When the first schools shuttered in March 2020, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) knew their districts would need support navigating the challenges posed by the COVID-19 outbreak. That support manifested in the Resilient Schools Support Program (RSSP): a robust recovery plan for 180+ districts across the state of Texas affected by pandemic-era school closures. RSSP provided tailored, targeted support to help Texas schools transition to online learning and address student declines in foundational skills and social-emotional learning needs.
Technical Assistance Providers (TAP), including Bellwether, provided pandemic recovery and acceleration plans and continuous implementation assistance to RSSP schools from September 2020 to June 2024. Bellwether’s Academic and Program Strategy (APS) teamlet worked with 10 diverse districts and charter networks across Texas to improve student learning in targeted subgroups and grade levels. Composed of 11 experts, APS has a combined 141 years of experience as teachers, school leaders, and district/charter network leaders, with deep expertise in instructional design, research-based instructional strategies, and implementation.
Each district in the RSSP, paired with a Bellwether APS instructional coach, set a research-based learning acceleration priority; coaches then designed implementation and measurement plans to put those priorities into action to help district leaders and students get back on track post-pandemic.
This is the second in a series on Bellwether’s four-year partnership with the state of Texas through the RSSP. The views below are Bellwether’s only and do not reflect those of the RSSP or an affiliated external agency.
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From 2021 to 2024, Bellwether served as a TAP for Harmony Public Schools, one of Texas’ largest charter networks. Harmony has 62 public charter schools organized in six districts across the state, serving nearly 42,000 students in pre-K through grade 12. Siobhan Gardner, a senior consultant in Bellwether’s APS teamlet, served as Harmony’s RSSP coach, leading the charge to implement a research-based learning acceleration strategy known as Just In Time Interventions (JITI).
During the first two years of the partnership, Gardner helped Harmony plan for student interventions that proactively addressed learning gaps in ELA and math. Training for Harmony leaders and teachers focused on designing scaffolds to help students develop mastery of rigorous grade-level standards in these subjects. The third and final year of the partnership focused on sustainability and change management, ensuring long-term success across the organization.
Harmony Public Schools across the state of Texas
The work of implementing one learning acceleration priority across a network of 62 diverse schools and geographies was quite a different task than implementing one with a handful of schools in one region. Here are four major insights we gleaned from partnering with a large charter network in this multiyear effort.
1. Efficient systems enable educators to do “the real work.”
One major perk of a large charter network is its capacity to build systems that automate or expedite elements of teaching and learning. Systems like data dashboards, curriculum hubs, and video platforms take significant time to create and maintain, which can be a challenge for a district with fewer full-time employees or more limited funding. A large network, on the other hand, has power in numbers: There are more staff available to determine organizational priorities, build those systems, and maintain them over time.
Bellwether worked with Harmony to identify the network’s priorities and then put those priorities into action. For instance, after determining the importance of accelerating student mastery in mathematics, Gardner and her team helped Harmony determine where they had the capacity for this undertaking. Harmony then refined its infrastructure to create more ease in the diagnostic process, like administering a diagnostic monitoring system and creating teacher and leader training on diagnostic data use.
This suite of tools allowed Harmony to shift the way they approached teaching. Rather than only reteaching when students struggled with the material, Harmony embraced pre-teaching, focusing on future student learning needs rather than on past learning gaps. Teachers were able to better assess their students’ grasp on the material, dynamically adapting future lessons to cover those learning needs.
This work was particularly feasible in a larger network with a larger central office like Harmony’s. Using their size to their advantage, large districts can prioritize systems and structures that sustain themselves year-over-year, freeing up more time for instructional practices that address COVID-19 learning gaps.
2. Coaching across multiple levels of the organization allows for maximum impact.
It may be tempting for an external provider to direct coaching and support to one point person on a major and multiyear project. However, expanding the definition from “point person” to “core committee” allowed Gardner to partner with the Harmony team at multiple levels of the charter network.
Gardner recruited the chief program officer and the director of instruction to work alongside academic leaders like the directors of elementary math and elementary reading. Through consistent biweekly meetings, these leaders shared learning experiences, troubleshooted issues, and created continuous communication across the organization. By working in a cross-functional committee structure, coaches can increase the capacity of multiple leaders and create a self-sustaining, collaborative environment.
3. Regular internal communication across stakeholder groups creates alignment and progress.
Staff can easily get siloed because their work and subject matter expertise goes deep by design.“Cascading communication” — looping in different organizational roles through progressive waves of clear, transparent status updates — is a more effective tool to bring people along at an appropriate rate so they can anticipate what’s next and pivot as appropriate.
Gardner approaches districtwide communication as a slow but steady drip of information that eventually permeates an entire organization. At Harmony, district leaders cascaded communications across the board, ensuring that campus leaders knew what was on the horizon, and disseminated information in kind.
Leaders must change-manage and set expectations with staff, but they don’t have to have all the answers before sharing their knowledge with stakeholders. On the contrary: when network leaders share what they know as they know it, they can socialize ideas and build buy-in along the way rather than wait to have every detail in place and hope all involved will pivot quickly. As a result, school-based leaders can stay in continuous communication and alignment across multiple levels of an organization, reconciling and linking pertinent information for stakeholders.
4. Ongoing partnerships offer more opportunities for long-term success.
Over the course of three years, Gardner created materials, facilitated demonstrations, and helped to build and manage systems for Harmony. But perhaps one of her most valuable offerings was to be a consistent voice and thought partner for network leaders.
Because Gardner was the consistent provider for Harmony for the entire RSSP, she built institutional knowledge, trust, and lasting relationships that enabled her to take on different responsibilities as needed. This allowed her to expedite certain work and share the historical and institutional context of the JITI strategy when staff transitions and succession plans occurred in the organization.
When Gardner closed out with the network at the end of the three-year journey, leaders reflected that she offered the insights that only an outsider could. At the same time, her enduring support made her feel like she was an internal member of the Harmony team. Her long-term partnership translated to long-term impact on the teachers, leaders, and more than 40,000 students enrolled in Harmony Public Schools.
