In the EL Education model, school leaders carefully set priorities and then keep their focus squarely on those priorities until they are achieved. To do this, they engage their school community in a strategic improvement process that identifies a limited number of high-priority goals, strategies, and a clear timetable that will guide actions as they work toward the vision. Leaders then deliberately and creatively align available resources (people, time, money) to fulfill the vision.

Note: “School leaders” in this section refers to district leaders, principals, instructional coaches and guides, and teachers in leadership roles. “Administrative leaders” refers specifically to principals or leaders in district, executive, or supervisory roles.

A. Developing a Strategy for Continuous Improvement

1. Administrative leaders partner with EL Education to develop a long-term plan for realizing the school vision through implementation of the EL Education model.
2. School leaders collaborate with EL Education coaches to create long-term goals and annual benchmarks aligned to EL Education’s Dimensions of Student Achievement and grounded in baseline data. They make time for regular meetings and check-ins with EL Education coaches.
3. School leaders engage a range of stakeholders in a collaborative process to design a strategy or work plan driven by data analysis. They select a few high-leverage improvement efforts that—if effectively supported— will lead to the greatest amount of growth in student achievement.
4. School leaders align time, resources, and personnel to achieve the priorities included in their work plan. They regularly gather and analyze data that enable them to make minor course corrections as they implement the work plan throughout the school year.
5. Administrative leaders monitor school improvement progress at strategic intervals throughout the year. The strategic improvement cycle includes:
   1. Development of a work plan based on long-term goals and annual priorities
   2. Midyear review of progress toward annual priorities
   3. End-of-year assessment of progress, including completion of the EL Education Implementation Review
   4. Goal-setting and creation of a work plan for the next school year
6. School leaders share the annual priorities and associated work plan with their staff members and other stakeholders. They ensure that staff members understand their roles and responsibilities in meeting the annual priorities.
7. School leaders ensure that all initiatives are aligned with their annual work plan goals and strategies and that annual plans continue to align with long-term goals and benchmarks. They leverage the work plan to decline initiatives that are not connected to agreed-upon goals.
8. School leaders use feedback from EL Education coaches along with other sources of evidence to assess leader and teacher growth and to inform the development of the following year’s work plan and school improvement priorities.
9. School leaders selectively archive evidence from EL Education’s Dimensions of Student Achievement (mastery of knowledge and skills, character, high-quality student work) in order to identify and assess the impact of implementing EL Education practices on student achievement across all three dimensions.

B. Managing Change throughout the Improvement Process

1. School leaders learn about change management. They reflect on how their own leadership actions and style support staff through the change process.
2. School leaders manage the improvement process proactively. They anticipate challenges and regularly analyze and resolve barriers to change.
3. School leaders seek to understand the dynamics of change by listening deeply and considering the needs and voices of all members of their school community.
4. School leaders regularly assess the professional learning needs of the faculty and take action to address observed gaps.
5. School leaders regularly assess whether resources for instruction, learning, and operations are adequate and take action to address observed shortages.
6. School leaders ensure that there are clear action plans for change initiatives, with defined roles, responsibilities, and timelines.

C. Using Data to Improve Instruction

1. School leaders establish a clear, consistent, no-blame strategy for using data to analyze student achievement across EL Education’s Dimensions of Student Achievement and to address gaps and inequities the data reveal.
2. School leaders develop organizational structures that are consistent with strategies intended to address gaps and inequities.
3. School leaders themselves engage in ongoing data analysis, discussion, and reflection that informs their decisions. They select and analyze data for patterns that provide evidence for claims about student achievement.
4. School leaders provide time and resources for teachers to collaboratively analyze data and to make critical evidence-based decisions.
5. School leaders and teachers monitor data to identify and address patterns of inequity. They take responsibility for increasing the achievement of all students through the following actions:
   1. Disaggregating and examining student achievement by a range of demographic groups, including gender, race, socioeconomic status, language-learner status, and special education status
   2. Looking for patterns of disproportionate representation of any particular group
   3. Examining practice to identify unconscious biases and designing systems to reduce the effects of these biases (e.g., blind grading, choosing students randomly using popsicle sticks, sometimes called “equity sticks”)
   4. Identifying short-term interventions to ensure that every student’s needs are met e. Designing long-term action plans that proactively ensure all students meet or exceed standards and that decrease the need for reactive remediation
6. School leaders support the collection of high-quality evidence from multiple data sources for each of EL Education’s Dimensions of Student Achievement. Evidence recommended on the EL Education Implementation Review rubrics includes:
   1. Mastery of knowledge and skills:
      1. School progress reports
      2. Interim assessments (e.g., NWEA Measures of Academic Performance)
      3. Standardized tests (local, state, and national)
      4. Performance or on-demand assessments
      5. Representative collections of student work samples
      6. Classroom observations vii. Post-graduation performance indicators (e.g., college acceptance, college readiness assessments)
   2. Character
      1. Surveys completed by staff or students
      2. Attendance, attrition, promotion, and graduation records
      3. Discipline records iv. Measures of student engagement and motivation
      4. Summaries of school-wide Habits of Scholarship/ Habits of Character data
      5. School climate surveys
      6. Random and representative classroom and hallway observations
   3. High-Quality Student Work
      1. Expedition products
      2. Random and representative samples of daily work, project work, student portfolios
      3. High-Quality Work Protocol summary
7. School leaders select and employ appropriate technology to support data collection and storage so that they have access to data in formats that are easy to interpret, analyze, and act upon.
8. School leaders organize data displays that facilitate analysis by a variety of stakeholders. Data is presented so that it can be analyzed effectively and efficiently.
9. School leaders facilitate evidence-based conversations with teachers, families, students, and other stakeholders to foster inquiry, problem solving, and collective ownership of student success.
10. School leaders make current data available to stakeholder groups in a timely fashion while that data is still relevant and helpful.
11. School leaders use evidence to tell their school’s story, spearhead change, and allocate resources.

D. Building Staff Capacity for Using Data

1. School leaders invest in the capacity of every teacher to access, understand, and use data effectively. They provide ongoing professional learning focused on analyzing multiple types of data and properly interpreting results.
2. School leaders and teachers share accountability for results in a culture that focuses collaboratively on solutions rather than on placing blame for trends in student achievement.
3. Leaders develop protocols and norms that engage teachers in solution-oriented, evidence-based conversations.
4. Leaders model and hold teachers accountable for using evidence to make decisions about improvements in instruction.

E. Engaging the School Community and Other Stakeholders with Data

1. School leaders facilitate evidence- and data-informed conversations with families and other stakeholders to foster inquiry, problem solving, and collective ownership of student success.
2. School leaders support collection and shared analysis of data about community engagement. They use multiple sources of evidence (e.g., student and family satisfaction surveys, volunteer logs, community attendance at school events).
3. School leaders support the collection and shared analysis of data about organizational performance. They use multiple sources of evidence (e.g., enrollment patterns, budget targets, resources and fundraising, and staff recruitment, retention, and satisfaction).
4. School leaders use data to tell their school’s story, spearhead change, and allocate resources. They make current data available to stakeholder groups in a timely fashion while the data are still relevant and helpful.