Catalpa™ Project Sites

State Accountability: Rhode Island — SALT

SALT and Catalpa
Since 1992, Thomas A. Wilson, Catalpa, Principal Partner, has worked closely with senior staff of the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) on the design and implementation of effective state accountability systems for Rhode Island schools.

Since 1996, Catalpa has played a principal consulting role in helping RIDE establish The School Accountability for Learning and Teaching (SALT) initiative. This included designing and establishing the SALT School Visit as a central component of SALT.

Partly because of the role played by Practice-Based Inquiry® principles and the construction of a rigorous peer visit, SALT sits outside the usual systems of accountability propagated by state departments in this era. RIDE showed unusual leadership in supporting the development of SALT. Catalpa's consulting role brought mutual benefits to both RIDE and Catalpa. SALT provides an unusual opportunity for the development of the technology and
procedures of Practice-Based Inquiry.

SALT staff currently are reinforcing the value of the visit by implementing follow-up sessions for visited schools to help each one implement the changes in practice informed by the visit team's findings.

Facts about the SALT School Visit after Ten Years
On May 2, 1997 Mary Kay Schnare, then a junior-high school librarian, chaired the first SALT school visit to Ponaganset Middle School in western Rhode Island. She began the tradition of reading the whole team report aloud to the school faculty the week after the visit.

SALT school visit teams have completed 292 school visits to Rhode Island schools at all levels and in 36 of Rhode Island's 37 districts, now at the rate of 30 a year. The resulting reports provide RIDE with an unusual resource of findings on the state of learning and teaching in the state's schools.

The SALT teams have written more than 5,000 conclusions about how well Rhode Island students are learning, how well Rhode Island teachers are teaching and how well Rhode Island schools support good learning and teaching.

Twenty-one hundred team members have devoted a total of about 106,000 hours to understanding what makes Rhode Island schools tick in order to help them achieve their goals of better learning for all Rhode Island students.

The acceptance of the legitimacy of the SALT visit team reports has grown substantially in Rhode Island schools during the nine years. SALT has also received accolades from both national and international educators.

Ten Rhode Island practicing teachers have been Catalpa certified chairs for SALT teams, following their appointments as Regent SALT Fellows at RIDE.

To ensure that team findings have the certainty of modern scientific rigor, the protocol for the SALT visit is based on the principles of Practice-Based Inquiry. Click here to view the Protocol. Click here to view the list of documents.

Catalpa Ltd. recently published the results of a study of the perceptions of the 1,500 people who served on SALT visit teams between May, 1997, and June, 2004, about their professional value of the visit experience. The results were overwhelmingly enthusiastic. 80% of the teachers stated that the SALT school visit was the "most powerful professional development experience they had ever had." Click here for the Survey report.

SALT Resources

The RIDE Staff directly involved in this work include:

Peter McWalters, Commissioner

David Abbott, Deputy Commissioner

Mary Canole, Director, Office of Support and Progressive Intervention

Rick Richards, SALT Project Manager

Susan Rotblat-Walker, SALT school visit Coordinator

Patricia Ricci, Project Administrative Assistant

The SALT Fellows who have now chaired over 290 school visits are: (*Active)

Andre Audette*, Standards Coach, Pawtucket School Department, Pawtucket

Carol Belair, Elementary School Teacher, Wilbur and McMahon School, Little Compton

Michael Barnes, Assistant Superintendent, Foster-Glocester

Margaret Della Bitta*, Science Teacher, South Kingston High School, South Kingston

Ruth Haynsworth*, Grade 5 Teacher, Stony Lane Elementary School, East Greenwich

Caterine Hutz, English Teacher, Smithfield High School, Smithfield

JoAnn LaBranche, Social Studies Teacher, Lincoln High School, Lincoln

Sandy Olson, Retired 7th grade English Language Arts Teacher/Team Leader, Ponaganset Middle School, Foster-Glocester

Pat Ribeiro, 1st Grade Teacher, Providence Street School, West Warwick

Donna Reinalda, Principal, John J. McLaughlin Cumberland Hill Elementary School, Cumberland

The Rhode Island Department of Education's web site presents a full array of SALT Visit Guides, many of the SALT Guides, and other information related to SALT. Click here for the RIDE web site.

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For more information about SALT contact:

Rick Richards
SALT Project Director
Rhode Island Department of Education
Office of Progressive Support and Intervention
255 Westminster Street # 524
Providence, RI 02903-3400
401-222-8401
E-mail: rick.richards@ride.ri.gov
Website: http://www.ridoe.net/schoolimprove/salt/default.htm

Key SALT Documents

Research Documents

Salt 360 Feedback and Evaluation Study: Phase One: Report to RIDE and SALT Leadership.

The Value of Rhode Island's SALT School Visit: A survey study of the perceptions of SALT visit team members

Protocol Documents

SALT: A Blueprint for School Accountability for Learning and Teaching

The SALT Visit Protocol

Handbook for Chairs of the SALT School Visit, 2nd Edition Revised

SALT Visit Documents (80 protocol and guidance documents for the SALT Visit)

SALT Team Recruitment Brochure Download

SALT School Visit Reports (a selection)

SALT Visit Report for Leo A. Savoy School

The SALT visit team to this urban elementary school saw a school working hard to improve its performance.

SALT Vist Team Report for Samuel W. Bridgham Middle School

The visit team to this urban middle school saw important difficulties in school performance.

SALT Visit Team Report for Coventry High School

The visit team to this large suburban high school saw a school struggling reasonably well with several major problems.

SALT Visit Team Report for Primrose Hill School

The visit team to this suburban elementary school saw an amazing school at work.

SALT Visit Team Report for Laurel Hill Avenue Elementary School

The SALT visit to this urban elementary school saw a school struggling to move forward.

SALT Visit Report for East Greenwich High School

The SALT visit team found that this moderate size suburban high school was doing a good job of moving forward in learning and teaching in spite of a teacher's strike and administrative turn-over.

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