Overview
NorthStar Education Partners collaborated with KIPP Public Schools Northern California (KIPP NorCal) to enhance both operations and academic performance by focusing on the growth and development of school-based operations staff and improving instructional culture. This partnership involved designing and implementing comprehensive frameworks and toolkits to support excellence in school operations and teaching.
Objectives
KIPP NorCal partnered with NorthStar to:
- Define Operations Excellence: Create a common definition of excellence for operations leaders, synthesizing national best practices with KIPP NorCal’s existing practices.
- Develop Support Tools for Operations Staff: Design tools for goal setting, planning, development, and evaluation cycles to support the growth of operations staff.
- Enhance Instructional Culture: Develop and implement a comprehensive Talent Framework and shared definition of teaching excellence.
- Design a Teacher Coaching Model: Create a comprehensive teacher coaching model, including templates, a coaching platform, and protocols for analyzing and responding to coaching trends.
- Align Performance Management: Establish a performance management cycle focused on teacher growth and development.
Partner
KIPP Public Schools Northern California
Location: Northern California
Enrollment & Schools
18 campuses serving 12,000 students with 98% college acceptance and 22,000 alumni
Mission Statement
Together with families and communities, KIPP Public Schools Northern California creates joyful, academically excellent schools that prepare students with the skills and confidence to pursue the paths they choose—college, career and beyond—so they can lead fulfilling lives and create a more just world.
Key Activities & Deliverables
Operations Excellence
- Defining Excellence: Created a common definition of excellence for operations leaders by synthesizing national best practices and KIPP NorCal’s existing practices.
- Performance Management Toolkit: Developed a toolkit including guiding principles, an operations excellence rubric, development arcs, coaching videos, and templates for development plans, skip-level meetings, and implementation plans.
- Support Tools: Designed a suite of aligned tools for goal setting, quarterly planning, development, and evaluation cycles to support the growth of operations staff towards the common definition of excellence.
Instructional Culture and Teacher Coaching
- Talent Framework: Developed and implemented a comprehensive Talent Framework.
- Teaching Excellence: Created a shared definition of teaching excellence and aligned existing talent practices to the new Teaching Excellence Rubric.
- Coaching Model: Designed a comprehensive teacher coaching model, including coaching templates, a coaching platform (Whetstone), and protocols for school teams to analyze and respond to coaching trends.
- Instructional Coaching Pilot: Launched an instructional coaching pilot with customized technology and a kickoff professional development session. Implemented processes for gathering feedback on the pilot in preparation for scaling.
- Training and Feedback: Captured video for training principals and other school leaders in the use of the Teaching Excellence Rubric and implemented feedback mechanisms.
Outcomes
NorthStar and KIPP NorCal successfully developed and launched comprehensive frameworks and toolkits for both operations and academic teams. This collaboration resulted in:
- Enhanced Operations: Improved school site operations through the growth and development of operations staff, supported by a robust performance management toolkit.
- Strengthened Instructional Culture: Improved student achievement and teacher retention through a comprehensive Talent Framework and a clear definition of teaching excellence.
- Effective Coaching: Implemented a comprehensive teacher coaching model, leading to enhanced instructional practices and better support for teachers.
Read more case studies and learn how NorthStar Education Partners is transforming education through strategic partnerships and innovative approaches.