Key Strategies

Collaboration: District-union leadership have jointly developed an “Equity and Collaboration Audit,” designed to assess collaborative capacity and guide school-specific training in Year I.  Deepened and sustained collaboration at the school level will be facilitated through data generated by the audit, which measures schools’ and/or educators’ and administrators’:

• Understanding of systemic change processes, change management and change agency
• Collaborative skills, including inquiry, dialogue and reflection skills
• Skills for data review and analysis and root cause analysis
• Problem-solving processes and skills, including conflict management and interest-based strategies
• Strategic planning process and skills, including vision and mission clarification, environment scanning, community mapping, research literature reviews, strategic questioning, action planning, evaluation planning
• Structures and process tools for participation and involvement in decision-making and school governance

Specific Year 1 interventions will vary by target school and be contingent upon a close study by teachers of individual schools’ most pressing needs associated with delivering high quality and equitable education. This approach is based on the partnership’s belief (validated by supporting research) that “only educators themselves can exercise true agency, defined as the capacity, condition or state of acting or exerting power.” Interventions to be supported will align with a focus on teaching effectiveness and community and family engagement, and will be cross-checked against the “Equity and Collaboration Audit,” based on respective schools’:

• Student achievement indicators, including standardized test scores for math and language arts
• District benchmark tests, end-of-grade tests or other tests
• Attendance rates
• Disciplinary or suspension rates and race/ethnicity correlates
• Dropout rates
• Special education referrals and/or placement rates

Omaha Public Schools Demographics and Achievement Gaps

Enrollment: 49,508
Student Poverty: 69%
Diversity: 66%
Black: 26%
Hispanic: 30%
Other: 10%

Related Resources

$2M to tackle achievement gap, Omaha World-Herald, Nov. 6, 2011

Grant to help fund improvements in Omaha education system, WOWT, April 4, 2011