“Who wants to go to college?”
That’s how a video detailing the work of Fort Worth ISD’s RISE schools begins – starting with the end in mind. Transforming schools to create and support a college-bound culture is one of the goals.
RISE stands for Redesign to Increase Schools of Excellence. It unifies three transformational school improvement grants under one initiative and is being utilized at 25 Fort Worth ISD campuses, including Daggett Middle School.
The three grants are the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF), the Texas Title I Priority Schools (TTIPS), and Texas Turnaround Leadership Academy (TTLA.) Each one of the 25 RISE schools receive a combination of funding from two or more of these sources.
However, RISE will help all Fort Worth ISD schools:
- Find new ways to teach and lead – and make those strategies work for years to come.
- Create fair teacher evaluations that help everyone be better at what they do.
- Reward educators for a “class act” performance.
It’s also paving the way toward new, innovative and more effective teacher evaluations. “It’s built by teachers for teachers,” according to this video.
RISE continues the work begun by PEAK – learning from both PEAK’s successes and its challenges.
“Fort Worth ISD is continuing a journey to transform our schools to better meet the needs of our students,” says Dr. Josie Hernandez-Gutierrez, District Steward in the Office of Transformational Leadership and School Improvement.
Research shows seven critical success factors support school change and improvement.
“And we base all of our change and goals on these seven critical success factors to improve our schools,” says Dr. Gutierrez. “It's how we streamline our work. It's how we focus our work.”