Analyzing the Impact of COVID Recovery Funds in Massachusetts Education
Resource Toolbox
Since the federal government announced the distribution of ESSER funds, organizations across the nation have developed resources to inform district spending. The Toolbox is a one-stop shop for vetted, evidence-based resources designed to help school and district leaders make high-impact ESSER investments. Resources in the Toolbox are produced by a range of well-respected education research organizations.
Empowering, Adaptable Instruction
Evaluate the quality of your current curriculum to ensure that it meets students' diverse needs. Determine where you should invest ESSER funds to increase the quality and efficacy of your curricular materials.
EdReports conducts research on a wide array of curricula and evaluates their standards alignment and usability. For each curriculum they study, EdReports publishes an in-depth report explaining their methodology and offers detailed insight into their ranking criteria. This tool is ideal for instructional leaders looking to assess the quality of their current curriculum and/or the quality of curricula they are considering using in the future.
By Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
CURATE convenes panels of Massachusetts educators to review curricular materials and produce reports on each curriculum's alignment to Massachusetts standards and usability for teachers. CURATE's reports are a useful tool for instructional leaders seeking to identify high-quality curricular materials for their district.
Instructional Materials Evaluation Tool
By Achieve the Core
This tool is targeted toward those who seek to ensure that instructional materials are both academically rigorous and actively disrupting the racist systems and beliefs that are ingrained in the current education system. The IMET can be used to evaluate any existing curriculum, making it highly flexible for instructional leaders working across many grades and/or subject areas.
Select high-quality, culturally relevant instructional materials that will address gaps in learning and lay a strong foundation for continued academic and social-emotional development.
Selecting for Quality: Six Key Adoption Steps
by EdReports
EdReports details six key steps to follow when determining whether a curriculum will meet your students' needs. Instructional leaders can use the frameworks and guiding questions on this site to ensure that any new curricula they choose is both standards-aligned and able to meet the unique needs of a school's population.
by Great Schools Partnership
This toolkit on proficiency-based learning is a framework that allows school and district leaders to strategically plan their instruction around the most important standards and skills that students need to be successful in future grades, higher education, and careers. This model balances high educational standards with the need for flexibility, responsiveness, and creativity.
Culturally Responsive Curriculum Scorecard (2021)
by The Education Justice Research and Organizing Collaborative (EJ-ROC)
This tool allows educators and instructional leaders to explicitly evaluate their instructional materials for cultural responsiveness and ensure that their curriculum affirms the experiences of a diverse student body. Developed by Black and Latinx parents and the NYC Coalition for Education Justice, the Culturally Responsive Curriculum Scorecard uplifts community perspectives and supports schools in providing an affirming education for all students.
Priority Instructional Content in English Language Arts/Literacy and Mathematics
by Achieve the Core
This resource contains a roadmap for instructional leaders looking to choose, leverage, and develop content that addresses the highest-impact standards. By identifying content priorities at the K-8 and high school levels, this resource can help guide instructional decisions at the classroom, school, and district levels.
Provide flexible support to address students' particular needs at various points throughout their academic journeys. Have strong interventions in place to both support struggling students and develop students' talents.
Just In Time Intervention Planning Toolkit (2021)
By Bellwether Education
This tool, from Bellwether Education, is a highly actionable resource that instructional leaders and teachers can use to assess their readiness to implement "just-in-time" supports for students. Interactive and comprehensive, this intervention planning tool will support educators in their pursuit to accelerate student learning while providing the necessary scaffolding and support.
Accelerate, Don't Remediate: New Evidence from Elementary Math Classrooms (2021)
By TNTP
Research shows that by providing grade-appropriate instruction and "just-in-time" supports, educators can help students accelerate their learning. In this report, TNTP draws evidence from Zearn, an online math platform, showing that acceleration can help students access grade-level standards more quickly than remediation. It also outlines concrete steps districts can take now to prepare for learning acceleration in the 2022/23 school year.
by TNTP
Research shows that remediation holds many students back from accessing grade-level content. This toolkit can assist educators in providing high-quality instructional scaffolds without holding students back from grade-level work. Using this resource, school leaders and teachers can help accelerate student learning through the pandemic and beyond.
