The IPP: Mary's Take on Instructional Vision + Planning

Voters deserve to know what School Board candidates think about the major initiatives of our school system. The APS Instructional Program Pathways (IPP) effort is one of those major initiatives. It deserves careful scrutiny from the School Board and the community because it will drive a lot of decision making, and because in its current form it raises more questions than it answers.

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​I'll admit that I'm a little bit obsessive when it comes to planning things. For example, a few years ago I had to move my dad and stepmom cross-country to get them closer to family and to find the right combination of health care providers to deal with my father's worsening dementia. In the months leading up to the move, I was conference-calling with siblings, researching assisted living options and Medicaid eligibility, consulting with social workers, and more. It was so important to have a plan.

Not everything in life requires that kind of careful planning--but the design of our public education system certainly does. The decisions we make about what kinds of knowledge and skills we're teaching in school, and how we go about teaching those, have a big impact on students and their families.

 The APS Instructional Program Pathways (IPP) work is an ongoing exercise in instructional design. APS says that the IPP will “serve as a framework for making decisions around instructional visioning that will inform APS planning initiatives.” Once I got past the word “visioning” (I know it’s a valid Scrabble word, but the former English teacher in me doesn’t love it), it became apparent to me that the IPP is at the heart of our school system’s purpose and operation.

Our public schools play many roles in the lives of children, families, and community members, but it’s hard to argue with the idea that teaching and learning should be at the core. What kinds of knowledge, skills, and dispositions will kids need in order to live full and productive lives--and what kinds of instructional experiences and programs are we offering to support that development? 

These are the kinds of questions that should drive the IPP. Instead, APS lists “Promoting demographic diversity in our programs and schools” and “Assisting with managing enrollment at all school levels” as two of the four IPP goals. While these are very important goals, they don’t belong in the IPP, the aim of which should be to provide thoughtfully-designed learning programs and experiences that reflect best practices and respond to students’ needs and interests.

In its current form, the IPP is preoccupied with managing enrollment and capacity issues: these appear to be the exclusive focus of the five priority areas identified by APS instructional leaders as part of the IPP visioning process this year. 

If we really want to put instruction at the center, I think we need to reframe the IPP process. I’m advocating for a process that looks like this:

1. Begin by identifying the competencies and qualities that will equip students to thrive in their adult lives. This is accomplished to some extent in the Profile of a Virginia Graduate but APS could engage students, families, and the community in work that elaborates and develops these. Check out the eight competencies that Albemarle County Public Schools has crafted for its own Portrait of a Graduate, or EL Education’s Dimensions of Student Achievement.
2. Then identify the curricula and instructional strategies that would develop the competencies and qualities we want students to have, paying attention to research on effectiveness and student engagement. Based on the outcomes we’re hoping to achieve, should we be looking at project-based learning? Place-based learning? Competency-based progression? Etc. Check out the exciting work that Lindsay Unified School District in California did in this area, making it a national leader with a strong equity focus.
3. Design instructional program pathways that build in #1 and #2 above, and that offer distinctive areas of focus related to students’ interests, lived experiences, and aspirations.
4. Once we have #1-3 in place, then we work to ensure that we have the appropriate facilities, resources, and capacity to provide these program pathways in a sustainable and equitable way.

I’m also concerned that APS is assuming it has the right option programs and program pathways in place. The APS statement “ensure community is aware of existing programs and how to access” assumes that students and families simply don’t know about current programs and would be interested in participating if they did. That may not be a valid assumption. Instead, I think it’s important for APS to consider whether it is offering the right programs in response to community needs and students’ interests.
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 If you believe that our students deserve a stronger instructional vision and framework, I hope you’ll join me in providing this feedback to APS. If you believe that the School Board needs to insist on stronger instructional planning, I hope you’ll support my campaign.