R12CC continues to work with the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) as it scales its statewide principal leadership development system. Recently, the project team provided evaluations and recommendations for several school improvement leadership efforts, including the Missouri Leadership Development System (MLDS), District Continuous Improvement, and Comprehensive Support and Improvement.

Accomplishments also include developing an after-action brief of DESE’s principal recruitment efforts to bring more principals into MLDS and presenting results of the annual evaluation, Pathway to Advanced Performance, to the MLDS Commission.

The work in Year 4 will center on evaluating MLDS and supporting its expansion, learning what school improvement data are of value to the field, and building a rubric to help school level teams gauge the fidelity of implementation of their school improvement plans.

To align to new state legislation, the focus of the Common Formative Assessment project has shifted to literacy in kindergarten through grade 3. In project Year 4, R12CC will assist DESE to plan for the common formative assessment system’s structure and development by building blueprints and developing content for assessments and supporting materials.