School Improvement Planning Guide

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School Planning

Guide
What are we trying to do?
How are we planning to do it?
At any given moment, how will we know whether we are on track?
If we are not on track, what are we going to do about it?

Hanseul Kang
State Superintendent
Office of the State Superintendent of Education
The mission of the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) is to remove
barriers and create pathways for District residents to receive a great education and
prepare them for success in college, careers, and life.

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Table of Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................................... 1
Planning Process Summary and Timeline ................................................................................................................ 1
Phase 1: Pre-Planning ............................................................................................................................................................ 3
Phase 2: Setting Goals ............................................................................................................................................................ 5
Review Past Performance to Determine Root Causes............................................................................................. 5
Decide on Your Goals .......................................................................................................................................................... 6
Phase 3: Identifying and Prioritizing Strategies ....................................................................................................... 10
Tool 1: 2x2 Matrix ............................................................................................................................................................ 10
Tool 2: Strategy Profile ................................................................................................................................................... 12
Phase 4: Planning Your Strategies .................................................................................................................................. 13
Phase 5: Monitoring Progress .......................................................................................................................................... 14
Establishing Routines ....................................................................................................................................................... 15
Prepare for Your Routines .............................................................................................................................................. 15
Tool 3: Assessment Framework ................................................................................................................................. 17
Running the Routine ......................................................................................................................................................... 19
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................................................ 20
Appendix A: School Improvement Team ................................................................................................................ 21
Appendix B: Stakeholder Engagement .................................................................................................................... 22
Appendix C: Goal Setting Graphic Organizer ......................................................................................................... 23
Appendix D1: Sample Completed Strategy Profile.............................................................................................. 24
Appendix D2: Sample Strategy Profile ..................................................................................................................... 25
Appendix E1: Planning Rubric (with school turnaround addendum) ........................................................ 26
Appendix E2: Planning Rubric school turnaround addendum ...................................................................... 27
Appendix F: Planning Your Strategies Template ................................................................................................. 28
Appendix G: Routines Rubric ....................................................................................................................................... 29
Appendix H: Assessment Framework ...................................................................................................................... 31
Appendix I: Assessment Framework Rating Template ..................................................................................... 33
Appendix J: Routine Agenda Template .................................................................................................................... 34

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Introduction
“A GOAL WITHOUT A PLAN IS JUST A WISH .” - A NONYMOUS

Plans are essential. Constructing and using a plan gives stakeholders an opportunity to become
clear on their goals and articulate everyone’s roles and responsibilities to achieve them. While
embarking on a planning process can be daunting, using a clear, specific process can make the
process much more effective and efficient. This guide is intended to provide school teams with the
knowledge and tools that they need to quickly develop a functioning implementation plan. It can
also be a useful resource for local education agency (LEA) leaders to use with their school teams.
Plan development can be all-consuming if we let it be, but if we appropriately limit its scope and
focus on the key improvement strategies, plans are not only manageable to produce but also truly
helpful as we do our work in our schools.

This guide contains suggested tools and processes to answer four critical questions that are the
foundation of a good plan:

■ What are we trying to do?


■ How are we planning to do it?
■ At any given moment, how will we know whether we are on track?
■ If we are not on track, what are we doing to do about it?

While this guide is written as sequential phases in a process, many schools begin with some pieces
already in place – you may not need to start from the very beginning. LEAs and school leaders are
encouraged to use this guide as a flexible tool to help teams improve outcomes for students. To use
this guide, you will need a dedicated school leadership team and be able to commit to meeting
regularly to develop the plan’s contents. If done well, the outcome will be a document that
prioritizes and clearly defines the work underway at your school for all involved and drives
continuous improvement.

Planning Process Summary and Timeline


This guide contains a series of planning phases, tools, and exercises to complete your plan. The
table on the next page presents each of the phases included in this guide, along with guiding
materials and the approximate time required for each phase. Each school’s planning process will be
different and your school may emphasize or deemphasize some phases depending on need. For this
reason, there is an additional column included in the table for you to use to map out your own
timeline, factoring in the realities at your school. As you work your way through this document,
return to this table and consider when you may be able to complete each step. This planning
process can be completed in as short as five weeks, but may take longer depending on scheduling
constraints or the amount of stakeholder engagement necessary.

The amount of time needed will also depend on your school context. Most school teams find that
planning beyond a four year period is too demanding, while planning for a time period shorter than
two years means your team will be spending too much time revising the plan.

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PLANNING PROCESS SUMMARY TABLE
Planning Phase Guiding Materials Estimated Time Required Your Draft Timeline
Phase 1: Pre- ■ Table 1: Planning process roles ■ One week before planning
planning ■ Appendix A: School Improvement Team begins
■ Appendix B: Stakeholder Engagement

Phase 2: Setting ■ Table 2: Questions and data for assessing ■ 2-3 hour meeting
goals past performance ■ Allow one week after the
■ Exercise: settings goals meeting for language
■ Appendix C: Goal Setting Graphic Organizer refinement and leader sign-
off
Phase 3: ■ Appendix A: Goal setting template ■ 3-4 hour meeting
Identifying and ■ Tool 1: 2x2 Matrix ■ Allow two weeks after the
prioritizing ■ Exercise: Identifying and prioritizing meeting for Strategy Profile
strategies strategies development
■ Tool 2: Strategy Profile
■ Appendix D1: Sample completed strategy
profile
■ Appendix E1: Planning Rubric
■ Appendix E2: Planning Rubric school
Phase 4: Planning ■ Exercise: planning your strategies ■ 4 hour meeting
your strategies ■ Appendix F: Planning Your Strategies ■ Allow one week after the
Template meeting for strategy
finalization
Phase 5: ■ Table 3: Characteristics of good routines ■ As plan is finalized or
Monitoring ■ Appendix E: Routines rubric immediately after
progress ■ Tables 4 and 5: Sample routine schedules finalization
■ Appendix H: Assessment Framework ■ 1 hour to define progress
■ Exercise: calibrate and set routine monitoring routine
objectives objectives each time a
■ Appendix I: Assessment Framework rating routine is held
template ■ 1-2 hours to hold each
■ Appendix J: Routine Agenda template progress monitoring routine
■ Exercise: The routine

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Phase 1: Pre-Planning
While a fairly straightforward step, spending time before your planning begins will be important.
There are three key questions to consider during this phase:

■ What is our timeline for completing the plan?


