We make continuous adult learning part of the DNA of thriving schools.

For the past 13+ years, we have partnered with some of the fastest-improving districts in the country to give their educators the tools, skills, and confidence to offer students real opportunities and produce real results.

Whether developing teacher leaders or sharpening the skills of content leaders within the central office, we know how to build capacity for world-class teaching. When you add relevant support, academic focus, and shared learning and planning to teachers’ enthusiasm and experience, you build a foundation that can adapt to evolving standards and student needs. We’ve helped school systems achieve lasting change so students and teachers thrive today and beyond.

Our Approach

Reaching scalable and sustainable system improvement takes differentiated support at all levels.

Consider a construction crew on a building site: specific technical conditions are needed for a construction crew to do their job well. Things like a project plan, sound blueprints, scaffolding and other safety structures, sufficient staffing, and well-maintained machinery determine success. There are also adaptive components: a supervisor to coordinate tasks, a team with complementary roles and specialized skills, and checkpoints to problem-solve or make adjustments. The conditions connect all the “moving parts.”

Within education, conditions are the key elements and resources needed at the school and system levels to best support teachers’ work. 

Our school and systems conditions framework covers three key areas:

• A vision for  excellent teaching and learning
• Aligned roles, responsibilities, and resources
• Integrated learning for impact

When these conditions are in place, teachers are more likely to grow as professionals, and students are more likely to have experiences that help them live up to their own potential. Ultimately, system conditions are akin to fertile soil in a thriving garden—essential for empowered teachers and successful students.

The six conditions required for Instructional Strategy success

As we partner, we collaboratively monitor and build six conditions key to strong professional learning systems. These six conditions enable and reinforce dynamic systems where teachers and students continuously learn and improve together:

1. Defined Vision: Creates a clear, standards-aligned vision for instruction that integrates academic achievement, wellness, and belongingness.
2. Stakeholder Ownership: Ensures the vision has community buy-in and people remain invested in it over time through ongoing engagement.
3. Aligned Roles and Responsibilities: Aligns the work of teachers, leaders, and staff across the district around instructional improvement through well-defined roles and feedback systems.
4. Aligned Resources: Aligns high-quality curriculum, assessments, instructional materials, time, and other resources with our shared vision for teaching and learning.
5. Focused Professional Learning: Ensures that everyone has professional development opportunities to learn in collaboration and grow their practice, from classroom to district levels.
6. Data-Driven Improvement: Uses data on implementation and impact to understand professional learning effectiveness and student progress, informing continuous improvement.

Learn more about these conditions and why they’re vital to school and system success.