The Role of SSTs in Supporting Improvements in Instructional Leadership

Ohio's improvement strategy - the Ohio Improvement Process (OIP) - provides a framework for continuous district-wide improvement that helps district and school leaders make effective instruction for all learners their greatest priority.

The combination of OLAC's work in delineating essential leadership practices ("the what") and the use of the OIP ("the how") to support real implementation of such practices provides a vehicle for sustainable improvement by engaging teachers, principals, and others at the district and school level in effectively using relevant data to make better informed decisions about instructional practice; identifying a limited and focused set of goals and strategies to improve instructional practice across the district; developing shared instructional practice among adults in the system; fully implementing those shared instructional practices across the district; and monitoring the degree of implementation of those practices, and providing feedback and support in relation to what is/is not working well.

Ohio's state support teams (SSTs) play a pivotal role in supporting the use of OIP-OLAC to support system-wide improvements in instructional practice and student, adult, and organizational learning. SST personnel, functioning as external facilitators and coaches, work with district and school personnel in a variety of ways to build instructional leadership capacity.