■ Who are the key people to engage on the planning team?
■ Which stakeholders groups should be engaged throughout the process?

Assembling your planning team should be done thoughtfully. Since this plan will emphasize the
greatest priorities at your school, the team most directly involved with the process should possess
the authority to make the necessary decisions. Teams are usually comprised of the school principal
and other key individuals, such as assistant principals, representatives from instructional
personnel, support personnel, teacher assistants, and parents. In secondary schools, consider
including a student representative. Try to balance representation and the size of your team.
Stakeholder groups who are not represented on the core planning team can still be included in your
guiding coalition, described below. Appendix A and Appendix B can be used to capture the major
stakeholders that are supporting the work.

Most members of the planning team will become strategy leads, or the individuals who are
responsible for seeing through the work described in the plan. Strategy leads are not necessarily
the ones completing all of the tasks associated with their strategy, but they are the ones who are
ultimately in charge of making sure the work proceeds as planned and, if there are bumps in the
road, determining what can be done to address them. For example, if your planning team
determines that professional learning communities (PLCs) are a key strategy for improving student
outcomes, the plan will designate one strategy lead who will ensure that PLCs, as envisioned in the
plan, are implemented effectively at the school by engaging with staff who will regularly plan and
run them. While it is likely that most strategy leads will be members of the school’s planning team,
the identification of strategy lead can also take place after the plan is drafted if a natural fit becomes
clear after that time.

There will be other individuals who represent stakeholder groups that you will want to consult as
you plan. This is your guiding coalition, the people whose feedback you will seek as you write your
plan, but who are not members of the planning team. Members of this coalition may represent
groups that are not already included in the planning team, such as parent groups, community
groups, or other stakeholder groups.

It is important to define clear roles among your team for the planning process. Table 1 contains the
questions to consider when designating members of your planning team, as well as recommended
answers.

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Question Answer
■ Who will be the point person who ■ This is usually a single person, either an assistant
manages logistics for the planning principal or a high-capacity administrative staff person
process? who has the trust of educators at the school, who can
effectively schedule the meetings and keep everyone
informed of their expected roles and responsibilities.
■ Who will actually write the plan? ■ Each strategy lead, described on the previous page, will
be responsible for writing their own Strategy Profile
(Strategy Profiles are introduced on in Phase 3), so
these individuals are important to include at the
beginning of the process where possible.
■ However, there should be one lead writer who
combines and finalizes all Strategy Profiles into one
coherent document. This role could be held by the
point person described above, but does not have to be.
■ Who will facilitate team ■ This person will have an important role, and should be
exercises? someone who can be trusted to lead a difficult
conversation. The facilitator will help the team
complete the exercises in this guide as efficiently as
possible, ensure that the planning process is on track,
support strategy leads, and hold the team accountable
for developing a strong plan.
■ This can be the same person who holds one or both of
the above responsibilities, but again, does not have to
be.
■ Whose approval do we need ■ Approvers will always include the principal, but could
before the plan can be finalized? also include board members if you are a charter school,
or central office staff if you work within a traditional
local education agency (LEA).
■ Who else should be consulted? ■ Beyond the planning team, it will be important to
consult your guiding coalition; teachers, parents,
students, and other school staff to inform and provide
feedback on the plan.

With the timeline, planning team, and stakeholders identified, you are ready to get started! We
suggest providing an overview of the process and the date for the goal setting meeting as a first
step. You might also consider scheduling the subsequent meetings to ensure that there is a clear
schedule for completing all five phases.

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Phase 2: Setting Goals

When planning and prioritizing your work, a logical first question is, “What are we trying to do?” or,
“What are we hoping to achieve?” Many schools have existing mission or vision statements, which
are a good start but often do not explicitly mention the measureable student outcomes that the
school is working to achieve. Being clear about the answer to these questions is important because
understanding what you are trying to achieve is necessary in order to ensure you actually achieve
it. If your school has a stated mission or vision, or if your LEA has developed broader goals for your
school or the entire LEA, you are encouraged to think about how your goals align and to seek input
from LEA leaders.

Review Past Performance to Determine Root Causes

Before you can set the goals in your plan your team must understand the root causes of current
challenges at your school. It is recommended that schools designate one person to collect and
analyze relevant data so that your team clearly understands and agrees on strengths and areas for
improvement at your school in terms of student outcomes and the status of implementation on
existing initiatives currently underway.

Table 2 outlines suggested questions that your data will answer, as well as example data sources
that other schools have used to answer those questions.

Table 2: Questions and data for assessing past performance

Question Example data sources


■ In what subjects or grades ■ School formative and summative assessments
are our students ■ District formative and summative assessments
performing well? Not ■ State summative assessment
performing well? ■ Response to Intervention (RTI/Student Support Team
(SST) data
■ Suspension and enrollment data
■ Teacher evaluations
■ Which student subgroups ■ School formative and summative assessments
in our school are ■ District formative and summative assessments
performing well? Not ■ State summative assessment
performing well?
■ Which existing ■ Intervention implementation data
interventions are going ■ Student attendance data
well? Not going well? ■ Teacher attendance data
■ Exit tickets from intervention/tutoring sessions
■ Professional development evaluations from teachers
■ Observation data
■ What are the biggest needs ■ Staff/school climate survey
of teachers and students in ■ Parent survey
our school right now? ■ Student survey

A quality data analysis will be crucial to help your team develop a shared understanding of current
strengths and challenges if one does not already exist.

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Example from the field: A Washington D.C. Charter School

Like many schools, a charter school in DC wondered to what extent student misbehavior was
correlated with lower academic performance. The conventional wisdom on this question is clear
and logical: students who misbehave in class are not spending time learning, and are therefore less
likely to achieve.

The school went a level deeper, however. Teachers were asked to code student misbehavior into
specific, escalating categories, from simply talking out of turn to a full-blown tantrum and various
levels in between.

After analyzing the data, educators at the school discovered that students who most frequently
displayed minor types of misbehavior – they used the threshold of the students with the top 10% of
incidents – showed no difference in outcomes than their peers. Students who were responsible for
the most disruptive incidents, however, were less likely to be successful in each subject and grade
level. This result held even after factoring students’ remediation status, behavioral or otherwise.
This analysis had real implications the school’s behavior management policy. It told teachers that
filling tutorial slots with minor offenses was an inefficient use of resources. Remediation sessions
became smaller and targeted the students who needed the most support, and school leaders are
regularly monitoring whether the approach is showing indicators of success.

