Estacada Math Pilot Aims to Move the Needle with Student Outcomes
Estacada School District prioritizes data to inform their instructional practices. In the spring of 2025, district staff noticed that, despite significant efforts to improve students’ mathematics SBAC scores, they were not consistently achieving the outcomes they anticipated. This was especially true for multilingual learners, Latino students, students experiencing poverty, and students with disabilities.
“Something wasn’t meshing,” shared Erin Gardenhire, Estacada School District Assistant Director of Teaching and Learning and project Design Lead. “We started a network of practice and, within that, decided it wasn’t an effort problem, something else was happening. We all needed to enter a space of curiosity and engage in it in a different way.”
The team noticed that a significant unaddressed factor was the Social Emotional Learning aspect of math. They began to focus on student confidence and their ability to do math as well as teacher self efficacy, prioritizing the secondary level.
The District studied what was being done in research circles that could be replicated in their own schools. Using the Standards for Mathematical Practice, they began testing a professional learning structure that brings teachers together for shared learning, peer observation and feedback, individual coaching, and focused PLC planning and discussion. In addition, they brought in a Math Instructional Coach to support a pilot team of math teachers and coaches. The pilot team consisted of one middle school math teacher, four high school math teachers, all secondary principals and assistant principals, and all district instructional coaches.
Five times a year, the pilot team comes together for a day of shared learning and opportunities to observe and model instructional practice in real-time. The team supports each other in lesson planning and peer observation. After each lesson, there is a debrief opportunity for the team to share feedback and provide a community of support. The program provides substitute teachers so that all of these activities can happen in real time with students in the classroom.
“It allows for a level of vulnerability,” shares Erin. “We’re learning all together and engaging in real mathematics with our teachers. Our coaches, teachers, and administrators are in the same room, practicing the same math lessons that high school students are engaging in. Everyone is expected to participate, whether you teach it or not.”
The program centers on giving teachers time to observe one another and provide meaningful feedback. The district shares it’s not about criticizing what’s happening but rather identifying instructional strategies that are working and why. The District is already seeing signs of promising progress. In December of 2025, 43% of students had met the district’s math achievement goal. By mid-February, this number had increased to 50%.
Erin shares that the program is creating a culture of vulnerability and openness to observation. “People are asking for more coaching, support, and feedback. Every time we meet, I have teachers asking, ‘How do we make sure we can keep this PD? What do we need to do so that this doesn’t stop?”
The goals are to extend the pilot to the elementary level in the next school year, allowing teachers from across the district at all levels to be aligned and supported in community.
Teachers in the pilot have shared positive feedback, including:
“Love more talk strategies and simple ideas for the classroom. These simple strategies make it easier to move the needle.”
“I’d love more individual coaching.”
MCREN is proud to sponsor the incredible work that Estacada School District is doing to build a community of support and align instruction for their math teachers. This project was selected as one of MCREN’s projects for the 2025-26 school year. MCREN provides funding for the substitute teacher time and the instructional coaching for the pilot program. We look forward to seeing the continued success and progress of this program in Estacada Schools.