Provide high-quality, content-focused professional development so that teachers have the time and ability to understand their curriculum deeply and identify what background knowledge and skills students will need in order to access grade-level content.
by Education Resource Strategies
This tool is ideal for school and district leaders seeking to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their professional learning practices. Using evidence from four districts that have implemented high-impact professional development programs, ERS' Professional Learning Diagnostic Tool can help leaders determine whether or not their current professional learning practices are meeting the needs of teachers and students.
Effective Teacher Professional Development (2017)
by Learning Policy Institute
This report reviews methodologically rigorous studies that have demonstrated the link between professional development and student learning. Synthesizing findings from these 35 studies, the Learning Policy Institute defines effective professional development and proposes recommendations around how best to design and implement highly effective professional learning.
Developing a Professional Learning System for Adults in Service of Student Learning
by The Aspen Institute
This resource provides research-based guidance on creating ongoing, collaborative, content-aligned, differentiated professional learning systems that dramatically improve teacher quality.
Provide regular access to instructional expertise and concentrate expertise in buildings with the greatest need. This will ensure that novice teachers receive the necessary support and that all teachers have equitable access to coaching and curriculum support.
Sustained and Integrated Observation and Coaching Cycles
by Education Resource Strategies
This actionable guide is ideal for school and district leaders seeking to leverage the potential of coaching and observation cycles to support teacher development, create a culture of continued growth, and ensure schoolwide professional learning goals are implemented at the classroom level.
Improving Teaching Practice with Instructional Coaching
by Annenberg EdResearch for Recovery
This resource integrates best practices from the research on coaching into a comprehensive roadmap for building a high-impact coaching program. It answers key questions, including "Who are the best candidates to coach and be coached?" and "What do effective coaches do?"" It offers a cost-benefit analysis of coaching in relation to other interventions and clarifies the conditions necessary for implementing high-impact instructional coaching.
Instructional Coaching Practice Standards
by New Teacher Center
The Instructional Coaching Practice Standards guide schools in establishing a culture of collaboration and feedback when it comes to the work of instructional coaches. By introducing these standards and sticking to them, school leaders can support their instructional coaches to make a positive impact.
Leverage formal and informal assessment data to inform future instruction, student groupings, and in-the-moment responses to students' academic needs.
By The Learning Accelerator
This guide is a comprehensive roadmap for collecting and acting upon student data. It can help school leaders evaluate the current state of data in their buildings, collect strong data, and make informed instructional decisions.
Using Data to Improve Schools: A Toolkit for Educators
By Great Schools Partnership
This toolkit offers an array of resources to support educators in the process of collecting and leveraging data to support safe and equitable school communities. Using these resources, teachers and administrators can strengthen their data collection and management skills and adapt their data practices to reflect school values.
Provide time for content-focused and student-focused teacher collaboration so that teachers can share expertise, co-plan, and ensure that students are supported holistically.
by Great Schools Partnership
Professional Learning Groups (PLGs) provide educators with opportunities for structured and effective collaboration. This comprehensive guide to PLGs includes detailed background information and provides actionable guides to implementing PLGs in schools and districts. These tools can help instructional leaders develop and implement a PLG system that meets the unique needs of their staff.
Finding Time for Collaborative Planning: Connected Professional Learning Case Study
by Education Resource Strategies
Though teachers often long for collaborative opportunities, and research supports the effectiveness of collaborative planning, finding time for collaboration can be challenging. In this guide, ERS provides context around how American teachers currently spend their time and offers actionable strategies for school leaders looking to increase the amount of time teachers have to collaborate.
Use non-teaching staff to free up teachers for collaborative PD
by Unlocking Time by Abl
In small schools, teachers can often feel isolated and may lack content-area collaboration partners. To remedy this, Unlocking Time suggests using non-teaching staff creatively to both limit pull-outs during normal instructional time and free up content teachers to connect with colleagues in other schools within their district. This resource may be of interest to school and district leaders willing to get creative in order to create time for teacher collaboration.