Decide on Your Goals


Your first task when sitting down with your planning team is to answer the question, “What are we
trying to do?” Initially, the answer could appear obvious: “Raise student achievement!” However,
everyone in your school will benefit from a goal or goals that are well-defined, measureable, and
represent significant gains for students at your school. You want each person at your school,
educators and students alike, to be able to easily recall or recite the goals in your plan.

You likely already have goals that are set for you through statute or district policy. For this plan,
you may want to select the most meaningful of those goals or set goals beyond these if you believe
that they should be more ambitious or targeted for your school environment. For schools that are
classified as “Focus” or “Priority” schools because of the underperformance of a specific subgroup
or the entire school, you may need to develop goals that specifically target areas that led to the
school’s identification.
To make these goals meaningful for your plan, they need to be SMART:

■ Specific: Clearly defined, straightforward, and easily generated without complex calculations
■ Measureable: Easy to measure using agreed-upon methods, and benchmarked against reliable
data
■ Attainable: Represents transformative change in the school, but reflective of what has been
achieved elsewhere with hard work
■ Relevant: Connected to the strategies in your plan and reflective of the needs of students in the
school
■ Time-bound: Given a clear deadline, and able to be measured at a frequency that will allow for
problem-solving

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To ensure this plan focuses on your most impactful work, it is encouraged that your team choose no
more than three SMART goals, with at least one defined in terms of student outcomes. Having a
strong rallying cry (“Everyone will graduate ready for college and careers!”) is great, but school
staff will want to know what that means in terms of measureable outcomes.

Example from the field: Laurie Barron and Smoky Road Middle School

For eight years, Laurie Barron served as Principal of Smokey Road Middle School, a Title I school in
Georgia with historically low performance. Early in her tenure, Principal Barron knew that she
needed to make some major changes in the school in order to improve student performance, but
she was not sure where to start. She recognized that she needed to focus the school on a few areas
of improvement in order to make progress. The objective of those goals were (in order of priority):

1) Get kids to school


2) Keep kids safe
3) Build relationships
4) Focus on teaching

Each of these goals were aligned with SMART metrics to measure the school’s progress.

By the end of Principal Barron’s tenure, Smokey Road Middle School students were achieving above
the state average, and had eliminated achievement gaps for students with disabilities in math.
Based on her hard work, Principal Barron earned the MetLife Middle School Principal of the Year
award in 2013.

Note: Some readers may notice that the four goals in this example contradict the rule suggested in
the above paragraph to limit to no more than three goals. In Smokey Road’s case, Laurie Baron did
not move on to the next goal until she had achieved the one before it, so in fact this approach
represents a step-by-step series of one-goal plans for the school.

Examples of SMART goals include:

■ College- and career-readiness: 80% of students who take an Advanced Placement AP course
will score a 3 or above on the AP assessment each year.
■ Growth: 80% of students in grades three to eight will show improvement based on their math
or English/Language Arts index value.
■ Attendance: 90% of our students will attend school each day during the school year.
The exercise below describes how your team could conduct a conversation to set goals.

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Exercise: Setting Goals (2-3 Hours)
Time Activity
■ 30 mins ■ Individually, review your data analysis and consider the following
– Where are we seeing success? Where have we struggled for several years?
– Where are we succeeding and struggling more than our peers (similar
schools, district average, etc.)?
■ 45 mins ■ As a group, discuss the following and record on flip chart paper/white board
– Which areas of challenge are the most important to address now?
– What is the rationale for focusing on these areas first?
– What past and present goals exist and how could they apply to this process
and goals for this plan?
■ 60 mins ■ As a group, define your goals (see example below)
– Choose up to three areas of focus and define the metric that you will use to
measure progress
– Complete your goal(s) by noting the current status according to your chosen
metric, the target for that metric, the target year, and any supporting data that
you will use to measure progress (15 minutes)
■ 15 mins ■ As a group, agree on next steps for goal finalization
– Who else needs to be involved?
– When is a realistic deadline for finalizing goals?

Example outputs from goal setting exercise (see Appendix C for blank template; repeat for third
goal if desired)

Area of Focus 1: Improve third grade reading Area of Focus 2: Improve school-wide
proficiency attendance rate

Metric: Percent of third graders proficient in Metric: Percent of students present at 9 am,
reading on annual state test according to teacher attendance records
Current status (baseline): 53% of third graders Current status (baseline): average of 84% daily
proficient in reading attendance

Target: 80% of third graders proficient in Goal: 95% of students are present at 9 AM each
reading day

Target year: In two years Target year: Next year

Supporting data: District formative assessment Supporting data: Suspension rate


Next steps to finalize this goal: Benchmark Next steps to finalize this goal: None
against past performance at other schools in our
district

Deadline to finalize goal: Next week Deadline to finalize goal: Completed

After this exercise, your logistics lead and lead writer (if these are different people) can refine and
finalize the goal language, then ensure that school leaders have an opportunity to review the goal
and give their final approval.

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You should share your proposed goals with all educators at the school and with parents. Building
buy-in for your goals and the planning process is powerful; however, be explicit in the role parents
and teachers will play in the planning process. Your team will need to decide to what extent you
will seek input from school stakeholders broadly and anticipate implications for your timeline.

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Phase 3: Identifying and Prioritizing Strategies
The next step in the planning process is to address how you are planning to achieve your goal(s). In
other words, you know what you are trying to do; now how are you planning to do it? Answering
this question will require reflecting on the strategies currently underway at your school and
narrowing to the ones that you will focus on more deeply. It is strongly advised that your team not
exceed five strategies in the plan, even if you are trying to address more than one goal.

The narrowing step in the process may feel unusual to your team. Schools typically use dozens of
strategies and interventions to help students succeed. For this plan to be meaningful, your team
must commit to asking a tough question: “What do we absolutely need to get right in the next 1-2
years in order to hit the goal we have set?” For example, if you have been providing professional
development and coaching on the shifts required under the Common Core, but it has not been
effective, you may include a strategy about how you will strengthen that PD.

If your school has been designated as an academically struggling (Priority, Focus, or other
designation) school, consider narrowing the focus even further to the one to three strategies that
are going to have the biggest impact and transform learning for students.

Tool 1: 2x2 Matrix

Tool 1, the 2x2 Matrix, is very useful as you choose your strategies. The 2x2 will help your team
prioritize by ranking your proposed strategies in terms of how impactful they are likely to be (in
terms of number of students impacted) and how difficult they will be to implement (in terms of skill
needed, resource constraints, etc.). Note here that if your team is working on two or three goals,
you should complete a 2x2 Matrix for each.

