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Jump-Starting Instructional Transformation for Rapid School Improvement: A Guide for Principals

Tools/Toolkit

Jump-Starting Instructional Transformation for Rapid School Improvement: A Guide for Principals

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The Center on School Turnaround at WestEd presents this guide, Jump-Starting Instructional Transformation, to assist both those participating in the Transformation Academy and the many principals who are charged with significantly improving their schools, but are unable to attend the academy.

This guide rests on the research and practice base of Four Domains for Rapid School Improvement: A Systems Framework (Center on School Turnaround, 2017). The four domain framework identifies four areas of focus, and key practices in each, that have been shown to be critical for achieving rapid and significant school improvement, including instructional transformation, the focus of this guide. In the approach laid out in this guide, the principal starts down the road to instructional transformation by convening a select group of teachers as an action team (or A-team) that will look closely at how the principal makes time for instructional leadership and how teachers help each other improve their practice. The team, which includes the principal, will examine every aspect of the school’s instructional system, a system that consists of planning, providing, adjusting, and enhancing instruction. The team considers learning obstacles their students might face and how well the school builds students’ capabilities as learners. The guide includes tools and other resources that may be used to support the development of a transformation academy.

Recruit, Select, and Support: Turnaround Leader Competencies

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Leading school turnaround is complex work, but research shows that there are specific competencies that school leaders need for successful turnaround efforts. This professional learning module can help regional comprehensive centers and state education agency staff learn how to use these competencies to recruit, select, and provide ongoing support to school principals working in a turnaround context. The material was developed through a partnership among four organizations:  the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders, The Center on School Turnaround, Public Impact, and University of Virginia (UVA) Darden/Curry Partnership for Leaders in Education. The module is divided into three parts:

Part 1: Understanding Turnaround Leader Competencies

  • Acknowledge the unique challenges of leading school turnaround.
  • Identify leader competencies and actions associated with turnaround success.
  • Understand the importance of competencies in turnaround leader selection and development.
  • Analyze school leader behaviors to identify evidence of competencies.

Part 2: Recruiting and Selecting Turnaround Leaders

  • Understand the importance of competencies in recruiting and selecting turnaround leaders.
  • Understand how to recruit leaders with competencies to turn around persistently low-performing schools.
  • Design a competency-based interview and selection process for turnaround leaders.
  • Assess and improve the recruitment and selection process to more effectively select turnaround leaders.

Part 3: Developing and Retaining Turnaround Leaders 

  • Determine district structures for principal support.
  • Define the role and responsibility of the principal supervisor.
  • Examine individual and district professional development structures.

Identifying, Selecting, and Retaining School Turnaround Leaders: How-To Modules

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A partnership of four education organizations studying issues surrounding school turnaround—The Center on School Turnaround at WestEd, the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders, Public Impact, and the University of Virginia Darden/Curry Partnership—have made available materials that can assist state and local education agencies in recruiting, selecting, developing, and retaining school turnaround leaders.

To date, the range of efforts to turn around the nation’s low-performing schools have shown mixed results. A significant part of the challenge has been the lack of turnaround leaders available to lead these schools.

To help school districts find candidates with the competencies necessary for the job of school turnaround leader, the four-agency partnership is producing and distributing a professional learning module on these three topics:

  • Part 1: Understanding Turnaround Leader Competencies
  • Part 2: Recruiting and Selecting Turnaround Leaders
  • Part 3: Developing and Supporting Turnaround Leaders

The materials may be used and adapted to fit the needs of any given state or local context. The four organizations releasing today’s materials recommend a comprehensive and systemic approach to addressing the leadership challenge.

All materials are available on the GTL Center’s Professional Learning Modules website. These materials may be used and adapted to fit the needs of the state context. To cite the content, please use the following statement: These materials have been adapted in whole or in part with permission from the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders, the Center on School Turnaround at WestEd, Public Impact, and the University of Virginia Darden/Curry Partnership for Leaders in Education.

School Boards Driving Turnaround

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Many schools are not preparing students for success in the 21st century. Far too many students are dropping out, and many of those who do graduate lack the key skills to succeed in college or the advanced economy. Successfully initiating, implementing, and sustaining the transformation of the lowest-performing public schools is a pressing challenge for policy leaders and practitioners nationwide. Public schools governed by elected local school boards are one of the cornerstones of our nation’s democracy, and local school boards sit at the junction of policy and effective implementation of targeted turnaround efforts. Yet ongoing efforts to improve public education focus primarily on the role of teachers, principals, and superintendents and, to a lesser extent, on state and federal policymakers. Missing from the work is a substantive role for local school boards.

In line with the Center on School Turnaround’s charge to support states’ efforts, we sought to highlight districts engaged in focused turnaround efforts where their respective boards played a key role in catalyzing, shaping, and supporting targeted improvement efforts. Our goal in developing these case studies was to present information-rich cases that can inform state and district efforts to optimize the board’s role in school turnaround. These case studies may be used independently, but they are designed to be part of a year-long training program for local school boards.

