A predictable set of educator teams — freshman success, instructional leadership, postsecondary leadership, senior leadership, and care — drives improvement in NCS partner high schools¶

Design · All designs
Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 1 study (1 qualitative), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 1 claim rests on one study

Description¶

The paper describes the teaming structures used to drive improvement in NCS partner high schools, where visiting educators would likely find a predictable set of teams. Table A lays out five common teams with their members, responsibilities, and data: a Freshman Success Team monitoring the transition into high school using GPA, grades, attendance, behavior, and eighth-grade early warning data; an Instructional Leadership Team working on instructional coherence; a Postsecondary Leadership Team supporting college search, application, and enrollment; a Senior Leadership Team setting vision and monitoring high-level data; and a Care Team of specialists intervening with socially vulnerable students. A common collaboration rhythm is a bi-weekly meeting of roughly 45-60 minutes in which teams analyze data, set intervention strategies, and progress monitor. The paper argues distributed leadership and teaming structures are crucial for driving teacher collaboration at scale in large, complex high schools.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

Distributed leadership and teaming structures, with administrator support for each team
Dedicated meeting time in which teams analyze student data and monitor interventions

Constraints¶

Team structures look different across schools, and the paper notes high schools are often large, complex organizations where individual educators have limited time to collaborate

Target Learners¶

high school teacher teams and administrators
freshman success and postsecondary teams

Learning Goals¶

monitoring student transitions and academic achievement
organizing school-wide improvement efforts around shared data

Claims¶

High-performing CHSRI schools shared four practices for guiding and sustaining instructional improvement: defining leadership responsibilities, creatively distributing them, institutionalizing routines, and focusing team work on school-wide goals [+W]

Four Stages Data Strategy Understand Collect Transform Socialize
Four-stage data strategy cycle — understand, collect, transform, socialize — carried by a data strategist working with a team leader

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

Moeller, E., Seeskin, A., & Nagaoka, J. (2018). Practice-Driven Data: Lessons from Chicago's Approach to Research, Data, and Practice in Education. Chicago, IL: UChicago Consortium on School Research. https://consortium.uchicago.edu

Page metadata

Field	Value
`type`	`design`
`id`	`ncs-partner-high-school-team-structures`
`title`	`A predictable set of educator teams — freshman success, instructional leadership, postsecondary leadership, senior leadership, and care — drives improvement in NCS partner high schools`
`description`	`The paper describes the teaming structures used to drive improvement in NCS partner high schools, where visiting educators would likely find a predictable set of teams.`
`status`	`review`
`generated`	by `process:settle-candidates` on `2026-10-09`
`trust`	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
`sources`	1 — `moeller-2018`

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