Prioritization matrix
Tool 1: 2x2 Matrix

Goal Statement: _____________________________


Last Modified 4/21/2015 1:55:35 PM

al: _________________________
High

Tough but
No-brainer
worth while
Potential impact

To be
Low

Quick wins
avoided

Low High

Degree of Difficulty

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Your team will likely already have some idea about what needs to happen at your school to reach
the goal. However, as you have this conversation, the team should be willing to put “everything on
the table” and potentially stop doing activities that are not having the impact needed to reach the
goal. This can be a difficult conversation, but one that is essential in order for your school to
accelerate student achievement.

At the conclusion of this meeting, teams should choose your strategy leads – the individuals on your
team who will lead the development of each strategy – as noted earlier in this guide. Note that the
actual implementation of the strategies will likely include a number of educators and school staff.
The strategy lead is responsible for ensuring that everyone at your school is clear on the strategy
and their roles, and will serve as the person who, at any given moment, will know whether the
strategy is on track.

Exercise: Identifying and Prioritizing Strategies (3-4 Hours)


Time Activity
■ 15 mins ■ Individually, brainstorm on cards or post-its your proposed strategies
■ 75 mins ■ As a group, place your strategies on the 2x2 Matrix
– Designate one person to facilitate the 2x2, then discuss all the strategies the
team has written, placing each on the 2x2 according to potential impact and
degree of difficulty (45 minutes)
– As you discuss, work to create a spread on the 2x2 in order to differentiate
strategies
– Once all strategies are placed, consider whether any need to be moved or
combined (30 minutes)
■ 60 mins ■ As a group, use your completed 2x2 to choose your one to five key strategies by
discussing the following
– Are any of these strategies required, or non-negotiable? (E.g., an LEA-wide
initiative)?
– Do you see any “quick wins” that may not have the highest potential impact
but will be relatively easy to implement successfully?
– Do you see any “no brainers” that will likely have a big impact on the goal but
are low difficulty?
– What are the strategies that are tough but worthwhile to implement?
■ 30 mins ■ With your strategies chosen, designate leads for the strategies by considering the
following
– Who on this team is familiar with this work already?
– Who has the capacity (the will to do the work and the know-how to carry it
out) to take this on?
– How can you distribute responsibility to both enable a quick planning process
and effective progress monitoring?
■ 30 mins ■ Once your leads are chosen, discuss the Strategy Profile and Plan Rubric
(details below and in Appendix), then agree on the expectations and timeline for
completion before the next meeting

Next, assign your strategy leads the task of completing a Strategy Profile for their strategy. This
process can take between one and two weeks. The profiles do not have to be perfect; just in draft
form so that the team can share and revise them when you meet again. The purpose of the Strategy

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Profile is to ensure that everyone has a common understanding of what the strategy entails. It is not
meant to be a detailed work plan – individual leads can outline develop them on their own.

Tool 2: Strategy Profile

■ Description: Describe the strategy and its purpose in a sentence or two, including the impact
that the strategy will have on the overall goal. Explain why the strategy was chosen (e.g., will it
address the needs of a specific subpopulation of students? Is it based on best practice?)
■ Definition of success: What would success look like for this specific strategy, and by when?
What 1-3 measures will we use to measure success of this strategy each year?
■ Lead: Who is responsible for ensuring this strategy is successful?
■ Delivery Chain: How and through whom will the strategy impact student achievement?
■ Scale: At what scale (number of students, educators, etc.) will it be implemented?
■ Milestones: What 3-7 actions need to happen for us to ensure this strategy will help achieve the
goal, and by when?
■ Feedback loops: What 2-3 measurable indicators of implementation and quality – that happen
between annual measures – will we use to regularly determine whether we are on track?
■ Resources required: What people, time, money and professional development will be needed
for successful implementation?
Strategy Profiles need not be long – three pages should be the longest you need with everything
included. Refer to Appendix D1 for an example of a completed Strategy Profile, and consider
distributing this example to the team as you give the Strategy Profile assignment.

When your team reviews the completed Strategy Profiles, it will use the Planning Rubric (Appendix
E1) to assess the quality. It is best to introduce the Planning Rubric along with the Strategy Profile
to give your leads an idea of what a good plan looks like.

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Phase 4: Planning Your Strategies

By the time your team comes back together, your strategy leads should have completed their
Strategy Profiles and sent them to your logistics lead. During this last planning meeting, your team
will review each Strategy Profile for your plan, use the Planning Rubric to assess whether any part
of each profile needs to be strengthened, ask clarifying questions, and agree on refinements that
your strategy leads will make before the profiles are finalized. This review is the team’s final
opportunity to take a close look at the strategies, what they include and do not include, and
whether, taken together, they are likely to result in achieving the goal(s) in your plan.

Exercise: Planning Your Strategies (4 Hours)


Time Activity
■ 60 mins ■ Individually, review each Strategy Profile with the Planning Rubric – this could
be done before the meeting to save time, but it is best to ensure dedicated,
uninterrupted time to concentrate on this step
■ 45 mins ■ As a group, discuss each Strategy Profile. For each profile, consider the following
per questions for discussion:
profile – Is the language within each section of the profile clear and error-free?
– Does this strategy overlap with any of the others and, if so, how can we clarify
to avoid confusion?
– Is the profile rigorous enough in terms of description, scale, milestones, and
feedback loops?
– Is it clear how this strategy impacts the goal?
■ Record the discussion on a graphic organizer like the one in Appendix F
■ 15 mins ■ As a group, review agreed-upon modifications and a timeline for completion, and
add to the graphic organizer (likely within 1-2 weeks)

See Appendix F for a template for this exercise.

After this exercise, your lead writer will have all he or she needs to combine the Strategy Profiles,
and format the content to complete the plan. Once this is completed, the plan will be sufficient to
drive your work, though the team may need to make some modifications to the plan as it is
implemented.

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Phase 5: Monitoring Progress
After setting clear goals and identifying specific strategies to achieve them, establishing a robust
progress monitoring plan to consistently drive implementation is essential for success. This section
details how your team can frequently and rigorously reflect on two key questions:

■ At any given moment, how will we know whether we are on track?


■ If we are not on track, what are we going to do about it?

