In addition to communicating changes through district channels, Estrada asked individual teachers to explain the changes they were making to students and families. He also hosted monthly meetings, organized an information night about grading for equity, and leaned on the student senate to share changes and get their feedback.
At every meeting, with every audience, Estrada was candid.
“I start every meeting with what’s going well, what do we need to work on and what are we going to do about it,” said Estrada. “I got great feedback in the moment.”
This process of continuous improvement provides teachers and administrators with the judgment-free opportunity to build on what worked and stop doing what didn’t – to pivot and try something different.
“Continuous quality improvement allows us to be proactive, to change the course of the narrative and help us all move toward a particular goal,” said Rolando Fernando, director of impact and improvement at KnowledgeWorks. “Growth mindset is built into the philosophy of continuous quality improvement: we as human beings can improve, we are empowered to improve.”
For Estrada, the challenge in making any big change in a school is letting go of what you know – or what you think you know.
“It’s a paradigm shift. This isn’t just the next hot thing in education. We have to see past that to why this work is important,” said Estrada. “It was a very vulnerable, real, gritty year tackling this topic. But going through it with our staff, building this together, it became an authentic approach about doing what’s right for kids.”