Schools' building-level leadership teams (BLTs) engage in continuous learning through inquiry processes. They promote school-wide learning by using a systematic improvement process, establishing and maintaining focus, aligning the work of leadership teams, using data wisely, using evidence-based practices with fidelity, and monitoring processes and outcomes.
| Characteristics of Effective Practice by Districts and Their Schools |
Acceptable Implementation |
Acceptable Scale |
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1. Use a systematic improvement process
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- The school uses a systematic improvement process by establishing leadership teams at the building and teacher-team levels.
- The school’s leadership teams use four or five steps of a systematic improvement process.
- The school designs and uses procedures and tools that encourage continuous improvement–both individual and collective.
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- At least 75% of the school’s educators understand and use a systematic improvement process.
- At least 75% of the school’s educators use systematic procedures for improving their own practice.
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2. Establish and maintain focus
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- The school adopts a small set of focused school-wide improvement strategies that align with district-wide improvement strategies.
- The school makes staff assignments that support the accomplishment of district-wide and school-wide goals.
- The school provides instructional personnel with coaching support that prepares them to use school-wide strategies for improving teaching and learning.
- When employing new personnel, the school selects individuals whose skills and dispositions fit with school and district priorities. • At least 75% of the school’s instructional personnel can list the school-wide improvement strategies.
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- At least 75% of the school’s instructional personnel have received coaching support that prepares them to use school-wide strategies for improving teaching and learning.
- At least 75% of the school’s instructional personnel endorse district-wide and school-wide goals and strategies.
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3. Maintain alignment across leadership teams
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- The school ensures that the work of teacher teams is aligned with the work of the school's building-level leadership team.
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- All teacher teams share their minutes and their data summaries with the school's building-level leadership team.
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4. Use data wisely
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- The school's building-level leadership team determines which types of data are instructionally relevant and ensures that all teacher teams can generate (or locate) and interpret those types of data.
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- At least 75% of instructional personnel can identify and interpret instructionally relevant data.
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5. Ensure fidelity in the use of evidence-based practices
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- The school's building-level leadership team identifies evidence-based strategies for instruction and intervention.
- The school's building-level leadership team works with the school’s teacher teams to share evidence-based strategies for instruction and intervention.
- The school's building-level leadership team supports school efforts to ensure that all instructional personnel are able to use agreed-upon evidence-based strategies for instruction and intervention.
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- The use of agreed-upon instructional strategies is recorded in 75% of all walk-through observations.
- Teacher-team data show fidelity of implementation levels of 75% or higher.
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6. Monitor improvement structures and processes (e.g., leadership team meetings, fidelity of implementation, school-wide data use)
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- The school's building-level leadership team routinely monitors the effectiveness of its meetings.
- School leaders and leadership team members routinely monitor the implementation of focused improvement strategies across the school.
- School leaders and the school's building-level leadership team routinely monitor school-wide data use.
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- At least 75% of instructional personnel participate in discussions focusing on data gauging the effectiveness of improvement processes (e.g., leadership team meetings, fidelity of implementation of agreed-upon practices).
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