Time and Attention
Ensure that students and educators have sufficient time for foundational, high-priority subjects and skill development so that instructional time efficiently supports students in building the skills that are necessary across subjects.
By District Management Group
This report uses a case study from Columbia, MO to exemplify how one district designed secondary school schedules in which students receive ample instruction in core subjects and targeted support when necessary. These recommendations are especially useful for secondary school leaders and superintendents seeking to get the most out of each school day while strategically offering academic interventions.
Reimagining Elementary Schedules for This Fall: Lessons Learned from the Pandemic
By District Management Group
This report addresses the complex task of crafting elementary schedules that account for health and safety, address students' social and emotional needs, and leave ample time for instruction in core subjects. Using evidence from remote and hybrid learning alongside best practices in school scheduling, this tool presents practical guidelines for elementary school leaders and superintendents looking to design a schedule that both aligns with instructional priorities and holistically addresses the unique needs of students in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
By Education Resource Strategies
In a time when many students have unmet academic and social-emotional needs, schedules can play a significant role in supporting them. This tool, from Education Resource Strategies, provides school and district leaders with a structured opportunity to reflect on their scheduling priorities and plan strategically to ensure that students' needs are met.
Structure the school day so that students experience a mix of large-group, small-group and 1:1 support from a team of educators who deeply understand both the curriculum and each student’s individual needs.
Targeted Attention Through Small Group Instruction in Early Literacy
By Education Resource Strategies
This resource provides guidance to district and school leaders looking to prioritize small-group time in students' schedules. Though this guide is tailored toward leaders at the elementary level, administrators at all levels may find the guiding questions and considerations useful when planning for small-group instruction.
By Center for American Progress
This report outlines five examples of innovative scheduling by highlighting the key features, costs, and outcomes of each design. School and district leaders seeking new scheduling ideas can use this resource to learn about different scheduling models and reflect on how a new schedule might impact their students and teachers.
By Unlocking Time
This tool is ideal for school and district leaders looking to experiment with new schedule designs. The Bell Schedule Builder by Unlocking Time makes it easy to visualize how instructional minutes are distributed throughout each day. Furthermore, this tool gives leaders strong insight into how various schedules might impact the daily experiences of staff and students.
Limit class sizes in core subjects and key grade levels and increase class sizes in other subjects to distribute as much teacher power as possible to the highest-impact subjects and grades (ex: limit class sizes in 3rd grade literacy or 9th grade algebra).
Denver: Trevista and McGlone: Shifting teacher roles to target instruction
By Education Resource Strategies
This case study explains concrete ways in which schools can redistribute teacher power to meet student and family needs. By taking an all-hands-on-deck approach and strategically integrating student teachers, specials teachers, and administrators into the teaching and learning ecosystem, these schools were able to offer more small-group support and wraparound student services.
Using Highest-Qualified Staff for 1:1 Support
By Learning Accelerator
This case study from Hopkins Public Schools exemplifies one district's choice to leverage their strongest educators for 1:1 support while paraprofessionals supervised classes and independent work times. This resource may serve as inspiration and guidance for administrators seeking to strategically distribute instructional expertise.
Prioritizing School Resources: The Freshman Academy at Revere High School
By Education Resource Strategies
The Freshman Academy at Revere High School offers a look into how one school strategically distributed teaching staff and skills to ensure that their 9th grade students receive the intensive support they need. This video resource gets into the challenges, tradeoffs, and successes that came along with this particular staffing choice. This resource will be most useful to school and district leaders currently facing staffing challenges and looking toward alternative models to support students in the highest-impact grades and subjects.
Explore options for providing intensive tutoring to groups of students who need the most help by partnering with local organizations and service providers, coordinating with a local university, or creating new roles for existing staff. This will give students with the greatest need more small-group and 1:1 instructional time.
