District and School Improvement
We offer a range of consultation and planning services that focus on needs assessment and the planning and design of management and instructional strategies that can create positive change. Typical clients for these services are education leaders who are responsible for improving educational conditions for students, teachers, and communities.
Our research and experience leads us to put special emphasis on the needs of districts for coherent and aligned processes and strategies that focus on improving teacher practice over time — not just in one classroom or in one school, but across the entire district community. Our work with districts is designed to build district capacity and support the effective management of school improvement processes. We recognize that it is the district office that can most effectively refine and enrich their schools' improvement efforts to better catalyze, support, and enable substantive improvement.
We have developed and successfully used a portfolio of strategic and systemic development tools that inform improvement efforts within and throughout an organization. Embedded in each of our supports and tools is an explicit focus on equity, closing the achievement gap, and identifying ways to better meet the needs of students who are not performing as well as is desired.
Service offerings include:
- District Organizational Assessment
A collaborative organizational assessment of the district-level structures, programs, and practices that support (and/or inhibit) effective school improvement throughout the system, leading to a set of jointly determined recommendations and actions intended to improve the coherence of district improvement strategies.
- Strategic Mapping Process
A strategic mapping process for aligning and mapping out how the district accesses (from state and federal sources) and targets (across the district and to specific schools and teachers) programs, resources, and practices to address school- and classroom-based issues. Through this process, district leaders develop a cohesive and aligned district-wide strategy for supporting schools improvement. - Strategic Problem Solving Process
A school-based strategic problem solving process designed to enhance school-level instructional program coherence. Initially designed to be used in schools with emerging or existing ELL populations, this process can be used with schools that have a diverse student population that may require differentiated instructional programs or strategies. The process involves taking school leaders through a careful and strategic consideration of how best to align and adapt new and existing school improvement efforts to attend to the needs of all students. - Designing Services for Underperforming
Districts and Schools
Targeted technical assistance and professional development, focused on issues such as ELL instructional strategies, providing school improvement workshops, evaluation consultation, and facilitating the development of cross-school professional learning communities.
These supports can be offered in tandem as a comprehensive approach to district improvement (e.g., in a district identified for corrective action) or they can be applied separately depending on the targeted needs of the district so as to align with its state's support strategies and initiatives.
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