When Kari Price was an elementary school teacher, she had classes, but no CLASS.
CLASS is the Classroom Assessment Scoring System, part of the Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) Step Up to Quality Initiative.
The CLASS tool — which encompasses an Infant CLASS, Toddler CLASS, Pre-K CLASS, K-3 CLASS, Upper Elementary CLASS, and Secondary CLASS — measures how educators and students interact in the classroom. Three areas of focus are evaluated while using the CLASS tool: emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional support. These three domains measure teacher-child interactions while focusing on specific behavioral indicators.
MMI’s Price and her co-workers Abbey Siebler and Colleen Schmit have been involved in the Education and Child Development Department’s collaboration with the Nebraska Department of Education and the CLASS tool for the last two years. In fact, the department’s mission to deliver professional development trainings on the CLASS to educators and administrators across the state of Nebraska grew from early involvement with the CLASS tool.
“Munroe-Meyer was an early adopter,” Siebler said. “In fact, with the toddler and infant portions, the education department was part of the pilot study.” Siebler was one of the participants in the infant pilot study.
Price and Siebler travel about the state, providing CLASS training. The half-day training introduces the tool, whereas the two-day training provides the attendees the opportunity to become reliable CLASS observers. The trainers provide additional assistance and mentoring to those newly reliable on the tool.
“We will do a one- or two-day training where we might work with directors or coaches or master teachers who are then going to take this tool back and really dive into it,” Price said. “They’ll see this is what positive climate looks like in the classroom.”
Price, Siebler and Schmit have been extensively trained by Teachstone, the Virginia based creator of the CLASS, to deliver CLASS trainings.
“Every training I go to, I tell them if I would have had this tool before I stepped into the classroom, I know there are many things I would have done differently,” Price said. “This tool would definitely have made me a better educator.”
Recently, Schmit has been accepted to participate in the Teachstone Affiliate Trainer Extension Program — one of only 30 professionals nationwide accepted to the training, and the only one in Nebraska. Through this pilot program, trainers will have the opportunity to deliver the Pre-K CLASS Observation Training and Pre-K Introduction to the CLASS tool to any participants, regardless of organization. This will allow more opportunities to further spread the message of the CLASS tool.
“I’m also a former teacher,” Schmit said. “I taught kindergarten for eight years. After starting here at UNMC and learning this tool, it opened my eyes up to things that I wished I would have been doing in the classroom.
“I believe if you can get teachers to see the value in it, to see the value of your relationships and to see the things that you are doing for your students actually make learning outcomes change and improve, you can get big buy-in,” Schmit said. “So if you can get the teachers on board and understand that this is a professional development tool to help you be a better educator in your classroom, then you can really see growth and change.”
Fostering that change is at the heart of the MMI-NDE collaboration.
“(CLASS) directly impacts learning outcomes for children,” Schmit said.