The bottom line for the success or failure of this plan will be student achievement. More specifically, our goal is to ensure that all HISD students graduate from high school ready to succeed in the college and career of their choice. If we do that, we will become the best school district in America.

Transforming HISD is a multiyear effort, and it will require our patience and collective vigilance to stay focused on the issues that have the greatest potential to improve the academic performance of our students.

Strategic Direction Roles: Click here to see a description of the roles everyone-parents, students, the community, employees, and the district-will play as we move forward.

Core Initiative 1: Effective Teacher in Every Classroom

One of HISD’s key priorities in its Strategic Direction is to ensure that there is an effective teacher in every classroom. The superintendent and members of the Board of Education have already made policy changes and taken action to increase the number of effective teachers in HISD, as well as to provide increased opportunities for our most-struggling students to be taught by a highly effective teacher. Foremost among these efforts is our groundbreaking and ongoing partnership with The New Teacher Project. Putting an effective teacher in every classroom is not an empty slogan for HISD—it is a core strategy that drives our policies and practices. And it is based on robust research that tells us that teachers are by far the most powerful school-based factor in a child’s academic success or failure.

In order to increase the number of effective teachers in our classrooms, we will focus on the following key strategies:

1.Strengthening teacher recruiting, selection, and staffing polices to attract top talent

2.Establishing a rigorous and fair teacher-appraisal process to inform key decisions

3.Providing effective individualized support and professional development

4.Offering meaningful career pathways and differentiated compensation to retain the most-effective teachers

Core Initiative 2: Effective Principal in Every School

HISD has a tradition of decentralizing decisions to the school level, which is emerging nationally as a best practice. However, our current systems do not support a consistent standard of excellence in school leadership. Many of our principals have excelled with little oversight and support from the central office, but many others have not. Our goal is to ensure that our principals are empowered instructional leaders and decision-makers with clear expectations. We know that with the right supports and standards, principals are best positioned to improve the quality of instruction within schools and strengthen parent and community engagement.

In order to increase the number of effective principals in our schools, we will focus on the following key strategies:

1.Designing and implementing a rigorous, fair principal appraisal system

2.Creating clear standards and recommended practices to guide decision making

3.Instituting stronger principal-recruiting practices

4.Implementing a more robust instructional leadership development program

5.Developing standards and supports for safe, secure, and healthy school environments

Core Initiative 3: Rigorous Instructional Standards and Supports

HISD has a number of outstanding academic programs across the district. However, there is substantial variation in the availability of these programs across and within schools. In addition, while maintaining our decentralized model and continuing to be a district of choice, we believe it is essential that a common rigorous instructional foundation be put in place across all schools, with established, specific approaches for addressing underperformance so that every student has the supports required to achieve.
In order to ensure that there are rigorous instructional standards and supports, we will focus on the following key strategies:

1.Providing equity in access to high-quality educational programs and instruction

2.Developing and implementing an aligned standards-based curriculum and assessment system

3.Using the Response to Intervention model districtwide to provide early, effective assistance to children with behavior issues and/or who have difficulty learning

4.Launching the Apollo 20 project to transform the lowest-performing schools

5.Implementing a comprehensive literacy program in grades pre-k through 12

6.Implementing a comprehensive numeracy/mathematics program in grades pre-k through 12

Core Initiative 4: Data-Driven Accountability
 
The strategic use of data to track and monitor performance and hold leadership accountable to a set of objective standards has been a critical factor in the success of many education reform efforts across the country. HISD is far ahead of many districts in terms of the accessibility of information, but access to data is often difficult, data records can be incomplete or inaccurate, some end-users lack the expertise to use data strategically, and processes are not designed to achieve the most favorable results. Investing in new and more robust technology infrastructure, systems, and processes will be critical to addressing these issues and enabling HISD to use key data to inform its decisions and manage high levels of performance districtwide.

In order to increase the level of data-driven accountability, we will focus on the following key strategies:

1.Building better systems for collecting, retrieving, analyzing, and reporting data

2.Developing and implementing performance management tools and practices for decision-making

3.Designing effective and efficient business processes and procedures for optimization of resources and results

Core Initiative 5: Culture of Trust Through Action
 
A powerful sense of community and a shared direction among all stakeholders is crucial to the successful transformation of HISD. Yet we know that the communication structures currently in place are insufficient to truly engage all of you. Throughout the process of developing the Strategic Direction, we have begun the movement toward a communications approach that is more interactive and transparent and better takes advantage of new technology. We know that to become the nation’s best school district, we will need a communications strategy and processes that make customer service a priority and that foster engagement, commitment, and unity of parents, students, staff members, the board, and the broader community.

In order to create a culture of trust through action, we will focus on the following key strategies:

1.Fostering effective, timely, two-way internal communication to engage staff members

2.Fostering effective, timely, two-way external communication to engage parents and community members