Running head: TR EQUITY ANALYSIS 1

TR Equity Analysis

Shelly Treleaven

EEA 534: Change Management with Global Perspectives

Prepared for Brian Celli

M. Ed. in Leadership

City University of Seattle in Canada

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​Abstract

Terrace Ridge (TR) School is located in Central Alberta and has a student population of

429 with an educational staff of 43. According to the TR Education Plan, the vision statement

for the school is: At Terrace Ridge School we will create a collaborative, inclusive community,

and use authentic assessment to demonstrate learning as we prepare our students for their role in

the future. There appear to be two mission statements, an official one, and one the staff

collaboratively created. The official one is, We provide an inclusive environment where all

students belong and have the opportunity to learn and develop to their full potential – physically,

socially, emotionally, and cognitively; and the staff created mission is, [a]t Terrace Ridge

School, we believe “it takes a village to raise a child.” Our mission is to provide an Excellent

Learning Environment where all students belong and have the opportunity to learn and develop

to their full potential as 21st Century Learners. We guide children to be empathetic, global

citizens with a deep sense of worth. What these all contain is a focus on student potential and

supporting the whole child. The areas were identified in the school’s ACE (Action -

Collaboration - Evidence) plan where the school had identified literacy and achieving excellence

as its focus three years ago. Over the past two years due to changes in the Inclusive Learning

Services department, additional goals for inclusion have been added to the plan. When looking

at the data from the TR ACE plan, Impact Assessments (IA), and Provincial Achievement Test

(PAT) results, there are three areas where the data, or lack thereof, indicated a lack of equity in

resource allocation or academic focus. These areas are math sense, inclusion support, and social

and emotional supports for students.

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The first concern came from the staff of TR who collaboratively indicated in meetings

last year how the focus on literacy had successfully impacted student learning around literacy but

it has also resulted in a lack of focus on math sense. When reviewing the PAT results for the

school it was evident that literacy scores have been positively impacted in recent years however

the math scores have remained at the previous lower levels of acceptable or excellent scores. Is

numeracy skill necessary?

The second area of concern was evident upon inspection of the school’s IAs. These

documents offered the suggested full-time educational assistant equivalence level needed for

each student along with support requirements. It is evident the school does not employ support

staff to the suggested levels recommended in the IA reports. How does one support student

needs in a diverse classroom with minimal support?

Thirdly, the school has numerous programs available to support students’ social and

emotional needs. Some of the supports include the School Social Worker. Rainbows, LGBTQ

meetings, FNMI activities along with elder visits, Girls club, a Friendship bench, Knights and

Squires, Buddy classes, and Roots of Empathy. The concern is that there is no data available to

indicate the cost of these programs or any justification for the expense of these programs. How

is the school accountable for the services being offered?

Recommendation #1

Problem Statement

How has the focus on literacy impacted numeracy skills?

Scope of Concern
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“What you focus on grows and what you think about expands” (Sharma, 2010). This has

been true at TR. For the past seven years, the school has strictly been focused on literacy and as

a result, the scores on our PATs has significantly improved (see Appendix A). The problem that

is being faced as a result of this single focus is how scores have not improved in any other

subject category.

While numeracy and literacy have been the focus of the Alberta Government as indicated

through the numerous documents and supporting information available on their website (Alberta

Government, 2019), Wolf Creek Public Schools had chosen to focus on only one goal; literacy.

Research has indicated that having an intense focus on a single specific goal can blind people to

important issues that appear unrelated to their goal (Ordonez, Schweitzer, Galinsky, & Bazerman

(2009). This was indicated in the increase in reading and writing performance but the lack of

growth in all other academic areas, specifically numeracy. Having had a focus on improving

literacy skill levels, in itself had lasting positive effects for students and was not a bad goal, the

problem was targeting all resource spending and professional development on this singular goal.

Without updated educational materials and training, the larger impact of this issue is how this has

impacted the elementary educators. These teachers are generally expected to teach students all

of their core subjects. With the focus on literacy results, the teacher’s time, effort and attention

would be expected to maintain the same focus. In these early years having a focus myopically

on short-term gains may cause one to lose sight of the potentially devastating long-term effects

on the students (Ordonez et al., 2009).

Change Plan
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The focus needs to be placed on the attainment of both numeracy and literacy skills. The

general goals in providing educational opportunities for students will not need to be changed,

therefore this is a first-order change. Only the means to the goal require attention. Financial

support will need to be provided to ensure teachers have the necessary skills to support numeracy

development in the classroom. Attention will also need to be placed on ensuring that all schools

have adequate resources to support the learning in the classrooms. This may require a reduced

focus on literacy skill attainment, but a balanced approach is necessary as numeracy skill ought

not to be considered inferior to those of literacy.

Potential barriers to this plan might come in the form of those who are worried about

changing the focus from literacy or teacher’s pride. Those who are concerned about their skill in

providing effective student numeracy instruction would require that those in leadership roles

ensure they support the professional development for all their teachers with a specific focus on

literacy and numeracy instructional strategies. Leaders will need to celebrate the small wins and

address concerns immediately when they appear. In addition, developing a schoolwide or

another form of a team would also provide support for teachers who may require mentoring or

additional support.