While this step is presented last, your team should not wait until the plan is complete before
beginning to monitor progress. Progress monitoring provides the regular checkpoints you need to
make the plan drive your day-to-day work at your school. In many cases, setting the date for your
first progress monitoring meeting is good for implementation and plan completion.

Routines are the mechanism by which you will check in on your plan. They are a system of
progress monitoring; either in-person meetings or written notes that capture:

■ Implementation progress for each strategy,


■ Areas of strength and challenge in implementation, and
■ The next steps needed to stay on track.
Regardless of format, all routines should meet four key characteristics, outlined in Table 3.

Table 3: Characteristics of good routines

Key Characteristic Questions to Consider


Regularity ■ Happens regularly enough?
■ Correct people present?
Strong execution ■ Buy-in to purpose and preparedness?
■ Clear roles and responsibilities?
■ Participants come prepared?
■ High-quality materials?
■ Well facilitated?
■ Clear next steps?
Focus on performance ■ Clear areas of focus?
■ Shared view of performance?
■ Focus on the most important aspects?
Action on performance ■ Helps identify most critical barriers?
■ Tough questions asked?
■ Creative problem-solving?
■ Encourages learning?

The full rubric for defining and reflecting on the quality of routines is included in Appendix G.
The rest of this section outlines how to set up and prepare for routines in order to achieve these
four characteristics. Note that while the context of this section is focused on establishing new
routines, it is recommended that you make use of existing meetings wherever possible and
repurpose them to monitor progress as often as it appropriate.

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Establishing Routines

When your team meets to assess progress, they will be able to look at the data and milestones as
defined in the Strategy Profile, compare the data to where you hoped you would be, and make a
judgment on the likelihood that your strategy will succeed in making its expected contribution to
your goal.

Consider several questions as you establish your routines:

■ What should be the focus of the routines? Will the routine(s) with your school leadership
team discuss progress on all strategies at once, or rotate the focus on one or two at a time?
■ Who should participate in our routines? For a routine to work well, you will need at least
three key people:
– Principal: the person holding the strategy lead accountable
– Facilitator: the person facilitating the routine, ensuring proper preparation, curating the
materials and agenda, and making sure the team sticks to the agenda (note: this does not
need to be the same person who facilitated planning activities)
– Strategy lead: the person/people who take responsibility for progress on a particular
strategy
■ What format should our routines take? Will your routines take place via in-person meetings
or written updates? Or a combination of the two? The decision should depend on your team’s
working preferences, but an in-person meeting should be at least part of your schedule of
routines (even if it is supplemented with periodic written updates).
■ How often should our routines occur? Depending on the urgency and pace of the work,
decide how often routines should occur. If you are setting up multiple routines, consider how
the schedules should build upon one another. You will want to schedule routines that occur
every two to four weeks. Routines only work if the team faithfully prepares for and uses them to
drive its work.
It is recommended that a schedule be created via your school’s calendar tool of choice (e.g.,
Microsoft Outlook or Google Calendar) as soon as possible.

Prepare for Your Routines

By the time the routine actually takes place using the steps described above, the principal,
facilitator, and strategy lead(s) should all have a good understanding of the content to be discussed
and can move to next steps quickly. The most productive routines take place when the conversation
about progress does not last long because everyone has a general sense of progress for the strategy.

There are two key elements to consider when preparing for a routine:

■ How will you rate progress?


■ How do the ratings of progress inform the focus of the routine?
The remainder of this section will include suggestions for these two questions.

How will you rate progress?

15
As discussed earlier, a key characteristic of an effective routine is a focus on performance, but often
it can be difficult to reach a shared view of implementation progress. Moreover, data is not always
available when it is needed, and it is difficult to compare implementation between strategies
because each will have different measures of success (like the implementation of Response to
Intervention).

The Assessment Framework tool standardizes the definition of success with one question: what is
the likelihood that this strategy or plan overall will be successful? It does this by using a set of
consistent and balanced criteria in three key areas for assessing the quality of implementation, then
rating the overall likelihood of achieving the strategy or goal.

■ Quality of planning
■ Capacity to drive progress
■ Evidence of progress

16
Tool 3: Assessment Framework

The Assessment Framework is a formative tool to assist in reaching a shared view of


implementation progress. The ratings provide a clear and relative picture of progress,
differentiating between performance across your strategies, and identifying areas for learning
(green) and areas for support, decisions, or problem solving.

The facilitator should use this tool with the strategy leads to collect and analyze relevant data,
which may be quantitative data, qualitative observation data, or other information, then come to
judgments.

Appendix H is the rubric to use in completing the ratings, while Appendix I is a tool to capture the
ratings and rationale based on the rubric.

How do the ratings of progress inform the focus of the routine?

One you have completed the Assessment Framework, you can use those ratings to establish an
agenda for your routine meeting.

A good routine takes a “T-shaped” approach to the agenda, illustrated on the next page, spending 10
percent of the time on the overall picture of implementation using a succinct summary of the data,
with the remaining 90 percent focused on two to three areas that require discussion, decisions, and
a clear understanding of next steps.

To create the agenda, the facilitator and strategy leads should start by identifying the specific goals
for the deep dive areas of the meeting. These should be informed by your Assessment Framework.
Areas that were rated orange or red should be addressed in depth, and include a discussion of

17
challenges, next steps, and help needed. Strategy leads should come to the routine ready to propose
solutions to challenges surfaced in the Assessment Framework ratings.

T-SHAPED ROUTINE

Exercise: Setting Routine Objectives (1 Hour)


Time Activity
■ 15 mins ■ As a group with strategy leads, review all Assessment Framework ratings and
rationales. Consider the following:
– Do the ratings, taken as a whole, accurately reflect current progress?
– Does the same color rating generally reflect the same level of success or
challenge across strategies or rubric categories?
– Do we need to change any ratings to reflect where we think we should focus
during the routine?
■ 30 mins ■ Discuss in a group which 2-3 areas need special focus for the routine, and the
critical pieces you need to cover. Record on a flip chart:
– What are our 2-3 biggest challenges for deep discussion?
– What do we know about why these areas are challenges? Do the data suggest
what we need to do in order to improve?
– What decisions can we make on our own, and where to we need support from
others?
■ 15 mins ■ Based on the areas of focus and the decisions or conversations needed, finalize
your routine objectives.

Once you have completed your objectives, consider what you will do in the meeting to achieve
them. Think about how much time each item on the agenda will take, the necessary materials you
will need, and particular pieces of evidence or data to bring to the discussion. A PowerPoint
presentation or written memos are important elements of a routine as well.

