Performance Matters Forum 2025

TRACK 1

8:30 - 9:30 a.m.

Track 1 Sessions

• Session A (Room 12) - Co-Teaching for Multilingual Learners
• Session B (Room 13) - Experiences with the CT-SEDS MTSS Module
• Session C (Room 14) - Curriculum Design Lab
• Session D (Room 15) - Attendee Collaboration Space
• Session E (Room 16) - The Epidemic We Can't Ignore: Digital Wellness
• Session F (Room 17) - Checking our Biases Before Working with the Data

Co-Teaching for Multilingual Learners: A High-Impact Strategy for Engagement and Growth

What happens when co-teaching is implemented with intentionality, coaching, and a focus on multilingual learners (MLs)? In this session, two educational specialists and a fifth-grade teacher team share how one elementary school strengthened and formalized a co-teaching model that improved both student outcomes and teacher practice.

Grounded in a research-based Phases of Co-Teaching framework, this project paired general education and ML teachers to co-plan and co-deliver language arts instruction. With professional development, coaching, and leadership support, teams progressed from parallel instruction to collaborative ownership. Teachers reported increased confidence, stronger instructional alignment, and higher student engagement. Assessment data, including LAS Links, student satisfaction surveys, DIBELS, and iReady, showed measurable student growth.

Participants will gain insight into what made this model successful and walk away with tools and strategies to implement co-teaching as a high-impact strategy for ML engagement and achievement.

Presenters: Chrissy Bowman, Lisa Fiano, Vanessa Lenha and Maria Rivera - CREC

Experiences with the CT-SEDS MTSS Module

This session will open with an overview of the CT-SEDS MTSS Module, providing context for its role in supporting tiered intervention systems. Stratford Public Schools' leadership team will then present the district's SRBI/MTSS strategic framework, highlighting alignment with state guidance and local priorities. Administrators and educators will share their implementation journey with the CT-SEDS MTSS module, including onboarding processes, system integration, user experience, and data-informed practices. Key takeaways will include effective implementation strategies, lessons learned, and leadership recommendations. The session will conclude with a forward-looking discussion on Stratford's next steps to strengthen and sustain SRBI/MTSS across the district.

Presenters: Diana DiIorio, Erin Dunn and Philip Piazza - Stratford School District

Curriculum Design Lab: Hands-On Tools for Rigorous and Relevant Learning

Participants will gain knowledge and resources to transform the curriculum development process with Connecticut's research-based framework for creating rigorous, equitable, and culturally responsive learning experiences. This interactive workshop unpacks the CSDE's four-phase curriculum development model—from Analysis & Planning through Evaluating—and demonstrates how to use the Universal Curriculum Template to design instruction that meets all learners where they are. Through collaborative protocol work and real-time template application, participants will gain practical strategies for building coherent K-12 learning progressions aligned with the district's portrait of a graduate/learner while ensuring accessibility and engagement for diverse student populations.

Presenters: Paul Castiglione and Irene Parisi - CSDE

Attendee Collaboration Space

Attendees may use this room to connect, collaborate, or reflect during this hour.

The Epidemic We Can't Ignore: Digital Wellness for Students, Families, and Communities

This breakout session reframes digital health and wellness as a non-negotiable pillar of school climate and culture, embedded into daily practice, family engagement, and community connection. Participants will explore an innovative framework that positions digital wellness alongside literacy and math as a foundational life skill. Through real examples and strategies, we'll demonstrate how schools can:

• Integrate digital health & wellness into curricula and climate initiatives;
• Equip families with practical, judgment-free tools to guide their children;
• Use AI responsibly as both a teaching partner and a context for building critical, ethical, human-centered skills;
• Mobilize students, staff, and communities around digital wellness as a shared movement, not a one-time intervention.

This is a call to action to stop treating digital health and wellness as optional and start recognizing it as essential to academic engagement, social-emotional growth, and future readiness. Together, we can shift from fragmented efforts to a cultural transformation, one that treats digital wellness not as an afterthought, but as the work that must be done.

Presenter: Ratosha McBride - CREC

Checking our Biases Before Working with the Data: Root Cause Analysis That Gets to the Truth

Too often, we begin the work of school or district improvement with a set narrative already in mind, one that may unintentionally reflect assumptions about the students we serve. These assumptions can shape the questions we ask, the data we prioritize, and ultimately the decisions we make. This session will lead us to move from asking, "What's wrong with these students?" to "What's happening in the system that produces these outcomes?" We will explore how to conduct a root cause analysis process that surfaces the actual contributors to low student performance, without bias clouding our decisions and practices.

Participants will be introduced to a protocol that helps administrative teams interrogate their thinking before they open a spreadsheet. We will model a reflective protocol to identify and name implicit assumptions that can derail equity-centered inquiry. We will then guide participants through a step-by-step root cause analysis that builds from multiple data sources and perspectives, including student voice.

By the end of this session, participants will walk away with a practical process they can use with school, or district-based teams to interrupt bias, deepen understanding of systemic contributors to performance challenges, and develop targeted strategies for improvement. This session is ideal for data teams, school improvement facilitators, district leaders, and equity-focused educators seeking to ensure that their accountability work leads to meaningful, sustainable change, not just reactive solutions.

Presenters: Nicholas Chanese and Elsie Gonzalez - CREC