Recommendation #2

Problem Statement

How can we positively practice inclusion without an inclusion coach or an increase in

Educational Assistant support?

Scope of Concern
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Terrace Ridge has had its Inclusion Coach (IC) position eliminated for the 2019-2020

school year. This will impact teachers as this person had supported the documentation of student

needs and provided support when needed and offered strategies and guidance to individual

teachers. In addition to the IC reduction, the support for Educational Assistants (EA) does not

meet the assessment of needs in each classroom. The IA document (see Appendix B),

demonstrated how the grade 7 classroom for the next school year qualifies for over 6.0 of

full-time EA support, but at this time has only been allocated 0.8 FTE of support for the

upcoming school year.

Change Plan

This change plan will require a second-order change as it will be necessary that people

change the way they think about inclusion. Things to consider when planning a change in

approach to inclusive practices comes from the book ​Inclusive Leadership b​ y Ryan (2006) and

they include:

● Think about leadership.

● Include participants.

● Advocate for inclusion.

● Educate participants.

● Develop critical consciousness.

● Promote dialogue.

● Emphasize student learning and classroom practice.

● Adopt decision-making and policymaking practices.

● Incorporate whole-school approaches (p. 97)

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Once the leaders have reviewed or implemented all of these, they must also provide the

opportunity for staff to collaboratively develop goals for the team. These goals may include

having leaders create support teams or networks based on student or teacher need and/or

proximity. The team will then need to collectively determine the guidelines for meeting times,

locations and goals. Making certain these meetings do not add to the workload, whether time or

paperwork, will need to be addressed both by the team and the leaders. Another goal may

include focused and targeted professional development based on the emotional, behavioural, or

academic training needs of the team. If the training needs to be completed by the entire staff,

then that can be arranged, but making certain everyone has the targeted training depending on the

needs they will be faced with is imperative.

Potential barriers may include time, understanding of the changing needs of the students,

classroom flexibility, teacher pride, and/or lack of resources. These will all require attention.

Making certain communication is transparent, clear, positive, and supportive will be a key role of

the leader.

Recommendation #3

Problem Statement

Is it possible to quantify the impact of social and emotional support provided to students?

Scope of Concern

At this time there is no data available to indicate the cost of programming or supports for

social emotional concerns for students, or whether these programs are able to measure their

success. In a time where all programs are expected to apply for funding and detail what they will
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achieve, the lack of any of this data is concerning. Is support needed for students, absolutely, but

how do we know what we are doing is having any effect?

Change Plan

This will only require a first-order change as supporting students and meeting their needs

both socially and emotionally is a valued goal, but how we measure or justify the programming

may need to be altered. One of the greatest struggles is the data needing to be attained is

qualitative and requires time to create. Time expectations are some of the most difficult to

quantify and most of the programs that are being offered have only a time cost to those running

them, as they are provided by staff during lunch breaks or after school. But, time is money and

these programs also have an emotional cost to them. The SSW program has a cost, but they are

expected to report on their meetings and how they have been asked to support both families and

students. The greatest concern would be that there seems to be no accounting for the cost both in

time and financially or whether the students needs are actually being addressed within the

programs being offered.

A solution to this may include creating a spreadsheet or document where all those

offering support for social or emotional needs of students through clubs or programs, share the

information with the staff. This may impact the support being offered and the opportunity to

determine if there are gaps in what is being offered. At the very least, talking about it as a staff

would offer clarity and transparency to the programs.

Conclusion

Terrace Ridge is a progressive school where staff and students are supported. The concerns of

numeracy skill attainment, inclusive classroom support, and social and emotional support require
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a team approach and with the support of the leaders these changes can be achieved. At TR truly

do believe ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ and are willing to do what it takes for the children

entrusted to us. We are a team.

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References

Alberta Government. (2019). ​Literacy and numeracy.​ Retrieved from

https://education.alberta.ca/literacy-and-numeracy/about-literacy-and-numeracy/

Ordóñez, L. D., Schweitzer, M. E., Galinsky, A. D., & Bazerman, M. H. (2009). Goals gone

wild: The systematic side effects of overprescribing goal setting.​ Academy of

Management Perspectives, 23​(1), 6-16. doi:10.5465/AMP.2009.37007999

Ryan, J. (2006). ​Inclusive leadership​. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Shannon, G. S. & Bylsma, P. (2007). Nine characteristics of high-performing schools. ​Office of

​ lympia, WA. Retrieved from:

Superintendent of Public Instruction. O

http://www.k12.wa.us/research/pubdocs/NineCharacteristics.pd

Sharma, R. (2010). ​The leader who had no title: a modern fable on real success in business and

in life​. Simon and Schuster.

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Appendices

Appendix A

Terrace Ridge School Provincial Achievement Test Results

Appendix B

Impact Assessment Data for Grade 7, 2019-2020 School Year

Appendix C

Terrace Ridge ​ACE Plan