Role

As Program Manager at Boston Public Schools, I managed various district-wide initiatives serving 54,000 students. One initiative was implementing Massachusetts' Bilingual Endorsement licensure requirement for 1000+ teachers in dual language classrooms. I created a rollout plan, oversaw its implementation, and worked closely with the Boston Public School’s superintendent and the academic deans at 4 local universities.

Evolution

Massachusetts’ Bilingual Endorsement was a state law established in the summer of 2018 which came as a surprise to districts in the state. This law requires teachers in dual language schools to earn a special certification to remain qualified to teach. Existing teachers without this  certification put the district out of compliance with the state, and it could eventually mean teachers would be let go from their roles. The state expected implementation to begin in the fall. This gave us 2 months to kick off the project, an extremely tight timeframe given the task and the size of our district.

The superintendent’s office charged this project to our team. My immediate manager nominated me as the project leader. My charge was to develop a long term plan to ensure our district’s compliance with the law and begin implementation in the fall. 

This project was challenging for a variety of reasons beyond the timeframe. First, the work required internal collaboration with our data and HR department and teachers on the ground. Second, we had to build a plan from scratch. This meant identifying potential university partnerships, conducting feasibility assessments, and securing the funding in a short amount of time.

As the project lead, I put together a cross-functional task force that met regularly. We did deep data dives and cleanup on the current state of teacher licensures to anticipate how many teachers the new policy would impact. During this time, I also met with state policymakers to get additional clarity on the law. I had a few early wins that involved identifying low-lift actions. First was taking advantage of a condition that immediately granted over 100 teachers their new qualification. The second was applying our funding to subsidize the cost of a test for teachers to demonstrate their qualification. This test was an alternative pathway to getting the certification besides taking 4 graduate level courses.

Metrics

• 200+ teachers were on track for earning the required certification after year 2; representing a 6x increase from year 1.

• 100+ teachers took the test to achieve certification; +90% pass rate on first attempt.

• Secured $114K in funding from the district to pay our partner university, removing the cost barrier for all participating teachers.

• By year 2, over 90% of mandated schools participated in sending teachers to get the certification.

Key Takeaways

• How to involve decision makers at the appropriate time and level of engagement. 

• What it means to work in a matrix structure, how it impacts timing, creating urgency, outcome setting.

• How to distill complex technical language into digestible information that is differentiated for different audience groups -school district leadership, teachers, and higher education partners. 

• Don’t expect the stakeholder to tell you what to do. Ask a lot of questions and brainstorm solutions that can be implementable in smaller, low-lift phases.