Accelerated District and School Improvement

INSTLL offers facilitation, professional development, and implementation support across multiple service areas designed to build sustainable, high-performing schools. Each service includes a minimum of three days of professional learning including customized resources, training materials, and key Leadership Actions that educators may use to immediately apply skills and knowledge.  

Our engagement includes an initial design session with district and school leaders, co-development and planning of professional learning sessions, and the delivery of training and follow-up implementation support. 

Outcome:  Educators strengthen their knowledge and skills while developing practical strategies they can immediately apply in daily leadership, planning, and instructional practice. 

Each professional learning module uses evidence-based frameworks and includes unrestricted use of INSTLL’s customized materials, including instructional guidance, planning templates, instructional look-fors, surveys, and self-assessment tools. 

Module 1: School Leadership

Module 2: Instructional Leadership

Module 3: Formative Assessment

Module 4: Data Use by Leadership and Teacher Teams

Module 5: School Improvement Planning

Module 6: Teacher Planning and Collaboration Time

Module 7: Learning Walks, Observations, and Effective Feedback

Module 8: Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

INSTLL partners with districts and individual schools to support the design and implementation of accelerated school-level improvement efforts. 

Designed for schools identified for improvement by a state or district, this strand focuses on building the capacity of school leaders, including administrators, coaches, and teacher leaders, to serve as instructional leaders. We use our Model for Instructional Improvement and Accelerated Practices for School Improvement to facilitate planning, strengthen leadership actions, and build instructional capacity.

Our support includes monthly onsite and virtual Strategy Sessions designed to strengthen instructional leadership and accelerate the implementation of school-based instructional priorities. Throughout the school year, a two-person INSTLL team meets monthly with school leaders to co-develop leadership actions and organizational changes that the leadership team commits to designing, implementing, progress monitoring, and refining as needed.

Strategy Sessions provide structured time for school leaders to engage in frequent, evidence-based analyses of their accelerated improvement efforts. Through these sessions, leaders assess progress, identify implementation challenges, and clarify the actions they will take to support teachers, strengthen student learning, and improve classroom instruction.

Outcome: School leaders and leadership teams develop and apply systems, routines, and leadership practices that improve classroom instruction and contribute to tangible gains in student achievement

Districts often struggle to build, expand and spread high-quality instructional practices across all schools, classrooms, and for all students. Led by the INSTLL team, we partner with districts to develop a durable improvement infrastructure – a Leadership Network.  School leaders and teachers work together across schools around common aims, developing and sharing instructional best practices, testing and refining improvement strategies, and building the organizational capacity needed for sustained improvement. 

Deliberately planned systems to identify internal instructional expertise and spread this expertise, through a combination of professional learning and sharing (e.g., modeling, testing, viewing, practicing) effective instructional practices is needed. 

Teachers have the expertise – not all, but many – and the challenge is to make this expertise visible, test it across contexts, and spread it through disciplined improvement routines. .

Using a scaled approach, we convene and support networks of schools focused on improving classroom instruction and increasing students’ academic achievement. The Leadership Network brings together grade-alike school-level teams that include the principal, assistant principal, content-based instructional coaches, and teacher leaders. Each Leadership Network meets approximately 4 to 5 times during the school year for a half-day Leadership Network Session to engage in collaborative professional learning. Targeted schools receive additional monthly support.

Outcome: By year three of the initiative, the Leadership Network becomes a district-level infrastructure that treats teacher expertise as a system asset: identifying it, making it visible, testing it across contexts, and spreading it through disciplined network improvement routines. 

INSTLL organizes and conducts two- and three-day Targeted School Reviews designed to meet federal and state requirements while providing high-quality and formative information that districts and schools can use to accelerate improvement efforts. School Reviews are onsite visits that include classroom observations, focus groups and interviews with leaders and teachers, and that result in strategic next steps and planning, including a detailed written site report. INSTLL uses a proprietary set of observation tools, protocols, and surveys based on over 25 years of research and practice.  

INSTLL leadership and staff have conducted over 150 site visits over the past five years and our team of site visitors have collectively visited over 2000 schools, providing formative feedback, support, and evidence-based recommendations. 

INSTLL offers a Survey of Professional Interactions and Organizational Capacity that weaves together research on effective school organization, high-quality instruction, accelerated improvement practices, and networks of professional learning and practice. 

• The survey may be administered among teachers and leadership, providing a way to reflect on how stakeholders value and perceive various aspects of school organization and practice, and the efficacy of improvement strategies. 
• The survey provides a "network analysis" of the depth, range, and reach of professional interactions among staff (e.g., grade-levels, teams, coaches).
• The survey provides comparable and formative information that can be used to inform action planning and instructional improvement.