Accelerating Student Learning with High-Dosage Tutoring
by Annenberg EdResearch for Recovery
High-dosage tutoring is one of the most effective strategies for accelerating student learning. Unfortunately, many students with the greatest academic needs have limited access to tutoring. This report by the Annenberg Institute explains how schools and districts can strategically use incoming federal funding to build high-quality tutoring programs. This resource is intended for school and district administrators seeking to strategically organize their resources and increase equity for all students.
By The Education Trust
In this brief, The Education Trust provides practical guidance to school and district administrators seeking to develop a robust tutoring plan. Drawing on data and best practices exemplified in multiple studies, the report identifies the most important elements of a successful tutoring program and proposes ways to ensure that your tutoring program is both impactful and cost-effective. It answers common questions to guide leaders through the process of designing and implementing this intervention.
By National Student Support Accelerator
Starting a high-impact tutoring program can be challenging. The Toolkit for Tutoring, by the National Student Support Accelerator, provides school and district leaders with an actionable roadmap for planning and implementation. Each step of the process is thoroughly explained using research and examples. This tool will help school leaders both begin new tutoring programs and improve existing ones.
Strategically integrate technology to help advance student learning and free up teachers to provide targeted instruction to students with the greatest academic and social-emotional needs.
Implement blended learning as either a portion of a day or for one day a week
By Unlocking Time
Blended learning can be a powerful tool that creates opportunities for self-directed learning and flexibility. In this model, students take online courses, work at their own pace, exercise choice in when and how they complete work, and are actively supported by teachers and facilitators in the same physical space. This resource, by Unlocking Time, will be most useful to school and district leaders looking to increase teacher capacity by leveraging a blended learning model.
Improving the Quality of Distance and Blended Learning
By Annenberg EdResearch for Recovery
The challenges of providing a high-quality education for students in distance and blended learning models are multifaceted. This brief analyzes the challenges that arise in distance and blended learning models and offers recommendations around how to leverage the strengths of these models to increase instructional quality. District and school leaders navigating distance and blended learning may find this brief especially useful in their planning and implementation processes.
Relationships & Social-Emotional Supports
Nurture a positive school culture by prioritizing role assignments, routines, and operating norms that allow students and educators to build trusting relationships.
Building Strong Relationships and Social-Emotional Supports
By Education Resource Strategies
This resource breaks down specific ways in which school and district leaders can allocate ESSER funds to invest in social-emotional learning and strong teacher-student relationships.
By Center for Great Teachers and Leaders: American Institutes for Research
This report offers insight around the impacts of trauma and adverse childhood experiences on student learning and development. The Educator Self-Assessment Tool offers guiding questions and planning materials that help teachers take stock of their strengths and weaknesses around providing high-quality SEL support for students.
The Importance of Strong Relationships
By The Education Trust
Research shows that strong teacher-student relationships accelerate student learning and support overall wellbeing, yet not all schools are structured to facilitate connections between staff and students. This brief describes structural choices that school leaders can make to prioritize relationship-building.
Develop internal infrastructure and implement routines to identify students who are chronically absent, struggling academically, and/or in need of social-emotional support. By including all students and families in your plan, you can ensure that students' needs are proactively identified and addressed.
Multi-Tiered Supports Through Early Warning Systems
By Education Resource Strategies
This resource provides school and district leaders with context around the need for early warning systems that proactively identify students in need of support and connect them with the appropriate services. It offers concrete ways that leaders can invest ESSER funds to coordinate student support in the post-pandemic era.
Building Social Emotional Competencies Through Integrated Student Supports
By Communities in Schools
Integrated student supports equips schools with resources and data to cultivate a culture of holistic student support. This resource discusses the link between integrated student supports and social-emotional learning. It provides concrete recommendations for district, state, and federal decisionmakers around implementing integrated student supports in Title I schools.
District Strategies to Reduce Chronic Absenteeism
By Annenberg EdResearch for Recovery
Chronic absenteeism can have detrimental impacts on students' holistic development. This research brief explores the challenges of chronic absenteeism and offers three tiers of intervention options for districts and schools working to decrease absenteeism.
