Executive Summary The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) Wraparound Zones (WAZ) Initiative is designed to create coordinated district systems that allow schools to proactively and needs. The four WAZ Priority systematically address students’ nonacademic Improvement Areas follow: Climate and Culture. Each participating school creates a climate and a culture that promote mental health and positive social, emotional, and intellectual growth for students, resulting in a new standard of practice understood and practiced by every member of the school community. Identification of Student Needs and Efforts to Address Them. Each participating school implements a proactive system of identifying student needs in key academic and nonacademic areas, leading to both universal supports and targeted interventions. Community Coalitions. Each participating school integrates a range of resources to tailor student services from within both the school and the larger community. The range of services includes prevention, enrichment, early intervention, and intensive crisis response services. Each participating district develops district-level systems District Systems of Support. to support the communication, collaboration, evaluation, and continuous improvement of the WAZ initiative. American Institutes for Research (AIR) is evaluating how well the WAZ initiative achieves these is assessing progress on planning, implementation, outcomes, goals. AIR’s research sustainability, and replication related to the four Priority Improvement Areas. This initiative’s evaluation report provides a comprehensive analysis of data collected during the second year of WAZ implementation, with a focus on answering the following research questions: How are districts and schools progressing on early indicators of WAZ planning and implementation? What are the outcomes associated with WAZ implementation? Data Sources The findings in this report are based on analysis of data collected from six WAZ school districts during the 2012–13 school year: Fall River Public Schools, Holyoke Public Schools, Lawrence Public Schools, Lynn Public Schools, Springfield Public Schools, and Worcester Public Schools. Data sources included (a) interviews with WAZ district coordinators and other district leaders, WAZ school coordinators and school principals, and a sample of external partners in each WAZ district; (b) in a small sample of schools, focus groups with teachers, interviews with parents, and an interview with a school-based provider; and (c) district- and school-level documents related to WAZ planning and implementation. All data collection occurred from January to May 2013, representing the second half of Year 2 of WAZ implementation.
Executive Summary The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) Wraparound Zones (WAZ) Initiative is designed to create coordinated district systems that allow schools to proactively and systematically address students’ nonacademic needs. The four WAZ Priority Improvement Areas follow: Climate and Culture. Each participating school creates a climate and a culture that promote mental health and positive social, emotional, and intellectual growth for students, resulting in a new standard of practice understood and practiced by every member of the school community. Identification of Student Needs and Efforts to Address Them. Each participating school implements a proactive system of identifying student needs in key academic and nonacademic areas, leading to both universal supports and targeted interventions. Community Coalitions. Each participating school integrates a range of resources to tailor student services from within both the school and the larger community. The range of services includes prevention, enrichment, early intervention, and intensive crisis response services. District Systems of Support. Each participating district develops district-level systems to support the communication, collaboration, evaluation, and continuous improvement of the WAZ initiative. American Institutes for Research (AIR) is evaluating how well the WAZ initiative achieves these goals. AIR’s research is assessing progress on planning, implementation, outcomes, sustainability, and replication related to the initiative’s four Priority Improvement Areas. This evaluation report provides a comprehensive analysis of data collected during the second year of WAZ implementation, with a focus on answering the following research questions: How are districts and schools progressing on early indicators of WAZ planning and implementation? What are the outcomes associated with WAZ implementation? Data Sources The findings in this report are based on analysis of data collected from six WAZ school districts during the 2012–13 school year: Fall River Public Schools, Holyoke Public Schools, Lawrence Public Schools, Lynn Public Schools, Springfield Public Schools, and Worcester Public Schools. Data sources included (a) interviews with WAZ district coordinators and other district leaders, WAZ school coordinators and school principals, and a sample of external partners in each WAZ district; (b) in a small sample of schools, focus groups with teachers, interviews with parents, and an interview with a school-based provider; and (c) district- and school-level documents related to WAZ planning and implementation. All data collection occurred from January to May 2013, representing the second half of Year 2 of WAZ implementation.