Task Force Process

In May of 2019, the NESSC Leads—the staff members in each state agency in New England who lead the work of the New England Secondary School Consortium (NESSC)—met to decide on the priority areas for the 2019-2020 year of work together. The NESSC Leads conversation was facilitated by the Great Schools Partnership support team. The conversation centered around identifying work that was both critical to improving student achievement and increasing educational equity, and that would be improved and accelerated through a collaborative effort. Diversifying the educator workforce was immediately selected as a topic that fit those qualifications. Additionally, the NESSC Leads determined that a task force structure would be the best way to collectively work on diversifying the educator workforce. Below is the formal charge that the NESSC set for the Task Force on Diversifying the Educator Workforce.

Our Charge

Building upon several ongoing state-level strategies, this task force will:

explore current state and regional strategies that have significantly increased the diversity of the educator workforce;
determine strategies most likely to be successful in New England states and most impactful to tackle collectively;
create a list of these strategies along with advice for implementation;
work within respective states to identify promising strategies to explore, debate, and potentially adopt in practice and policy; and
publish a document with proposed strategies and commitments captured.

Timeline

Spring 2019

NESSC Leads determined priorities for the 2019-2020 year, identifying diversifying the educator workforce as a high-leverage topic that would be particularly important to explore together through a regional task force.

Spring 2019

July – August 2019

Each NESSC state identified and secured participation from 3-8 leaders in diversifying the educator workforce in their state to participate in the task force. Jess DeCarolis, Division Director at the Vermont Agency of Education and Ventura Rodriguez, Senior Associate Commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education were identified as co-chairs of the task force. The co-chairs and GSP coordinating team collected best practices, research, and policies regarding regional, state, and local strategies to diversify the educator workforce.

July – August 2019

October 10, 2019

Video Conference Call #1

During the first meeting, the task force met via Zoom to outline the problem and process. Participants were introduced to best practices collected by GSP, invited to add practices or policies, and tasked with reading these materials in preparation for the first in-person meeting.

October 10, 2019

October 23, 2019

In-Person Meeting #1

The task force met for the first time in-person and invested time in building our community and understanding the story of each of the New England states. We also began to identify themes and promising practices.

October 23, 2019

October 30 – November 17, 2019

GSP staff and co-chairs created minutes and summaries from the first meeting and brought together initial promising practices. We also continued to refine the process moving forward.

October 30 – November 17, 2019

November 18, 2019

Video Conference Call #2

GSP staff and task force co-chairs brought forward initial summaries and promising practices for feedback and tuning.

November 18, 2019

November 19 – December 18, 2019

GSP staff and co-chairs worked together to incorporate feedback into a second draft of promising practices and to create an agenda for the second in-person meeting.

November 19 – December 18, 2019

December 19, 2019

In-Person Meeting #2

The task force met and continued to build their community. They worked both as in-state teams and across states to edit, draft, and refine the promising practices, framework, and structure of the report.

December 19, 2019

December 20, 2019-January 12, 2020

GSP staff and co-chairs worked to combine all of the feedback into one draft, make edits and changes that had garnered consensus, and plan the final in-person meeting.

December 20, 2019-January 12, 2020

January 13, 2020

In-Person Meeting #3

The task force met and continued to build their community. The bulk of the meeting was spent as a whole group coming to consensus on the grounding principles of the report and finalizing the report structure and framework.

January 13, 2020

January 14-March 15, 2020

GSP staff, co-chairs, and task force members worked virtually to create drafts of the report, provide feedback, and incorporate feedback into a complete draft and final framework.

January 14-March 15, 2020

April 28-May 29, 2020

State Team Draft Feedback Video Conference Calls

A series of six separate hour-long sessions with each state’s delegation was held during the spring to gather task force members’ feedback on the completed draft.

April 28-May 29, 2020

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Table of Contents

Task Force Process

Our Charge

Timeline

Explore Other Appendices

Research

Acknowledgements

Task Force Members

Task Force Process

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