Improvement Communities
Stemming from annual Catalyze (formerly Just Schools Academy) events, we offer guided monthly sessions with Baylor experts and other school teams around shared problems of practice. What you and your school's team begin at Just Schools Academy, we walk alongside you throughout the year to help you succeed in your goals.
Collective leadership is dependent on doing good work toward shared goals together. This kind of leadership work for school improvement is done best when it involves key teachers and administrators. Building on the Carnegie Foundation’s work that is bringing improvement science into education, we are partnering with independent and public schools around the country to work on shared adaptive goals. Over the course of the next year, we hope to build additional networks of schools around these five areas that are critical to school improvement:
Problem of practice | Adaptive improvement |
| Limited leadership pipeline | Collective leadership development |
| Inadequate teaching quality | Peer observation and feedback |
| Talent management / development | Teacher and administrator evaluation / feedback |
| Limited resources | Strategic compensation |
| Engaged student learning | Assessment as learning Innovative curriculum design Enhanced student engagement |
We will address these issues through our Academies, and we hope to achieve sustained engagement through monthly virtual meetings where teams of teachers and administrators develop tools, skills, and approaches to these challenges together. We have proven tools for facilitation and implementation that can be adapted to meet the unique needs of individual schools and networks.
Check the Catalyze webpage for information on upcoming event opportunities.