Co-Created Customizable School Improvement Services
Every school has unique conditions and needs. McREL prioritizes context and collaboration when working with our school and district clients. We don’t deliver one-size-fits-all, off-the-shelf, prescribed programs. Before proposing any solutions or services, we first learn about your school community—your strengths and traditions, values and goals, culture, and areas of concern.
We then tailor our services to fit your specific needs, building contextualized solutions on a solid foundation of evidence-based best practices, forward-thinking concepts, an equity lens, and a systems approach to continuous improvement, including:
Strengthening school and district staff expertise and capacity for leading school improvement
Continuous improvement planning, implementation, monitoring, and sustainment
Curriculum analysis and alignment with standards, instruction, and assessments
Diagnostic school reviews, needs assessments, program evaluation, and recommendations
Professional learning and coaching for teacher and leader development
CSI/TSI turnaround and priority school improvement planning and implementation
Contact us today to learn more about our school improvement services and
see how we can help your school or district achieve its goals!
What Matters Most
What to Improve: What Matters Most®
Where should you focus your school improvement efforts? McREL’s analysis of research on effective schools and districts identified five high-leverage, high-payoff areas for school systems to invest in that are most likely to have positive effects on student success:
Challenging, engaging, and intentional instruction
Curricular pathways to success
Whole-child supports
High-performance school cultures
High-reliability district systems
Our team works with educators to help them gain deeper knowledge, skills, and processes needed to create and sustain these important conditions in their schools. We support our client schools’ improvement journeys with evidence-based professional learning, coaching, analysis, and technical assistance.
How to Improve: Curiosity Works® Improvement Phases
How do you begin a successful school improvement process that unites and empowers your teachers, staff, and community? McREL’s six-phase process for school improvement is based on key principles from improvement science, high-reliability organizations, and effective schools.
This approach, called Curiosity Works, works for schools of all performance levels and helps guide school leadership teams to understand and move through each phase at their school, using evidence-based, proven methods to support collaborative growth and collective efficacy.
Phase 1: Get Ready—Establish Shared Values, Moral Purpose, and Compelling Vision
Phase 2: Create Hopeful Urgency and Chart a Course
Phase 3: Focus on Teaching and Learning
Phase 4: Support Professional Learning and Collaboration
Phase 5: Embed Consistent, Deep Practices
Phase 6: Build a Purposeful Community
What our clients are saying . . .
“McREL has helped our staff to grow professionally and have a bigger impact on student learning.”
—Darrel Kohlman, superintendent, Kansas
“Our partnership with McREL has been extremely beneficial and is a
contributing factor toward the increase in our student achievement scores.”—Rik Devney, principal, Nebraska
