SISEP Active State
Targeted Support
Kentucky Department of Education
Mission: To partner with districts, schools, families, students, business and industry, and communities to provide leadership and support to ensure success for each and every student.
Vision: Each and every student empowered and equipped to pursue a successful future.
"Kentucky provides a national model of how to intentionally design and use an implementation infrastructure to continuously improve teacher practice and impact student outcomes. The KDE began its partnership with the SISEP Center in the fall of 2014 as a Cohort II Active Implementation State. As one of the first Active Implementation States to develop a cohort of high functioning Implementation Teams, Kentucky continues to provide invaluable learning experiences to the field of Implementation Science and has documented evidence of improved student outcomes in the area of mathematics in the first set of schools and classrooms."
Kentucky's Team Structure
Executive Sponsors of SISEP Partnership:
- Gretta Hylton, Associate Commissioner - Office of Special Education and Early Learning
State Transformation Assistant Administrators:
Shasta Hensley serves as a State Transformation Specialist at the Kentucky Department of Education. Shasta has degrees, certifications and experiences in Special Education, Elementary Education, English Learners, and Family Engagement. Shasta partners with Kentucky’s Special Education Regional Technical Assistance Centers (SERTACs) in integrating and sustaining the Transformation Zone work statewide.
SISEP Implementation Specialist:
Kathleen Ryan Jackson has extensive experience in organizational and system change in the field of education, early childhood, juvenile justice, residential schools, and community organizations. Currently, she provides intensive implementation-informed support for two-state departments of education in the United States to align their state, regional, and Local Education Agencies in support of practitioners' effective use of practices with evidence. In response to the priorities of organizations from multiple sectors, she is forging partnerships for the alignment of implementation and improvement sciences in complex organizations. Kathleen is the founder of the Western Implementation Society for Practice and Research. They aspire to advance practitioner knowledge and effective use of implementation science and practices as an affiliate of the Global Implementation Initiative.
Kentucky State Management Team - The State Management Team is led by the State Transformation Specialist and is comprised of: Associate Commissioner, Office of Special Education and Early Learning; Office of the Commissioner; Director, Division of IDEA Implementation and Preschool; Assistant Director, Division of IDEA Implementation and Preschool
Kentucky State Implementation Team - This team is comprised of executive leaders from the state and region who use feedback from district and school staff who are actively engaged in the day-to-day work by using a data analysis process to identify the innovation, mathematics, or PBIS, in order to meet the KDE’s State-Identified Measurable Result (SiMR) in middle school math. This team engages in Practice Policy Improvement Cycles as workgroups engaged in Usability Testing (Training, Coaching, Data Use, Scale-up) feed up challenges to be solved and best practice to be replicated in the Transformation Zone so scale-up is effective, efficient, and sustainable. The Implementation Specialists identify, train, and coach staff at the state and regional levels to develop the capacity to use implementation science research and practice in support of districts and schools.
Instructional Practices and Content Team (IPAC) - The mission of the Instructional Practices and Academic Content (IPAC) team is to provide support to the State Systemic Improvement Plan (SSIP) team and Regional Cooperatives by selecting and vetting instructional practices and developing Math Practice Profiles that are likely to address the Gap in mathematics for struggling learners.
Kentucky's Approach
Kentucky's Department of Education has approached the Transformation Zone work through the State Systemic Improvement Plan (SSIP).
Kentucky’s State Implementation Team is comprised of executive leaders from the state and region who use feedback from district and school staff who are actively engaged in the day to day work by using a data analysis process to identify the innovation, mathematics or PBIS, in order to meet the KDE’s State-Identified Measurable Result (SiMR) in middle school math. This team engages in Practice Policy Improvement Cycles as workgroups engaged in Usability Testing (Training, Coaching, Data Use, Scale-up) feed up challenges to be solved and best practice to be replicated in the Transformation Zone so scale-up is effective, efficient, and sustainable.
The State Transformation Specialists identify, train, and coach staff at the state and regional levels to develop the capacity to use implementation science research and practice in support of districts and schools.
Kentucky White Paper: Accomplishing Effective and Durable Change to Support Improved Student Outcomes
In 2018, the Kentucky Department of Education, in partnership with SISEP, wrote their first of three white papers, "Accomplishing Effective and Durable Change to Support Improved Student Outcomes". This document outlines the initial key action steps that the department undertook to develop the Transformation Zone.
“The quarterly all day Transformation Zone meetings helped us learn how the other regions were developing District and Building Implementation Teams so we could replicate the process.”
Kentucky's Usable Innovation
Kentucky’s Usable Math Innovation defines WHAT educators agree they will see in any math classroom, no matter what innovation a district may choose and no matter what unique style the teacher employs. Usable Innovations provide the content to develop the HOW or training, coaching and data use systems all in support of teacher practice that improves student outcomes.
Evidence-Based Practice: Middle School Mathematics and Pk-12 PBIS
Co-Creation of Kentucky's Usable Innovation Process: How-to-Guide
The How-To-Guide is the second of three white papers and provides a detailed description of the intentional step-by-step process Kentucky’s executive leaders, educators, and stakeholders used to co-create a Mathematics Usable Innovation. The How-To-Guide includes italicized links to resources: Kentucky Examples, activities and research on the Active Implementation Hub. Resources are also linked below in the order they are presented in the How-To-Guide. We hope these resources support your organization's co-creation of a Usable Innovation.
“We had so many people involved we have developed a lot of capacity, we have become very efficient. It took 6 months to develop the Math Practice Profile, 2 months to develop a coaching Practice Profile with participants using a variety of coaching systems, and 2 meetings to develop a Data Use Practice Profile – that’s the proof of our capacity.”
Kentucky's Mathematics Toolkit to Support Students with Disabilities: includes resources to identify and measure effective mathematics instruction in the classroom to support students with disabilities.
Kentucky's Journey
Stage of Implementation: Initial Implementation
Learning Lab Timeline:
- Learning Lab #1, Start Date, October 2014: Two Regional Cooperatives.
- Learning Lab #2, Start Date, October 2017: Three Regional Cooperatives.
- Learning Lab #3, Start Date, November 2019: One Regional Cooperative.
- Learning Lab #4, Exploration Date, June 2021: One Regional Cooperative
- Learning Lab #5, TBD: Two remaining Regional Cooperatives
Kentucky State Capacity Data
“Capacity assessments make it clear to me just what we need to be doing.”
Spotlight Honoree - In 2018, NIRN and the Kentucky Department of Education were selected as a Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Spotlight Award for their work within improvement science.
Covid-19 Impact: The Kentucky Department of Education knew they needed to move quickly to address the shift to a non-traditional instructional model during the pandemic. The department leveraged the transformation zone work to make immediate changes to universal, targeted and intensive supports.
What did this look like? The Kentucky Department of Education focused on the opportunities and utilized the special education regional cooperative centers.
COVID-19 Universal Support
- Collaboration between special education regional cooperatives and KDE: webcast series and resources
COVID-19 Targeted Support
- Recognizing areas of need to provide additional support (sample)
- Kentucky Mathematics Innovation Tool (KMIT)
COVID-19 Intensive Support
- Virtual capacity assessments
- Continuing momentum in the TZ and equity of access
- Virtual exploration and resources
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