Purpose of the Project

All Local Education Agencies (LEAs) continuously manage two central processes: (1) the process by which the LEA itself improves; and (2) the way the LEA directs and supports the improvement of each of its schools. Many LEAs tackle a third task: facilitating turnaround in their lowest performing schools. Local school boards carry a huge responsibility in setting the policies that underlie LEA and school improvement processes and the LEA’s management of school turnaround. The Center on School Turnaround (CST) created this training to help a local school board build its own capacity to set effective policy on improvement and turnaround processes.

Objectives for the Project

The objectives for school boards using the CST School Board Training are to:

Phase I

  • Assess the school board’s areas of strength, inconsistency, and opportunity relative to its oversight of district improvement, school improvement, and turnaround.
  • Learn from the experience of other school boards by reading and discussing a report about school boards and two case studies.
  • Understand the CST’s Four Domains for Rapid Improvement and how this frameworks might provide a conceptual structure for district and school improvement processes.
  • Itemize possible “next steps” the board may take in response to the information and understandings acquired through the training.

Phase II

  • Option: Develop an action plan for strengthening the school board’s effectiveness in: (a) setting policies related to continuous district improvement, school improvement, and turnaround; (b) overseeing the implementation of these policies. Implement the action plan and monitor the progress for several months.

Getting Started

The first step is to confirm a State Partner’s (RCC, SEA, and/or school board association) relationship with the Center on School Turnaround. Then CST will provide a webinar and instructions for the State Partner to equip the Partner with necessary information and access to the online system to conduct the project with the school boards the Partner recruits for the project. The project may start at any time for a school board and begins simply with the naming of the Facilitator and the Facilitator’s enrollment with CST.

For a State Partner to get started, email one of the following:

Facilitator’s Portal

Facilitators of participating school boards may access the online web system by clicking HERE.

Required Reading

Moving Beyond the Killer-B’s: The Role of School Boards in School Accountability and Transformation

Successfully initiating and sustaining meaningful improvements in the lowest-performing public schools is a pressing challenge for policy leaders and practitioners nationwide. Local school boards sit at the intersection of policy and implementation of reform initiatives. Yet, ongoing efforts to improve public education focus primarily on the role of teachers, principals, and superintendents, as well as state and federal policymakers. Missing from this debate is a robust discussion or examination of the role of local school boards.

Four Domains for School Boards (see section below to download)

To support educators in creating such systems, the Center on School Turnaround at WestEd (CST) has developed a framework to assist states, districts, and schools in leading and managing rapid improvement efforts. The framework shares, in practical language, the critical practices of successful school turnaround in four domains, or areas of focus, that research and experience suggest are central to rapid and significant improvement: turnaround leadership, talent development, instructional transformation, and culture shift.

Case Studies

New Haven Public Schools & Wichita Public Schools

Testimonials

“We were very eager in Colorado to engage local boards of education in order to support their local efforts in improving schools. We are thrilled that three Colorado districts and boards are able to partner with the Center on School Turnaround for this reflective and productive training. We look forward to learning along with our districts in this process.”

— Peter Sherman, Executive Director, District and School Performance, Colorado Department of Education

“The Montezuma-Cortez RE-1 school board is leading a district engaged in whole system improvement efforts as well as targeted turnaround with several elementary schools. The board has requested deeper training on successful turnaround strategies, including the board role in supporting turnaround, as well as a deeper dive into local accountability systems and local turnaround efforts. The board is excited to be participating in the Center on School Turnaround Board Training and to have access to case studies and exemplars from other successful turnaround districts and boards.”

— Lori Haukeness, Superintendent, Montezuma-Cortez School District, Colorado

The Engagement Playbook: A Toolkit for Engaging Stakeholders Around the Four Domains of Rapid School Improvement

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As researchers, decision-makers, and practitioners focus on continuous improvement in education, local-level change is gaining importance. Yet, many local school improvement efforts fail to be fully implemented. Even those that are fully implemented often fail to sustain improvements because the schools are embedded in systems that face multiple challenges. Can decision-makers and everyone who is responsible for implementing school improvement efforts come together to build a better, more sustainable approach to local improvement? This toolkit attempts to support such coming together by combining a powerful framework for school turnaround with a focus on the human side of change. The toolkit is built on the intersections between Leading by Convening, a blueprint for authentic engagement in school improvement developed by 50 national organizations and adopted by the National Center for Systemic Improvement, and the Four Domains for Rapid School Improvement, a framework developed by the national Center on School Turnaround (CST).

Building the capacity of individuals working in schools, districts, and states to support reform efforts is critical. Also critical to sustainable and systemic school improvement efforts is ensuring that individuals across all levels of the system are engaged in reform. This document focuses on capacity and efforts to engage stakeholders across the system to support rapid improvement. In doing so, this toolkit is intended to support states, districts, and schools in their efforts to improve schools. This toolkit incorporates the Leading by Convening approach as a way to build capacity and engage stakeholders in the implementation of the Center on School Turnaround’s Four Domains for Rapid School Improvement. Readers of this toolkit may use it to build capacity across the domains.

School Improvement Grants: Guidance and Tools for the 2015 Amended Regulations: Maximizing the Optional Planning/Pre-Implementation Year

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The purpose of this guide is to provide states, districts, and schools with information and support to prepare applications for 2015–2016 School Improvement Grants (SIGs). The guide includes tools, checklists, and templates aligned with the revised SIG requirements, primarily focused on how LEAs could use the new “planning year” to build a foundation of success for SIG schools.