Tracking Implementation and Scale in a Large Urban District in Florida

• In Event: Moscone Center West Roundtable Session 14
  In Roundtable Session: Evidence on Cross-Sector Partnerships, Improvement, and Adaptation

Abstract

This paper explores five years of scaling of an academic and social emotional reform in a large urban district. Through a networked improvement community approach, the reform scaled from three to thirty schools. We use Morel and colleagues’ (2019) typology of scale to track the implementation and scaling of the reform. Drawing from interviews and focus groups across stakeholders, we find that schools were eager to adopt the reform and adapt it to their school context. We also observed examples of replication and of reinvention, which was encouraged and may have accounted for the success of scaling. District, school and teacher leadership as well as the dynamic between district involvement and oversight and school autonomy accounted for variation across schools.

Authors

• Stacey A. Rutledge, Florida State University

• Marisa A. Cannata, Vanderbilt University

• Brittany R. Closson-Pitts, Florida State University

• Elizabeth Gilliam, Florida State University