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BLT Leadership Domain: Culture of Continuous Improvement


Building 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

1. Use a systematic improvement process

  • The school uses the Ohio Improvement Process (OIP) by establishing leadership teams at the building and teacher-team levels.
  • The school’s leadership teams use the five steps of the OIP.
  • The school designs and uses procedures and tools that encourage continuous improvement–both individual and collective.
  • At least 75% of the school’s educators understand and use the Ohio Improvement Process (OIP) or a comparable improvement process.
  • At least 75% of the school’s educators use systematic procedures for improving their own practice.

2. Establish and maintain focus

  • 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.
  • 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.

3. Maintain alignment across leadership teams

  • The school ensures that the work of teacher teams (e.g., TBTs) is aligned with the work of the BLT.
  • All teacher teams (e.g., TBTs) share their minutes and their data summaries with the BLT.

4. Use data wisely

  • The BLT determines which types of data are instructionally relevant and ensures that all teacher teams can generate (or locate) and interpret those types of data.
  • At least 75% of instructional personnel can identify and interpret instructionally relevant data.

5. Ensure fidelity in the use of evidence-based practices

  • The BLT Identifies evidence-based strategies for instruction and intervention.
  • The BLT works with the school’s teacher teams (e.g., TBTs) to share evidence-based strategies for instruction and intervention.
  • The BLT supports school efforts to ensure that all instructional personnel are able to use agreed-upon evidence-based strategies for instruction and intervention.
  • 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.

6. Monitor improvement structures and processes (e.g., BLT meetings, fidelity of implementation, school-wide data use)

  • The BLT routinely monitors the effectiveness of its meetings.
  • School leaders and BLT members routinely monitor the implementation of focused improvement strategies across the school.
  • School leaders and the BLT routinely monitor school-wide data use.
  • 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).