Rapidly connect students and families to needed resources and effective school-based and third-party services that can help meet their distinct needs. Create clear communication procedures and designate specific staff members to manage these relationships so that students and families receive services in an organized and timely manner.
By Boston College Center for Thriving Children
This practice brief provides concrete guidelines for school leaders looking to develop their schools' ability to review and address the holistic strengths and needs of every child.
By Boston College Center for Thriving Children
A school coordinator role centralizes the job of connecting families and students to a comprehensive set of resources and services. This practice brief showcases research on why school coordinators matter, clarifies the role of the school coordinator, and provides a sample job description for the role.
Metro Nashville Public Schools: Staying in touch with students and families
By Education Resource Strategies
During remote learning, the Metro Nashville Public Schools implemented a navigator program in which teams of school personnel worked together to build and maintain relationships with students and families. School and district leaders can leverage this case study to design structures that nurture school-home connections and rapidly connect students and families to resources.
Develop a working bank of partners in your community who are available to support students and families with specific needs — this will help staff more seamlessly connect students and families with the resources they need.
Building Partnerships in Support of Where, When, and How Learning Happens
By The Aspen Institute
Research shows that learning happens both inside and outside of formal school settings. This resource, directed toward school and community leaders, provides context regarding the important role school-community partnerships play in students' access to learning and enrichment opportunities.
Analyzing the Resource Landscape
By Boston College Center for Thriving Children
This resource supports family/community liaisons and school leaders in identifying and organizing the resources available in their communities. This information allows school staff to quickly identify school- and community-based resources aligned to student needs.
Designing Community Partnerships to Expand Student Learning: A Toolkit
By The Colorado Education Initiative
School leaders and student support staff can use this toolkit as a comprehensive guide to vetting, selecting, and maintaining strong community partnerships in order to best support all students.
Prepare to meet the needs of students dealing with high-levels of trauma exacerbated by the pandemic by investing in training, materials, and staff. If schools prepare now, they can help mitigate the impacts of toxic-stress and challenging behaviors in the long term.
Preparing Schools to Meet the Needs of Students Coping with Trauma and Toxic Stress
By Annenberg EdResearch for Recovery
This brief provides guidance for educators and administrators on meeting the needs of students dealing with the adverse effects of trauma and toxic stress. It also includes research on the impact of trauma on the skills that students need to succeed in school.
Building a Positive School Climate Through Restorative Practices
By Learning Policy Institute
This brief reviews research on restorative practices, defines key terms and ideas, describes what these methods look like in practice, and addresses key implementation concerns. Teachers, school leaders, and district administrators looking to build a positive and nurturing school/classroom culture will find this report informative and actionable.
Building High-Quality Counseling Programs to Ensure Student Success
By Annenberg EdResearch for Recovery
This brief reviews research on mental health support in school, outlining best practices for school counseling programs. It provides recommendations for districts seeking to invest ESSER funds in high-impact school counseling.
Excellence through Social Emotional Learning Action Guide
By Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy
This resource provides actionable strategies for administrators and educators seeking to advance an equitable approach to social emotional learning in their schools and classrooms. It focuses on three core pillars of Transformative SEL: developing and affirming positive identities, fostering agency, and building a sense of belonging.
Identify which types of data about emerging student needs are most helpful to capture, for what purpose, and through what methods or processes. By narrowing in on good data, teachers and school leaders will be better equipped to proactively address student needs.
By Great Schools Partnership
This toolkit offers an array of resources to support schools in collecting and leveraging data to support safe and equitable school communities. Using these resources, school leaders can adapt their data practices to assess students' social emotional and academic needs.
Coming Back to Climate: How Principals Use School Climate Data to Lead Improvement
By The Aspen Institute
School climate data provides rich information about the holistic experiences of a school community and can help identify areas of strength and opportunities for growth. This report describes how school leaders can use climate data to develop a nurturing, equitable school culture.
Evidence-Based Practices for Assessing Students' Social and Emotional Well-Being
By Annenberg EdResearch for Recovery
This resource presents research-based strategies that school administrators, counselors, and teachers can use to evaluate students' social-emotional well-being. It includes descriptions of a range of valid and reliable assessment tools.
