instructional priorities, have limited teacher and leader participation. What could the district do under these circumstances?

How does improvement science help to guide inquiry and problem-solving in a problem like this?

Besides clarifying their work through improvement science, what other leadership actions, besides those described in this case, could the deputy superintendent have taken to facilitate implementation of the Basics model and improved early childhood readiness?

Teaching Activities

Investigating sectors. Instructors should ask students to brainstorm the different public and private sectors in their school districts and how these might be accessed for their own Basics approach. In small groups, students should discuss steps they might take to start a similar advisory group to explore the needs related to and sector-related opportunities for early learning and school readiness. Instructors should guide the students in thinking about how to incorporate improvement science principles in this process.

Forming an NIC. In pairs or small groups, students should discuss Bryk et al. (2015) on the role of NICs to accelerate learning and outline a plan for starting up an NIC among similar districts to support dissemination and use of the Basics pillars.

Measuring the problem and solutions. A primary challenge has been the lack of data to measure the problem and track the use and impact of the secondary change drivers—using sector and place-based approaches. After having students read Bryk et al. (2015) on measurement, the instructor should engage the students in brainstorming formal and informal means of collecting and analyzing qualitative and quantitative data for measurement purposes.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Margaret Terry Orr

Notes

Author Biographies

Andrea Coddett is currently an assistant superintendent for Elementary Education and Administration, Yonkers Public Schools. In her administrative career, she has served as an assistant superintendent, district-level math specialist, early childhood principal, K–5 principal, and secondary director of special education in several suburban and small- to mid-sized city districts.

Margaret Terry Orr is a professor and a chair, Educational Leadership, Administration and Policy Division, Fordham University. Her current research addresses rigorous performance assessment design and development in educational leadership, nationally and internationally; and developing inquiry-oriented educational leadership to more effectively address intractable problems in schools and other educating institutions.

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