Bullhead City principals say new teaming and coaching are raising classroom discussion and short-cycle growth

At a March 20 workshop, principals for Bullhead City School District presented school-by-school progress on the district’s Instructional Empowerment (IE/MOI) model and the supports intended to sustain it.

Julie Bella, a site principal, told the board that classroom teaming has emphasized literacy routines—reading, writing, listening and speaking—backed by task sheets, role cards and evidence-based discussion. “You can really hear a lot more back and forth between the conversations with the kids,” Bella said, adding that several teachers have moved up in implementation progressions: “7 out of 16 core teachers have progressed into 301.” She also described the district’s look-and-learn and rigor-walk processes for triangulating implementation measures and coaching feedback.

Bella cited quantitative gains at one grade level: “Sixth grade ELA went from 41.3% proficiency to 67.2%,” she said when showing a sequence of end-of-standard assessments. She and other principals cautioned that some trendline dips reflect changes in which teachers and which elements were observed, not necessarily a permanent loss of progress.

Chris Troy, Sunrise principal, described examples from kindergarten through third grade in which students collaborate on problem solving, produce team summaries and use role cards that guide productive classroom talk. He said about 82 teachers at his campus were implementing MOI practices in look-and-learn observations.

Cassandra Wilson, principal at Desert Valley, noted the school’s overall rigor-appraisal growth and described daily stand-up meetings and action boards used by instructional leadership teams to track 45-day goals and two-week sprints. “Our overall score is a 7.1,” Wilson said, describing an increase in the conditions-for-learning measure and in standards-aligned student evidence.

Teachers and counselors who spoke to the board gave concrete examples of classroom changes. A first-grade teacher said teams increased student explanation and accountability; a counselor said the teaming structures teach life skills — “I respectfully disagree” sentence stems and turn-taking — that help students communicate more thoughtfully.

Board members asked for the updated and calibrated data Cassidy (district staff) will circulate; they also requested that the principals supply more recent exports showing the updated trend lines and the aggregation method used in the rigor-walk charts.

The workshop closed with the board thanking principals and scheduling follow-up briefing materials and a deeper discussion of the IE contract at an upcoming meeting. The administration said it will distribute updated, calibrated SIM and Galileo results for each campus after reconciling locally held spreadsheets with the version posted to the board packet.

Next steps: principals will provide the updated trend-line exports and the district will add a line item on the next workshop to discuss IE implementation costs and measurable outcomes tied to the contract timeline.