Iberville Parish Schools Improved Teacher Efficacy in Developing Quality IEPs, Resulting in Higher Student Academic Outcomes
In 2018 Iberville Parish Schools’ Special Services Program was suffering. There was a complete turnover in special education leadership, and two schools were labeled as “Urgent Intervention Required” by the state of Louisiana based on the results of the state test for the students with disabilities in those schools.
In the midst of this difficult time, Pamela Moore, the Supervisor of Special Education, and Madonna Blanchard, the Special Education Instructional Facilitator, were hired. The two new special education leaders brought fresh perspectives and energy to begin addressing the department’s challenges.
The Challenges Iberville Parish Schools Special Services Faced
Within two months of starting the role, the district was required by the state to do an audit of special education records. Pamela took a deep dive into the records of 40 special education files and used a state rubric to evaluate IEPs. Completing this audit provided quantifiable evidence of two things:
- The IEP present levels statements and goals were poorly written and not data-aligned.
- The components of the IEPs were disconnected from each other.
Addressing these issues was already a difficult task, but it was even more challenging for Iberville Parish Schools due to geographic hurdles. The district covers a vast land area, making it tough for district leaders to physically reach all school sites and provide hands-on support to special education teachers.
As a result, Pamela and Madonna knew they needed a systemic solution to support special educators with the IEP development process all day, every day, and they had just the solution in mind.
The Systemic Solution to Support Higher-Quality IEP Writing: Goalbook Toolkit
Both Pamela and Madonna were familiar with Goalbook Toolkit because they worked with Goalbook in previous districts.
Despite feeling anxious about a big purchase as the new Supervisor of Special Education, Pamela was willing to approve Goalbook Toolkit because she and Madonna were confident that Goalbook Toolkit would make an impact on teacher self-efficacy in the development of higher quality and more compliant IEPs.
The Implementation of Goalbook Toolkit
Like every district, Iberville Parish Schools has its own unique circumstances, challenges, and goals. Through their partnership with Goalbook, Pamela and Madonna have successfully identified and addressed Iberville’s distinct needs, adapting as necessary to achieve their goals.
Year 1
After an in-person training from the Goalbook team, Pamela and Madonna made Goalbook available to all their special education teachers. They monitored and praised usage, but noticed some teachers were not using Goalbook Toolkit as frequently as the district team wanted.
“We naively thought that because we knew Goalbook is fantastic, that everyone would welcome it just like we did,” Pamela said. “That didn’t happen.”
This observation caused Pamela and Madonna to change their course of action. “We started using the same strategies we wanted our teachers to use,” Pamela said.
Pamela, Madonna, and Michele Gulotta (a Special Education Instructional Facilitator) created a rubric to evaluate IEP quality. Using that rubric, they assessed IEPs and realized the existing IEP goals were not measurable.
With a better understanding of the specific areas of teachers’ needs, Pamela, Madonna, and Michele refocused the Goalbook Toolkit implementation on goals. Pamela worked closely with Goalbook’s District and School Customer Success managers to create training designed to support teachers in writing measurable, standards-based goals.
Year 2
The second year’s focus was on present levels of performance. “We realized that even with Goalbook Toolkit, our teachers needed some support in how to think about all the data they had. Teachers were overwhelmed with so much data coming from different directions like the present levels, the progress monitoring of goals, etc.,” Pamela shared. “There was just data all over the place, and the teachers didn’t see that it all had to connect together, from the present levels, to the goals, to the specially designed instruction, and finally to the progress monitoring.”
The district team created a data-driven decision-making document to help teachers facilitate their thinking. The teachers would then take the data and information and use Goalbook Toolkit to help write appropriate goals that aligned with the data and connected to the students’ present levels.
After the district team created their decision-making document, they shared it with their Goalbook District and School Customer Success manager, Catherine Leverette. “She knew exactly where we were going, and she came in and trained the teachers on how to use our document in conjunction with Goalbook Toolkit.”
“No matter what the teachers in our district need, Goalbook can be the answer to that need,” said Pamela.
Year 3
The district leaders continued to assess the IEPs and identify the needs of their educators to make decisions on each year’s focus of Goalbook Toolkit implementation. They moved from goals to present levels to progress monitoring, all the while reinforcing how each of these components are connected and aligned with each other.
“No matter what the teachers in our district need, Goalbook can be the answer to that need,” Pamela continued. “They’ve been there every step along the way in every stage of the implementation.”
The Results: Iberville Parish Schools Sees Growth in Teachers and Students
Since Iberville Parish faced some hard truths about their special education department, used data from self-evaluations of IEPs, and began implementing Goalbook Toolkit to build teacher capacity to write higher-quality IEPs and implement them with more effective specially designed instruction, there have been noteworthy results across the board.
Teacher Results:
- The continued internal monitoring of IEP quality has shown continuous improvement both in present levels and goals.
- Teachers have substantially increased consistency in their progress monitoring of IEP goals and objectives.
- Significantly higher rates of IEP goal attainment as a result or better specially designed instruction and progress monitoring that supports data-based decisions in a timely manner.
Student Results:
- Students have grown academically.
- In two years (from 2021 to 2023), the district saw an increase in growth for students with disabilities in each of the following subjects on the Louisiana state assessment:
- Math: 10 point increase
- ELA: 5 point increase
District Results:
- The two schools that were labeled by the state as “Urgent Intervention Required” have improved.
- One school had the label removed entirely.
- The other has been raised to a less intense label.
- The quality of communication between special education teachers and general education teachers in supporting students through specially designed instruction has increased.
The Takeaways from Iberville’s Partnership with Goalbook: Collaboration and Consistency Are Keys to Growth
The special education leadership team at Iberville Parish Schools leaned into a strong collaboration with the Goalbook team to ensure that the implementation of Goalbook Toolkit met the needs of their teachers so they could meet their students’ needs in turn. Pamela, Madonna, and Michele were extremely consistent and never faltered in their focus and expectation of Goalbook Toolkit use.
“If you believe in a tool and you want your educators to use it to the extent that it’s going to impact teachers and students, you have to keep bringing it back to the front of teachers’ minds,” said Pamela. In this way, Goalbook Toolkit is part of almost every district training.
“We are all extremely passionate about children, and we want them to learn and grow. This is what drives both our use of Goalbook and our plan to support all students,” said Pamela.
Learn more about how Goalbook supports districts.
