Instructional Leadership Teams: Gain Traction on Your Most Important Priorities: (A Playbook for School & District Leaders)

Most school-improvement initiatives—especially in high-needs, disadvantaged schools—fail or show little improvement. Given the pressing challenges educators face each day, it’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day fires and priorities and lose sight of where you’re trying to get. Unfortunately, good intentions are not enough when it comes to driving and sustaining growth. So where do district and school leaders begin?
The main reason for failure in strategic initiatives is the lack of execution. However, in school improvement efforts specifically, Instructional Leadership Teams (ILTs) can be one of the greatest levers to improving student achievement.
As one of the three key levers schools can implement for bringing improvement, ILTs not only set the vision and goals, but as a cohesive group of leaders, they proactively, efficiently, and regularly work through issues that impede progress so that real student achievement and learning can happen. ILTs work in partnership with instructional coaching and professional learning communities, the other two levers that have been proven in helping schools bring about bold and equitable change.
Typically, the ILT is comprised of the principal, assistant principal/dean of students, instructional coach(es), PLC coaches, reading/math coaches, and select teachers representing a variety of grade levels, content areas, and years of service. Members of the ILT serve as both the visionaries and the integrators of the important instructional work in the building.
The ultimate goal of the ILT is to impact student performance by implementing and supporting instructional practices that grow students. It is critical for the ILT to routinely collect evidence to measure how its actions are affecting teacher practices, community conditions, and student learning within the school or organization.
This playbook provides step-by-step for district leaders (such as chief academic officers and directors in teaching & learning or curriculum & instruction), principals, and other school leaders on how to run an ILT and is designed for teams to support their implementation of meaningful processes that can be used to effectively: identify high-lever initiatives that lead to student success; and execute those initiatives with focus, discipline, and accountability.