Durham schools launch year with 'GOAL students' framework, monthly tiers and a push for national accreditation

Durham Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Lewill Lewis and the district's new assistant superintendent for continuous improvement, Chanel Sidbury, outlined a districtwide plan Tuesday to align central-office support with school needs, institute monthly "tiering" reviews of school performance, and begin work toward national accreditation.

The update described an effort to standardize expectations across Durham's 57 campuses so that principals and teachers receive targeted support. "All students are GOAL students," Sidbury said, describing a mindset shift away from targeting only some students for progress monitoring. She said the district will monitor schools monthly to identify supports and to replicate effective practices.

The plan covers four alignment domains Sidbury listed as culture of learning, leadership for learning, engagement for learning and growth for learning and will use existing systems including the district strategic plan, the district's multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS), and the national accreditation process the district plans to pursue. Sidbury said the district last completed accreditation in 2022 and will begin the new accreditation cycle next year.

Under the new approach, schools will move through a revised tiering system on a monthly cadence. Sidbury described the tiers as "foundational" through "leading," saying monthly indicators will include classroom walkthrough data, attendance and discipline measures, and other regular metrics. "What you inspect, you must inspect on all levels," she said, describing the monitoring system as intended to provide feedback "not in a gotcha way, but in a I got kids way."

Superintendent Lewis framed the changes as a return to proven practices combined with better coherence across departments. He told the board he's visited 32 of the district's schools so far and said the district will emphasize professional learning and alignment rather than introducing entirely new initiatives.

District leaders said professional learning was delivered over the summer with almost 300 sessions and thousands of participants, and that differentiated options (in-person, live virtual and asynchronous recordings) were provided for staff and leaders. Sidbury said the district will use Panorama and other tools to triangulate academic, behavioral, and attendance data when deciding supports.

The board and staff said the monthly tiering is intended to be evidence-driven but not overly reactive: schools will be re-tiered monthly, but supports will change only after sufficient evidence that an approach is or is not working. "We won't be changing what the support looks like until we have enough evidence to know if it's working or not," Sidbury said.

Board members asked how central office would adapt support to differing school needs; Sidbury said central-office staff will allocate time and services based on school-level data and need (for example, more mentoring time where a school has more beginning teachers). Leaders said a principal survey is being developed so schools can provide structured feedback to central office about whether supports are useful.

The district framed the overall approach as a strategy to "replicate excellence," with the goal of consistent, high-quality instruction across Durham schools. Officials said they will publish monitoring results and use them to identify and scale practices that produce measurable student growth.

Looking ahead, Sidbury and Lewis said the district will continue to communicate details to principals and staff, roll out the monthly tier reporting, and begin accreditation preparations next academic year.