Salem-Keizer Collaborative

Mission

The Salem-Keizer Collaborative (hereafter, the Collaborative) is committed to excellence in education through improved educator preparation, professional development, and PK-12 student learning and development. We believe that regular coordination and partnership is essential to achieve our mission and commit to the structures, processes, and resources necessary to achieve our goals. In alignment with the spirit of CAEP Standard 2, the Collaborative seeks to build “effective partnerships and high-quality clinical practice[which] are central to preparation so that candidates develop the knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions necessary to demonstrate positive impact on all P-12 students’ learning and development.”

Goals

The Collaborative supports the intent and purposes of CAEP accreditation and, in particular, CAEP Standard 2 on Clinical Partnerships and Practice. We believe CAEP Standard 2 provides a strong and supportive framework that guides our work together. We hold this view strongly enough to incorporate Standard 2 into our framing documents.

Standard 2. Clinical Partnerships and Practice

The provider ensures that effective partnerships and high-quality clinical practice are central to preparation so that candidates develop the knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions necessary to demonstrate positive impact on all P-12 students’ learning and development.

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Partnerships for Clinical Preparation

2.1) Partners co-construct mutually beneficial P-12 school and community arrangements, including technology-based collaborations, for clinical preparation and share responsibility for continuous improvement of candidate preparation. Partnerships for clinical preparation can follow a range of forms, participants, and functions. They establish mutually agreeable expectations for candidate entry, preparation, and exit; ensure that theory and practice are linked; maintain coherence across clinical and academic components of preparation; and share accountability for candidate outcomes.

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Clinical Educators

2.2) Partners co-select, prepare, evaluate, support, and retain high-quality clinical educators, both provider- and school-based, who demonstrate a positive impact on candidates’ development and P-12 student learning and development. In collaboration with their partners, providers use multiple indicators and appropriate technology-based applications to establish, maintain, and refine criteria for selection, professional development, performance evaluation, continuous improvement, and retention of clinical educators in all clinical placement settings.

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Clinical Experiences

2.3) The provider works with partners to design clinical experiences of sufficient depth, breadth, diversity, coherence, and duration to ensure that candidates demonstrate their developing effectiveness and positive impact on all students’ learning and development. Clinical experiences, including technology-enhanced learning opportunities, are structured to have multiple performance-based assessments at key points within the program to demonstrate candidates’ development of the knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions, as delineated in Standard 1, that are associated with a positive impact on the learning and development of all P-12 students.

The Collaborative will complete an annual self-assessment against CAEP Standard 2 to assure that the spirit of our work together maintains a strong alignment to professional expectations in educator preparation.

In addition to CAEP Standard 2, the work of the Collaborative also supports other standards and other accountability and continuous improvement efforts led by individual organizations (school districts, EPPs, and other organizations).

However, the Collaborative has articulated more specific goals and seek to leverage our work together, in the spirit of CAEP Standard 2, to accomplish a series of specific goals including:

  • Goal 1: Develop a robust pipeline of outstanding future educators
  • Goal 2: Better educate all children
  • Goal 2: Design and validate a clinical model for professional develop of future educators
  • Goal 3: Support professional develop of both pre-service and in-service educators
  • Goal 4: Share data and other information in ways that allow for continuous improvement
  • Goal 5: Seek external resources to support our work
  • Goal 6: Understand one another in ways that maximize our ability to collaborate

Membership

The Collaborative was originally launched with membership including Salem-Keizer School District, Corban University, Western Oregon University, and Willamette University. Upon closure of Willamette University’s educator pathways, the Collaborative continued with the remaining membership. In 2017, the Collaborative welcomed Pacific University and membership continues to reflect these participants to this date.

However, upon consensus of the Collaborative membership, additional school districts, educator preparation programs, community colleges, or other educational agencies could be included as Collaborative members. In 2021 it was decided in that it was time to organize with a broader group of partners to seek to continue collaborative efforts and improve educator workforce development across the region. With this, the Salem-Keizer Collaborative, after 13 years, was disbanded and the Mid-Valley Educator Collaborative was launched.

Structure

The Collaborative is steered by a Chair in collaboration with unit heads (or designees) from each of the unit representatives. The Chair is elected by the Collaborative membership each year. The Chair, in consultation with unit heads, develops a meetings calendar, sets the agenda, and seeks to move the work forward according to the mission and goals. Unit heads can be designated in any manner each partner deems necessary and appropriate and, each year, a membership list is developed, reviewed, and disseminated so as to execute the mission of the Collaborative.

Democratic decision-making principles are followed including clear agenda, voting or consensus decision-making, and minutes from all meetings are kept.

Meetings

The Collaborative meets monthly according to a calendar generally agreed upon one year in advance. Agenda items are solicited from membership each month and participants and guests are coordinated by the Chair and others as necessary. The Collaborative is also committed to presenting at local, state, and national conferences and to disseminate lessons-learned from our work in ways that contribute to the knowledge bases in our fields.

Fiscal Responsibility

It is important to note that a certain amount of fiscal responsibility is inherent in Collaborative membership and activities and each participating member agency must evaluate, approve, and meet the agreed-upon expectations regarding allocation of resources to carry out the mission and goals of the Collaborative.

Clinical Practice

Over time, the Collaborative built a series of innovations, practices, and agreements about student teaching that collectively came to be called the clinical, co-teaching model for teacher preparation.

As defined by the Collaborative, core elements of the clinical, co-teaching model included:

  • Clinical candidates and clinical teachers utilize the co-teaching model during the pre-service experience
  • Participating schools become Training Centers for Clinical Practice, agreeing to implement the model with fidelity
  • Clinical candidates are clustered at participating schools to create a school-wide environment of collaboration fostering educator development and student achievement.
  • Clinical teachers participate in the Clinical Teacher Academy (one-time) offered by the Collaborative prior to hosting a teacher candidate
  • Building administrators participate in the Clinical Teacher Academy (one-time) offered by the Collaborative
  • Clinical supervisors participate in the Clinical Teacher Academy (one-time) and are embedded into the work of the schools where they have cluster placements
  • Clinical candidates and their clinical teachers participate in a “Pairs Workshop” offered by the Collaborative prior to their co-teaching experience
  • Leadership representatives from each of the partners in the Collaborative meet monthly to discuss implementation of the model
  • Clinical supervisors, clinical teachers, and clinical candidates participate in “Network Meetings”
  • Shared planning time is provided for the clinical candidate and clinical teacher
  • Clinical teachers given an opportunity to co-teach a teacher preparation course with one of the university partners using the co-teaching model on a rotating basis