Laying the Foundation for Sustainability

Every year, initiatives are launched in school districts with the aim of improving instruction, but often the changes don’t last.  Investing in approaches to improved instruction that are effective and also sustainable must be our top priority.  At California Education Partners, our approach to sustainability begins with the recognition that district work is collaborative and context-driven. From the very beginning, we are explicit that our three-year collaborations are a way for districts to interrogate, name, and strengthen how their system supports teaching and learning. We can make progress together over the course of three years, but we don’t leave the sustainability of instructional improvement to chance; we build it in from day one. 

Chances are, if you’re reading this, you get it: teachers and administrators do not have time to do more work. Regardless of whether you are a teacher, a principal, or a central office leader, one thing is constant –– you never have enough time. Our partner districts start by investigating the current system and identifying how to work with those current systems and structures to make improvements across four key interdependent areas: clear expectations, progress monitoring, adult capacity building, and effective practices. 

Years of research and experience reinforce that sustainable districtwide improvement begins with piloting and testing these fundamental systems and structures with a small team that is large enough to eventually support the spread and scale the work across the rest of the district. In our collaborations, Improvement Teams serve as the original testers of the system. These teams are intentionally composed of people who see the system from different points of view and are seen as leaders and connectors at their sites. Team members name how they are currently experiencing the system and test ways to make the system more coherent and more supportive of student learning. After the first year, the focus shifts from simply testing practices to capturing learning from that testing in order to spread and scale. Teams build the habit of learning from implementation and evidence of impact. 

To truly test, teams must capture evidence of both implementation and impact on students over time. This evidence then supports movement along Cynthia Coburn’s scale—deepening and building ownership of effective practices. It also prepares teams of administrators and teachers to support the spread. As teams begin to spread the work, they are not just sharing practices but articulating the conditions that made those practices successful. They can name what changed during testing, what supported implementation, and how the work affected them as educators, their students, and the broader system. As Doug Reeves details in Deep Change Leadership: A Model for Renewing and Strengthening Schools and Districts, these stories and evidence of impact is critical for buy-in. 

Leadership involvement on the Improvement Team is pivotal to the initial testing and sustainability of the improved system. Having a district central office administrator serve as the team lead is a non-negotiable for Ed Partners. The district leader brings authority, reinforces that the work is a district expectation, and ensures teams have the time, resources, and support they need. At the same time, principals are also essential members and leaders on the team. The principals support the teachers on the team every day and are key contributors to spreading and scaling across their site and to other schools. For this work to be a real priority, districts must set the expectation, and principals must make it a reality through planning days, staff meetings, and ongoing site-based support.

Teachers are at the heart of the system. They are the ones delivering effective practices that impact student learning every day. As my colleague Laura Schwalm often reminds us, a district is no better than its teachers. When teachers develop deep ownership of this work and see its impact on their students, they will advocate for it—even in the face of new leadership. Starting small, going slow to go fast, and spreading what works ensures the work takes root. Ultimately, sustainability means the district creates its own way of being. We see the best results when district teams begin to say “this is how we do things here.” It becomes “the way,” not just an initiative. Queue The Mandalorian theme song.