18
The routines agenda template in Appendix J can help to think through the objectives, how to
achieve them, and the supporting materials, key facts/data and key questions/decisions for
discussion. The final agenda should be shared with everyone prior to the routine so that there are
no surprises.

These steps will lead to a conversation that allows you to address the final question: “If we are not
on track, what are we going to do about it?” After conducting a routine, you should have concrete
next steps for addressing your most important challenges.

Example from the field: Oregon turnaround schools

In 2014, the Office of School Turnaround in the Oregon Department of Education began asking
its 90 turnaround schools to complete regular progress checks on the three key strategies that
each school was using to improve outcomes. These strategies were defined individually by
each school, and the state used the data to differentiate support to groups of schools
experiencing similar challenges.

In order to provide a picture of current strengths and challenges, each school principal was
asked to use the Assessment Framework to rate and provide rationales for their quality of
planning, capacity, and evidence of progress for each self-identified strategy. As they began to
familiarize themselves with this process, many principals saw the value of the conversation
and began engaging with their entire leadership team in the exercise. This provided more
complete and reliable results to the state, but more importantly, it ensured that the entire
leadership team at the schools shared a common understanding of their progress.

This shared view of progress is key component to a successful routine. Once the principals and
their teams agreed on progress for the key strategies at their schools, they could have targeted
conversations about the strategies that needed the most attention and celebrate work that
was going well.

Running the Routine

Once the preparation is done, running the routine is the easy part! There are some key things to
remember when you conduct a routine. In particular, the facilitator should lead the meeting and
manage the process towards achieving the meeting’s objectives. Their leadership will allow the
other participants to fully engage with the issues under discussion. The principal should focus on
the key facts and key questions, pushing the strategy lead(s) to understand, learn, problem solve,
and agree on actionable next steps.

The following is an example exercise for running the routine itself. Time allotments may change
depending on the number of objectives and duration of the meeting, but they do reflect where the
majority of the time should be spent – on the deep part of your T-shaped conversation, and
specifically on next steps.

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Exercise: The Routine (1-2 Hours)
Time Activity
■ 5 mins ■ Welcome and agenda overview

■ 30 mins ■ Review overall progress for the strategy (10 minutes)


per – Strategy leader gives short presentation using summary data on progress
strategy (5 minutes)
– Principal gives reactions (5 minutes)
■ Deep give on areas of focus (20 minutes)
– Strategy leader outlines key areas of focus and proposed next steps (5
minutes)
– Principal and strategy leader discuss and/or problem solve (15 minutes)
– Facilitator records key decisions and next steps
■ 10 mins ■ Review next steps and adjourn
– Facilitator reads next steps to ensure all were captured
– Team assigns any needed leads and timelines to next steps

Conclusion

The tools provided in this guide will assist your school team as it creates and monitors a plan that
can truly drive progress at your school. Planning and progress monitoring are both ongoing
processes that will likely require adjustments to be made as you implement the work. This is
normal and encouraged! As you modify and adjust your plan and progress monitoring to fit your
school’s needs, remember to refer back to this guide to ensure a continued adherence to the
principles of school planning.

Thank you for your hard work to support the District of Columbia’s most important resources—our
students!

20
Appendix A: School Improvement Team

Membership Summary
Identify the name and stakeholder group for each member of the School Improvement
Team:

Name Stakeholder Group Role in Team

21
Appendix B: Stakeholder Engagement

Stakeholder Engagement Summary


Identify each person’s name, stakeholder group represented, and a description of the
person’s involvement in the school improvement planning process.

Name Stakeholder Group Description of


Engagement

22
Appendix C: Goal Setting Graphic Organizer

Area of Focus 1: Area of focus 2 (optional):

Metric: Metric:

Current status: Current status:

Goal: Goal:

Target year: Target year:

Supporting data: Supporting data:

Next steps to finalize this goal: Next steps to finalize this goal:

Deadline to finalize goal: Deadline to finalize goal:

23
Appendix D1: Sample Completed Strategy Profile

Strategy name 3rd grade reading targeted intervention

Strategy description Data-driven remediation to students who need extra assistance to read at
grade level. Based on bi-weekly formative assessment, students are
assigned extra time for help in reading using one of these three methods:
■ In-class remediation
■ In-school tutorial period twice weekly (1.5 hours total)
■ After school tutorial three times weekly (2.5 hours total)
Definition of success By SY 2017-18, no more than 15% of third graders require out-of-class
remediation based on our formative assessment system

All 3rd graders are proficient on the end of year assessment


Lead Karen Smith – 3rd grade reading specialist
Delivery chain ■ Principal Dodd gives responsibility to Mrs. Smith
■ Mrs. Smith engages and plans with elem. reading teachers (4 total)
■ Mrs. Smith asks for formative assessment data from Tracy Jones (data
director) on bi-weekly basis (every other Thursday)
■ Each elementary teacher will be responsible for maximum 5 students
(20 students total)
Scale ■ 120 3rd graders total in the school
■ No more than 15% assigned remediation at once – maximum about
18 students
Milestones ■ Facilitate first planning meeting between Karen Smith and reading
teachers (within two weeks)
■ Complete first formative data run, establish protocol for running data
with Tracy Jones (this week)
■ Hold three-month check in:
– How many students have been in remediation?
– Are we serving maximum 18 students at a time?
– What is going well and what needs improvement?
■ Survey data indicates at least 80% teacher satisfaction with RTI
model (1 year)
Feedback loops ■ Regular bi-weekly formative assessment data
■ Tutorial attendance
■ Teacher reactions (informal feedback)
■ Karen evaluates whether remediation is effective at getting kids to
grade level, or if the same students are being remediated each week
Resources required ■ Karen is a resource dedicated to this effort
■ All four reading teachers have signed on to this effort
■ Depending on how the planning meeting goes, we may need to give
some teachers additional training in remediation instruction

24
Appendix D2: Sample Strategy Profile

Goal:

Strategy name

Strategy
description

Definition of
success

Lead

Delivery chain

Scale

Milestones

Feedback loops

Resources required

25
Rubric for assessing school plans
Appendix E1: Planning Rubric (with school turnaround addendum)
Criteria Key Questions Weak Plan Strong Plan
Articulate its aspiration Have we defined a vision for what we want this ▪ Aspiration is not well defined or ▪ Plan specifies an ambitious, easy-to-understand aspiration
plan to achieve in terms of outcomes? What will is ambiguous with a clear moral imperative
success look like? How will things be different? ▪ Desired outcomes are not ▪ Plan defines the aspiration in terms of specific and
specified measurable outcomes
▪ Aspiration is linked to overall system commitments and goals
Identify the relevant Have we defined a coordinated and coherent set ▪ No strategies are defined or ▪ Plan has defined a clear set of strategies that are based on
strategies of strategies that will collectively help us to strategies are vaguely defined best practices inside and outside the system
achieve the aspiration? How and why do we ▪ Strategies are defined and sequenced to work together to
believe that these strategies will work? achieve the aspiration
▪ Each strategy has a theory of action for how it will have an
impact on the aspiration
Assign leadership, Have we defined a single person who is ▪ Overall plan has no owner or ▪ Overall plan has a single owner from the senior leadership
management, and responsible for the plan as a whole and for each multiple owners team who is responsible for ensuring that the plan achieves
accountability of the strategies? How will these people interact ▪ Each strategy has no owner or the aspiration
with other leaders and with the delivery team? multiple owners ▪ Each strategy has a single accountable owner
▪ Other roles not defined ▪ Role of delivery team in supporting leaders is well defined
Identify the relevant Do we know how each strategy will reach the ▪ Roles not well defined, or roles ▪ Each strategy specifies clear roles at every level, from state to
delivery chain(s) field at scale? Have we specified who needs to give an inaccurate/incomplete classroom, with clear analysis of how the necessary capacity
do what, what capacity or motivation they will picture of realities on the ground and motivation will be developed at scale
need, and who will engage them and how?
Create feedback loops for Have we specified how we will know that each ▪ No indicators given other than ▪ Each strategy has a defined set of indicators of success that is
managing performance strategy is working? Do we know how we will the main measure of success based on the delivery chain, including:
collect and monitor this information? ▪ Implementation timeline is vague – Specific and time-bound implementation milestones
or non-existent – Leading indicators of implementation quality
▪ Plan includes mechanisms to monitor this information
Anticipate and prepare for Have we identified the major risks and ▪ No risks identified, or risk ▪ The plan details risks and constraints along the delivery chain,
risks weaknesses in the delivery chain that might assessment is unrealistic, with no including weak relationships, chokepoints, funding shortfalls,
throw the work off course? Do we know how we attempt at real solutions for and other major issues
will manage them? management ▪ There is a potential solution for managing each risk
Describe the resources Have we identified the personnel, financial, ▪ Resources are not mentioned or ▪ Plan gives a clear picture of how the plan can be achieved
and support required technological, and other resources that are are vague/unrealistic with Federal, state, and local resources available – or it
required for the plan’s success? specifies how the needed resources can be obtained
Set a trajectory for Have we defined a clear measure of success – ▪ Measure of success not well ▪ Plan defines a clear measure of success for the aspiration and
implementation what it means to achieve the aspiration? What defined a time-bound end target
is our end target for this measure? Our ▪ No linkage drawn between ▪ Trajectory of intermediate targets comes from a series of
intermediate targets? Why do we believe that strategies and impact on the evidence-based estimates of the impact that each strategy will
our strategies will allow us to hit these targets? measure of success have on the measure of success
▪ No intermediate targets ▪ Target and trajectory are validated by relevant benchmarks to
ensure that they are ambitious and realistic

©2015 U.S. Education Delivery Institute 1

26
Rubric for assessing school plans – school turnaround
addendum
Appendix E2: Planning Rubric school turnaround addendum

Criteria Key Questions Weak Plan Strong Plan


Align to turnaround Does the plan acknowledge and address the top ▪ Plan does not reflect prioritization ▪ Plan emphasizes turnaround strategies of greatest focus while
principles 1-2 turnaround principle challenges at the of turnaround strategies acknowledging efforts underway to address all principles
school? ▪ Plan notes that additional emphasis may be added to other
principles in the future
Align expenditures to Are the use of time, resources, and money at the ▪ Distribution of funding does not ▪ Plan outlines how appropriate resources will be dedicated to
strategies school aligned to the strategies? Are reflect the prioritization described the strategies
supplemental funds directed at students who in the plan ▪ Plan demonstrates how students who have been historical
need the most support? ▪ Programs are not targeted to the underperformers will receive greater assistance to close
students in the most need of achievement gaps
support ▪ It is clear how prioritization in the plan will redistribute
resources to create lasting change at the school
Define the critical adult Are the expectations for changed behavior of ▪ There is no evidence described ▪ Plan describes how behavior – of both adults and students –
and student actions staff clear? Are the expectations for changes that would inform judgments as will change to implement the strategies as described
behavior of students clear? Do both include clear to whether behaviors are ▪ Key behaviors are described in a manor specific enough to
measures that can be monitored periodically in changing as expected enable objective review of whether those behaviors are
between annual student outcomes? occurring at the school

Support a rigorous school Does the school have a process for checking in ▪ Plan sits on a shelf – it is not ▪ School leaders have established a robust system of progress
for monitoring progress on progress monthly or bi-monthly? Is a shared referenced in the day-to-day monitoring, consisting of regular data-drive routines, rigorous
view of progress monitored for areas of success, work problem-solving, and concrete next steps
continuous improvement, and problem solving, ▪ School leaders meet about ▪ Progress monitoring results in honest conclusions about
based on solid evidence (quantitative and progress, but do not use relevant success and mid-course corrections
qualitative)? data or do not agree on next ▪ Leaders follow up on next steps, whether they own the action
steps directly or are responsible for oversight

©2015 U.S. Education Delivery Institute 2

27
Appendix F: Planning Your Strategies Template

Strategy profile name Current strengths Current areas for improvement Next steps and timeline

