RedefinED Atlanta is proud to partner with TNTP to help provide school leaders with clear, actionable insights to improve their school culture and climate. One of our key levers is the TNTP Instructional Culture Insight Survey, which is now serving its second cohort of schools. This survey gathers feedback from teachers across schools, giving each school a better sense of their unique strengths and opportunities, as well as a more holistic view of our Metro Atlanta school ecosystem.
In addition to the regular reports, RedefinED launched a new measure to better support our schools: we brought together school leaders to ground ourselves in a shared understanding of trajectory-changing schools, review the most recent round of survey results, and learn new strategies from one another.
It was humbling and inspiring to see not only a great turnout at the event but also a deep passion and commitment from leaders to strengthen support for their teachers and students.
We started the convening by working together to paint the ideal educator experience. During our gallery walk, it was encouraging to see several paintings with words like: collaborative, innovative, supported, purposeful, and, most importantly, joyful. This is what we are working towards for our students: a future where everyone can enjoy learning, with the confidence that systems are in place to help them succeed.
With this goal in mind, we then transitioned into turning the TNTP data into action plans. Together, we reviewed the bright spots in the data and opportunities for growth. Afterwards, school leaders identified one area of growth to focus on and one core question that would give them insight into potential solutions. Then they worked in small communities of practice to answer each other’s questions and create plans to address their problem using the advice from the leaders around them.
Across the board, academic expectations and instructional planning proved to be the key focus. In other words, schools were collectively working towards not only setting high expectations for student performance, but were also thinking deeply about how to create a school culture that would foster a belief that students can meet those expectations. That includes increasing support for teachers in creating instruction plans catered to their students’ needs. These areas have surfaced as places of opportunity over the last two administration rounds, so it was exciting to see a renewed effort across communities to strengthen teacher supports. I’m optimistic that our next round of survey data in the spring will show growth, especially given the additional support we are providing schools through our ANET benchmark assessments.
And I’m not the only one. Following the convening, one of our school leaders reached out to say they “really appreciated the opportunity to walk through [the] data, collaborate with other school leaders, and begin developing a plan of action.”
I’m excited to continue hosting more gatherings that help us learn and grow as a Metro Atlanta community. Together, we can secure our region’s future as a place where every student has access to a great K–12 public school.
If you are excited too, and want to learn more about bringing TNTP into your school, please reach out at ecastilloleon@redefinedatlanta.org. And stayed tuned for part two of this series, where we’ll take a closer look at the strengths and opportunities coming out of the Instructional Culture Insight Survey!