School and System Partnerships
Tailored support to improve student learning in your school or system
As a leader, you deeply know your school’s culture and context and are in the best position to lead your community toward stronger instruction and improved student learning. However, you shouldn’t have to navigate this journey alone. We’ll work alongside you to build a plan that fits your team’s unique needs and then help you carry it out every step of the way.
Our dedicated team of math, science, ELA, and early literacy content experts provides instructional leadership teams with:
- clarity on the current state of instruction and where to focus limited time and resources for improvement
- thought partnership to help make, communicate, and implement critical leadership decisions
- support to build leaders’ capacity to deliver high-quality feedback, coaching, and instructional planning for teachers
Learn more about our services below or get in touch to be connected with a member of our partnership team.
Did you know that you can use ESSER III funds to work with us? Visit our ESSER funding page to learn more.
Instruction Partners are there to support you and to guide you in this work. They are not afraid of the challenge. And when you find your voice, you’re going to be able to transform as a leader and transform and impact everyone that you interact with. I’m seeing that in my team, in my students, and in my network. You can’t lose with this partnership.
DR. LAWANDA CLARK
Director of Instruction and Curriculum
How do we work?
We focus on two key instructional leadership practices to drive improvement.
High-quality instructional materials (HQIM)
We help teams take a strategic approach to selecting and implementing high-quality instructional materials. Our HQIM support services include:
Adoption:
- Forming and facilitating a selection committee
- Setting a content-specific vision for excellent instruction
- Developing a clear rubric for materials evaluation
- Supporting curriculum pilots
Implementation:
- Facilitating curriculum studies for leadership teams
- Setting expectations for use and assessments
- Developing plans for teacher learning focused on the new curriculum
- Prioritizing content and adjusting pacing to meet student needs
Effective professional learning (PL)
We equip leaders with the knowledge, skills, and resources necessary to support effective, materials-aligned professional learning for their teams. Our PL support services include:
Collaborative planning:
- Establishing the conditions for teacher collaboration (e.g., clear purpose, schedule, roles)
- Forming and co-facilitating PLCs
- Creating and modeling protocols for unit internalization, lesson preparation, and student work analysis
- Coaching leaders around content-specific facilitation
Observation and feedback:
- Creating routines for ongoing instructional rounds
- Norming on classroom observation rubrics
- Providing side-by-side teacher coaching
We do this through short, recurring cycles of improvement.
We’ve found that short, data-driven cycles of work allow leadership teams to make meaningful improvement while staying responsive to the real-time needs of teachers and students.
During each short cycle, we collect data from across the school community—including classroom observations, teacher and student focus groups, student work samples, and professional learning observations—to get a full picture of what’s happening inside the school building. We use this evidence to identify trends, reflect, and determine the focus of improvement work.
Our shared commitment to equity
Instruction Partners is committed to advancing equitable learning, and we seek to work with partners who share in this commitment. We are open to partnerships of all kinds, but most of our partners are small- to medium-sized school systems (both districts and charter networks) that serve a significant number of students in at least one of our priority student groups—students of color, students experiencing poverty, multilingual learners, and students with disabilities.
By putting the needs of priority students at the center of our work, we will not only improve outcomes for priority students, we will improve outcomes for all students.
Ready to learn more?
Fill out the form below to connect with a member of our partnership team.