28
Appendix G: Routines Rubric

Category What weak performance (1) looks like What strong performance (4) looks like
Regularity ■ Takes place sporadically and is often ■ Provides a stable rhythm for the work;
■ Does the routine happen regularly cancelled or rescheduled participants plan around the schedule of routines
enough to drive performance? ■ So frequent that changes in performance are ■ Discussions are timely (not too early / too late)
■ Are the right people present? Including: not observable, or so infrequent that ■ Key participants – including the leader – attend;
– the “leader” holding the actors performance “drifts” in between senior team members are informed enough to
accountable, ■ Key players are rarely present account for performance and commit to
– the “actors” driving the work and necessary actions
reporting on progress, and
– the “broker” facilitating the discussion
Strong execution ■ Participants are confused about the routine’s ■ All participants can articulate the routine’s
■ Do participants buy in to the purpose of purpose/objectives or do not believe in them objectives and want to play their role in
the routine and come prepared for a ■ Important participants are not sufficiently achieving them
productive discussion? well-prepared to contribute ■ Key participants are well-prepared
■ Are roles and responsibilities clear? ■ Participants are unclear about their roles ■ Agenda and supporting materials are clear,
■ Are the supporting materials high- ■ Supporting materials are confusing, lack concise, relevant, and prepared in advance
quality? detail or are missing important information ■ Meeting runs according to schedule; changes to
■ Is the meeting well facilitated? ■ Starts late; runs out of time; departs from agenda are deliberate
■ Are clear next steps defined? agenda ■ Leader ensures that objectives are met and clear
■ Next steps are not identified next steps are identified
Focus on performance ■ Routine is merely a check-in during which ■ Performance on specific goals, strategies or
■ Is the area of focus for the routine clear – participants give updates entities is selected as the focus of the discussion
do we know what we are assessing ■ Evidence is sporadic/inconsistent; discussion ■ A wide range of evidence is presented in a way
progress on? is mostly based in anecdote/opinion; data are that is clear and consistent, including outcome
■ Does the routine allow participants to disputed or not recognized by participants data, leading indicator data, and evidence on
quickly form a shared view of ■ Data are presented in raw format with little or quality of implementation
performance and progress, based on no attempt to discern patterns or implications ■ Data is synthesized to identify key patterns and
strong evidence? ■ All items get equal weight, with no attempt to comparisons
■ Does the agenda of the routine allow for make meaningful comparisons or focus on ■ Debate is vigorous but an overall picture of
a focus on the most important issues key issues performance emerges quickly; the majority of
impacting performance? discussion is on the biggest areas of challenge

29
Action on performance ■ Problems may be identified but are too vague ■ Discussion allows participants to identify specific
■ Does the routine help participants to to be actionable; root causes are poorly barriers to success and identify actions to
identify and agree on the most critical understood, if at all address them
barriers to progress? ■ Data is discussed to no practical end; ■ Leader asks the tough questions, and presses for
■ Are the tough questions asked? discussion tends to dwell on problems, with answers until adequate, realistic solutions have
■ Does the routine result in creative little attempt to seek solutions; key issues are been identified
problem-solving that empowers left unresolved ■ Between routines there is a shared expectation
participants to address the challenges ■ Actions and next steps are superficial, with no that actions will be followed-up upon
and holds them accountable for doing real expectation that they will “move the ■ Participants are open to supporting, challenging
so? needle” and learning from each other
■ Does the routine encourage participants ■ There is no follow-up on actions between ■ Cross-project comparisons create a spirit of
to continuously learn and improve? routines friendly competition and professional learning
■ Participants are reluctant to engage in open across teams
dialogue about their own/colleagues’ ■ Learning points are captured and shared
performance; challenging conversations are
either avoided or seen as a “gotcha”

30
Appendix H: Assessment Framework

Ratings
Element Key Questions
Red (weak) Green (strong)
Quality of ■ Is it clear how (and how much) this ■ The strategy and its associated goal ■ We can articulate a plausible case for
planning strategy connects to our larger are not clearly linked or may be how this strategy will have an impact
goal/outcomes? working in conflict on the goal
Red ■ Have we identified a key person and ■ We have no clear accountability for ■ There is a clear leader and team who
Orange team responsible for leading the this strategy are held accountable for the success of
Yellow strategy and ensuring success? ■ We have no plan, or we have a plan this strategy
Green ■ Is the strategy guided by a plan (possibly that falls short in several ways: ■ There is a plan for the strategy that
as part of a larger plan) that is widely – No milestones or measures clearly states milestones, measures of
understood and has clear – No connection made to the goal progress, analysis of risks, and
implementation milestones, measures of – No analysis of risks or necessary identification of necessary resources
progress, risk mitigation strategies, and resources ■ The team uses the plan to drive its
identification of resources? ■ Plan does not reflect the current ongoing work and monitor progress
■ Is the plan used to drive the day-to-day reality of the work
work of implementation?
Capacity to ■ Have we specified the roles that ■ We do not have a clear sense of who ■ We have identified the specific
drive progress everyone will need to play in order for will need to do what in order for the individuals at every level critical to the
the strategy to have real impact on the strategy to be successful strategy’s success and the role each will
Red goal? ■ Those responsible for have to play to implement the strategy
Orange ■ How well are we engaging with these implementation are lacking the at scale
Yellow actors to build capacity? How willing necessary time, skills, or support to ■ Most of these critical individuals have
Green and able are they to play their roles right implement effectively sufficient capacity and buy-in, and we
now? are working to actively build capacity
■ Do those responsible for and support where necessary
implementation have the necessary ■ We have identified the necessary time,
time, resources, skills, and support to do resources, skills, and support for
so effectively? successful implementation and are
working to ensure these exist

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Element Key Questions Ratings
Evidence of ■ What evidence do we have that show ■ We do not consistently collect or use ■ We collect and review relevant
implementation that the strategy is working as intended evidence on this strategy, or our evidence as soon as it is available; this
progress and that it will have an impact on the evidence is limited to the data on the includes both process metrics and
goal? goal (outcome metrics without milestones, which indicate quality of
Red ■ Do we use the evidence to make mid- process metrics) implementation, and outcome metrics,
Orange course corrections as needed? ■ We may review some data, but we which indicate progress on the goal
Yellow ■ What do the latest data say about our do not use it to drive changes to our ■ When necessary, evidence collected
Green progress on this strategy (e.g., implementation efforts results in mid-course corrections
milestones, process metrics)? What do ■ To the extent we have any kind of ■ Data on process metrics are improving;
the latest data say about our progress on evidence, the data are stagnant or where available, data on
the goal itself (e.g., outcome metrics)? moving in the wrong direction outcomes/goals are also improving
■ LIKELIHOOD OF SUCCESS (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green): Given current state and judgments above, how likely are you to successfully implement this
strategy?

32
Appendix I: Assessment Framework Rating Template

Strategy:

Characteristic Rating Rationale

Quality of planning

Capacity

Evidence of progress

Overall likelihood
of success

Potential challenges

Potential next steps

Help needed

33
Appendix J: Routine Agenda Template

Time Objective Materials Key facts/data Key questions/


decisions

34

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