Texas (VIP) Partner Program

Program Participants

Our Texas VIP program is for school leaders, including principals, assistant principals, academic deans and teacher-coaches, who support the growth and development of teachers. In work with leaders across the country, we have found that vertically aligned teams, including Principal Managers and Campus teams, support long-term improvement efforts.

Program Focus

Relay will provide a regional support program for school leadership teams over the course of a two-year engagement. The participating campuses will receive targeted support throughout the school year. In addition to targeted coaching and support, participants will engage in monthly professional development learning sessions with leaders from participating districts and campuses.

Year 1

• Monthly, full day professional development planning sessions
• Bi-monthly coaching visits (direct in school or virtual)
• Full leadership team participation

Year 2

• Principal-centered coaching and development
• Targeted implementation planning
• Collaborative problem solving
• System evaluation and action planning
  

Our program focuses on the following Effective Schools Framework Essential Actions:

Essential Action 1.1: Develop campus instructional leaders (principal, assistant principal, counselors, teacher leaders) with clear roles and responsibilities

• Our programming supports leaders in defining roles and responsibilities within campus and regional leadership teams to support distributive leadership. We also work closely with leaders to lead with equity centered practices.

Examples of how our program aligns to this Essential Action:

• Creation of campus leadership team meeting matrix
• Leadership team agenda and supporting protocols
• Planning support to drive essential leadership actions
• Training to align leadership practices under a common framework
  

Essential Action 3.1: Compelling and aligned vision, mission, goals, values focused on a safe environment and high expectations

• Through our regional support work and professional development sessions, leaders will refine their mission and values, analyze how their mission and vision come to life in their campuses, and ensure that their practices and policies are supportive of all students and adults.

Examples of how our program aligns to this Essential Action:

• PD Session: Leading an Equity-Centered Culture
• Planning staff and student rollout of school-wide equity-centered culture routines and procedures
• Direct support planning to launch the year with a “Strong Start”
  

Essential Action 4.1: Daily use of high-quality instructional materials aligned to instructional planning calendars and interim and formative assessments

• Coaching teachers to impact student learning begins with Weekly Planning Meetings. Effective leaders work with their teachers to deeply internalize lesson content so that they can achieve great Tier 1 instruction that puts the cognitive demand on the students. Leaders will engage in a study of Weekly Planning Meetings which focus on prioritizing the lesson's moments of productive struggle, and prepare teachers to deliver rigorous content such that all students can access and achieve at a high level.

Examples of how our program aligns to this Essential Action:

• Engage in a study of Weekly Planning Meetings which focus on prioritizing the lesson’s moments of productive struggle
• Building systems and structures that support effective planning meeting (including support with HQIM selection)
• PD Session: Leading (ELA or Math) Weekly Data Meetings
• Observe and coach the implementation of Weekly Planning Meeting

Essential Action 5.1: Effective classroom routines and instructional strategies

• Leaders will be introduced to the “See it, Name it, Do it.” model of giving feedback. This framework is an efficient way to provide feedback so that teachers see a model of success, see the gaps in their teaching, name their action steps, and plan and practice for its implementation. We will also explore how real-time feedback can support teacher growth.

Examples of how our program aligns to this Essential Action:

• Practice selecting and writing the highest leverage action step for teacher growth and improvement
• Learning and practicing the See it. Name it. Do it. framework
• Leading Practice Clinics
  

Essential Action 5.3: Data-driven instruction

• The process of data-informed instruction (DII) can transform a school, as it forces us to confront the fabled tree-forest conundrum in the context of our schools: If there's teaching going on, but the students are not learning, is it really teaching? In our program, leaders will develop the skills and mindsets to develop and refine a strong data-informed instructional program, grounded in an equity-centered DI culture that supports leaders in answering the questions, ‘are students learning?’ and ‘what do we do if they are not?’.

Examples of how our program aligns to this Essential Action:

• Building the systems and structures to establish a data-informed instructional program with an equity-centered DI Culture
• Developing and evaluating interim assessments to guarantee that they meet rigor bar set by national, state, and local standards
• Designing a Multi-Tier System of Support (MTSS) to provide academic interventions based on data
  

Program Experience

Research has shown that school leadership matters, influencing student outcomes in significant ways. Our program develops school leaders’ skills in culture and instruction, helping leaders to align their decisions to the needs of their students, teachers, school, and communities. We delve deeply into areas such as:

• Centering Equity:  Strengthening awareness and strategies to systematically increase opportunity and remove barriers for historically underserved students
• Instructional Rigor: Building deep knowledge of the instructional shifts and evidence of teaching and learning required by new standards
• Coaching: Building skills in observation and coaching, to support all teachers
• Data-Informed Instruction: Leading teams in effective lesson internalization and response to student learning needs
• Strategic Planning: Planning for implementation, monitoring progress, and practicing strategies for responding to close gaps. 
  

What makes a great partnership? Learn about more about what kind of organizations we work with and how we support them in Supporting Conditions and Infrastructure.

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