NorCal Educator's Digest
January 2024
Happy New Year! The entire team at NorCal ELC wishes you a happy and productive 2024 year. Our aim is to help you reach greater professional success and satisfaction. We have a wide range of events planned and scheduled for January through June. All NorCal ELC events are free to participants and most are offered virtually so that no matter where in the region you live and work you can access 21CSLA professional learning. See our Upcoming Events section.
Quick Access
• Neuroscience in the North State: A Focus on Executive Function
• NorCal ELC Winter Leadership Institute 2024
• 21CSLA UTK Modules Offering in the Shasta Geo Region (NorCal ELC)
• NorCal UTK Community of Practice
• 21CSLA UTK Leadership Certificate Offering
• Inquiry Now: Equity-Centered Instructional Leadership Offering
• NorCal ELC: Four Continuums to Anchor our Work with Education
• New Law Affectively Ends “Willful Defiance” School Suspensions for All Grades
• Digital Guide to Improvement Science from the New York City Department of Education
Upcoming NorCal ELC Professional Learning Events
Neuroscience in the North State: A Focus on Executive Function
NorCal ELC has planned and is sponsoring Spring Webinar Sessions that will feature top experts in the neuroscience of learning who will offer practical approaches to increase student’s executive function skills in schools, classrooms, and at home. These sessions are sponsored by NorCal ELC. Registration will be free.
View the Neuroscience Sessions flyer.(opens in new window)(opens in new window)
NorCal ELC Winter Leadership Institute 2024
NorCal ELC’s Winter Leadership Institute is to be held January 29th and 30th from 3:00pm-6:00pm via Zoom. A keynote by Adele Diamond and various learning sessions will be held for participants and are open to the public. Additionally, teams will be continuing their work on their equity centered Problems of Practice.For more information on the Winter Leadership Institute, contact Dr. Mike Kotar at
mkotar@csuchico.edu.
Universal Transitional Kindergaten (UTK) Module Offerings in the NorCal Shasta Geo Region
NorCal ELC is offering 21st Century California School Leadership Academy (21CSLA) UTK modules in the Shasta Geo Region in Spring 2024, both virtually and in-person in Redding. Watch this space for the modules selected, a registration link, and a flier in late January. For each module, NorCal ELC is offering a $500 stipend to participants upon completion.
NorCal UTK Community of Practice
Join our region-wide UTK Community of Practice (CoP) to talk and network with early childhood, TK and other primary teachers and administrators about educational issues and services for young children. All sessions are being held via Zoom. The NorCal ELC UTK CoP 2023-24 Calendar is also available.
21CSLA Events & Opportunities
Inquiry Now | Equity Centered Instructional Leadership
Inquiry Now is an instructional leadership-focused program for principals, district leaders, and teacher leaders. This 2-day workshop is facilitated by a team of educators from the California Subject Matter Project and the 21CSLA State Center. Inquiry Now will be offered in the Shasta Region, specifically in Red Bluff on January 17 & 18. Registration is free.
View the Shasta Region, Inquiry Now Flyer.(opens in new window)(opens in new window)
Do You Want to Add UTK Leadership to Your Specialities?
The 21CSLA State Center and UC Berkeley offer the UTK Leadership Certificate. This certificate is two courses designed for PASC and CASC candidates and individuals who hold a CTC Certificate of Completion. Courses are offered without cost through 21CSLA and are being held virtually via Zoom.
Spring 2024 dates will be announced soon.
NorCal ELC: Four Continuums We Use to Anchor our Work with Education
NorCal ELC builds momentum by developing four continuums to anchor our work during Cohort 2.
- Equity - Leadership - Continuous Improvement - Team -
While NorCal ELC is continuing what worked from Cohort 1, we are practicing what we coach and are continuously improving as we enter this next three-year cycle. NorCal ELC’s equity-centered team-based approach to addressing Problems of Practice using Improvement Science is continuing. In addition, our Leadership Academy (LA) and Instructional Leadership Team (ILT) Community of Practiceare held virtually and span 11 northern counties.
See the pamphlet highlighting NorCal ELC’s 2020-2023 program.
What’s new is that we are striving to refine our focus, and our coaching in four foundational areas or “pillars”: Equity, Leadership, Continuous Improvement, and Team Development. This summer, teams of coaches, staff, and the Abeo team drafted continuums designed to bring clarity and understanding to these four areas; areas we deem the most critical components of our program. The continuums are designed for individuals and teams to self-assess their own competencies and provide guidance for professional goals and growth.
See an abbreviated version of our Continuums in the table below:
Equity | Continuous Improvement |
An approach to ensuring equally high outcomes for all by removing the predictability of success or failure that currently correlates with any racial, social, or cultural factor. (Street Data) | Continuous improvement is an umbrella term that covers methodologies that share a common approach of empirically testing changes to a system by focusing on improving the interactions of people, processes, materials, and norms toward a common goal.
(West Ed; Getting Better at Getting more Equitable) |
Domain: Equity Consciousness | Domain: System Awareness |
Domain: Understanding Complexity | Domain: Data |
Domain: User-Centered Design | Domain: Improvement Tool Fluency |
Leadership | Team |
Leaders provide supportive and shared leadership structure and opportunities to ensure positive school culture and effective professional learning communities that impact school improvement. | In order to transform schools we need high-functioning groups of educators working together; this competency supports teams in organizational fluency and relationships acknowledging how teams relate to each other and how teams engage in the work together. |
Domain: Communication | Domain: Organizational Fluency |
Domain: Facilitation | Domain: Relationships - How Teams Relate Together |
Domain: System Thinking | Domain: Relationships - How Teams Engage in the Work |
Domain: Development of Leadership Stance and Professional Learning Culture | Domain: Organizational Fluency |
In addition, Dr. Michael Gulbransen, NorCal ELC’s Professional Learning Director, created a NorCal ELC Leadership Coach Continuum to support our coaches in their own coaching skills. Noted in the continuum:
“Coaching focuses consistently on leadership that positively impacts learning and teaching practice. It is a complex process leading to changes in leaders' practice by rethinking and re-strategizing leadership and transforming their dispositions, behaviors, and communication. Effective coaching will result in building leadership capacity, increasing instructional improvement, and extending student learning.”
Teams are getting introduced to the full continuums, and having facilitated conversation, over a period of time. Alongside learning and practicing Improvement Science and working on their problems of practice, team leads and team members are now getting a fuller picture of what equity, leadership, continuous improvement and team development means in this 21CSLA region.
If you would like to know more about NorCal ELC’s continuums or approach to educational improvement in rural communities, please contact Dr. Kotar at mkotar@csuchico.edu.
Resource Spotlights
Is your School Ready? Beginning July 1, 2024, a new law effectively ends “Willful Defiance” school suspensions for all grades. Read the full story: New Law Effectively Ends “Willful Defiance” School Suspensions for All Grades.
Into Improvement? Check out this Digital Guide to Improvement Science from the New York
City Department of Education. Find information, protocols, and coaching materials for a five-
phase improvement process, including digital resources for Fishbone Analysis, Empathy
Mapping, Driver Diagram, and more.