The SALT Shaker

Welcome

Welcome to this special section of the Catalpa Ltd. web-site for SALT participants. Catalpa is pleased to provide this free service for SALT participants in recognition of the national leadership provided by the Rhode Island Department of Education in implementing SALT and of the 10 years of contracting work from Catalpa to provide principal consultant services for the development and implementation of SALT.

This page brings together in one place, resources related to the SALT school visit and other SALT activities. If you would like to know when updates appear about SALT or other aspects of Catalpa’s work, join the Catalpa e-mail list by entering your e-mail address at the top of this page.

The topics below are keyed to your interests:

About SALT

The School Accountability for Learning and Teaching (SALT) School Visit is the most comprehensive application of Practice-Based Inquiry. SALT is a 10 year old initiative of the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) to build better state-wide accountability and school support. The major activity of SALT is the SALT school visit. Over the last 10 years, SALT visit teams, comprised primarily of practicing Rhode Island public school teachers have produced reports on over 80% of all Rhode Island public schools. The other major activity is to provide all schools that are visited with pre and post visit services that helps them tie their report to their school improvement initiatives to assure school progress. The project is now part of the Office of Support and Progressive Intervention. Click here to read more.

The SALT Survey of Team Members

Over 1,600 Rhode Island teachers and school administrators have now committed an intense and long week to serve as members of SALT school visit teams. Catalpa is conducting an ongoing survey of if and why they value the experience of serving as SALT team members.

May 1997-June 2004

The results are in for those who served in the first seven years of SALT. A Most of the 1,100 people who served as team members during this time are overwhelmingly positive about the value of the experience (87% check the teachers and 86% of the principals labeled serving as a team member as the “most powerful professional development experience I have ever had.”

Click here to see or download the full report.

September 2004 – June 2006

Members of teams who served during this period have been just invited to take the same survey.

If you have completed the survey, thank you.

If you served on a team between September 2004 and June 2006 and have not been notified of the survey, please contact Catalpa for instructions.

We plan to announce the results for this group in early 2007.

September 2006 –

Catalpa is developing an ongoing survey instrument so that team members can make their views known soon after participating on a visit. We will keep you informed.

Announcements

New SALT Chair Selected
Mary Canole , Director of the Office of Support and Progressive Intervention, announced on June 12, 2006 the appointment of Jeannine Magliocco, as a SALT fellow. Jeannine a 4 th grade teacher from Aquidneck Elementary School is in the middle of her apprenticeship as a PBI ® SALT chair. She expects to complete the requirements set by RIDE and Catalpa for full certification as a chair by Thanksgiving. She has finished the intensive seminar, met with the active chairs for many hours of briefings as she becomes part of the Fellows’ work team. She finds her new job “a fascinating journey.”

Sign-up for Members of 2006-8 SALT Visit Teams is Underway
As most of you have learned, SALT has developed a new and much better system for Rhode Islanders to sign up to participate on SALT visit teams.

Rick Richards, Manager of SALT, thanks the help of RIDE’s Office of Network and Information and Catalpa for the design and implementation of the new system.

The system was partially implemented in 2006 and the rest is expected to be set in place in 2007.

Right now is time to sign up to show your interest in serving on a team this year or in the near future. If you have not registered yet, please go to: http://www.eride.ri.gov/saltvolunteer/SALTLogin.aspx. You will need your Teacher Certification number and password to sign-up. Because the system is not fully in place, you may have trouble with the password. If you do have trouble, don’t give-up. Instead contact Patricia.Ricci@Ride.RI.gov.

Click here for more information on serving on a team.

Resources

SALT Visit Documents
Catalpa Ltd. has contract responsibility to maintain the complicated set of over 70 documents associated with the SALT School Visit. These are documents that are written to guide chairs, teams, schools and RIDE on the expected procedures that assure legi timacy of team findings.

These documents are available to you as a SALT participant. Click on the title to view or download.

• The SALT Visit Protocol.
• The Collection of SALT Visit Documents.
• Basic Questions about PBI

Catalpa will send to Rhode Island school principals, SIT chairs, District Superintendents and DSICs, copies of the text of SALT visit documents by e-mail upon request. To request visit documents, Contact Catalpa. Please, include information that identifies you as a member of one of these groups.

Evalutation Reports about SALT
Several formative and descriptive studies have been conducted on the value of SALT over its ten years of implementation.

For more detail,click here»

Learn about Catalpa
To explore the Catalpa web site and learn more about Catalpa, click here.

To learn about the Practice-Based Inquiry® principles behind the SALT visit click here.

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