The Teaching Job
Protect teachers' time by ensuring that the work day and work year includes ample time for reflection, collaboration, and building individual connections with students without requiring long after hours work.
The Gift of Teacher Time: Making teachers' time a valued resource in your school
by Harvard Graduate School of Education
School leaders can reference this resource when making decisions about how to structure the school day to prioritize and protect the time teachers need to improve their instruction and build relationships with students.
Give teams professional time and engage student learning through “PLUS” days
by Unlocking Time by Abl
A PLUS day is a full day dedicated to collaboration and planning. This resource provides a detailed rationale for shifting to the PLUS day model and offers a case study to show the strategy in action.
Finding Time for Collaborative Planning: Connected Professional Learning Case Study
by Education Resource Strategies
In this guide, ERS provides context around how American teachers currently spend their time and offers actionable strategies for school leaders looking to increase the amount of time teachers have to collaborate.
Individualize student learning paths by reducing teachers' student loads in core subjects. This will allow teachers to build more meaningful connections with students, deeply engage in student work, and will help make teachers' workloads more manageable.
The Freshmen Academy of Revere High School: Revere High School Turnaround Focuses on 9th Grade
by Education Resource Strategies
Following the story of The Freshman Academy at Revere High School, this resource showcases how school and district leaders currently facing staffing challenges can look toward alternative models to support students in the highest-impact grades and subjects.
What schools can learn from learning pods about supporting effective teacher-student relationships
by Center for Reinventing Public Education
For those with access to them, COVID learning pods facilitated personalized learning and strong teacher-student relationships. This resource reviews the strengths of the pod model and can help leaders increase personalized learning opportunities for students.
Promoting Personalization through Learner Pathways
by Learning Accelerator
Learner Pathways are crafted around student choice, time for small group interventions, and differentiated learning. This resource provides instructional leaders with strategies to facilitate teacher-student connections and promote differentiated learning opportunities through the Learner Pathways model.
Leverage district buying power, community partnerships, and in-house expertise to organize wellness supports for teachers, such as in-school mini-substitutes or physical and mental health programs. These supports will make teaching more sustainable and will help reduce teacher turnover and burnout.
Structural Supports to Promote Teacher Well-Being
by Annenburg Institute & EdResearch for Recovery
Positive school culture and strong staff relationships are important in retaining teachers. This resource explicates clear strategies to provide sustainable support to teachers.
by Aspen Institute
This report outlines strategies that school and district leaders can implement to both support teacher wellbeing and equip staff to meet students' varied social emotional needs.
Prioritizing People: Purposeful investments to better support student and teacher mental health
by TeachPLUS
This resource highlights specific, teacher-recommended ways in which school and district leaders can organize their resources to prioritize teacher and student mental health and wellbeing.
Enhancing Relationships and Morale: A Back-to-School Toolkit for Administrators
by BARR Center
By implementing strategies from this toolkit, school leaders can initiate and sustain healthy and uplifting relationships with their staff.
Partner with local schools of education and teacher preparation programs to integrate teacher-residents, student-teachers, or practicum/field-work students into targeted classes on a part-time basis.
by Education First
The concrete examples and roadmaps presented in this resource can support school, district, and teacher prep administrators looking to initiate or strengthen their teacher preparation partnerships.
Partnerships Toolkit: Creating a Comprehensive Student Teaching Partnership
by the Department of Elementary & Secondary Education
This toolkit from DESE provides concrete resources and tools to help district administrators plan and execute robust student teaching partnerships that help sustain a healthy new teacher pipeline.
Develop new teachers using “shelter-and-develop” models that lighten their workload and leverage strong mentorship to accelerate their development. This allows new teachers to rapidly develop their skills in a supportive environment and may help schools retain teachers in the long term.
by Education Resource Strategies
This resource, designed for school and district leaders, provides guidance on building a "shelter and develop" model of new teacher training.
Sustaining Teacher Training In A Shifting Environment
by Annenberg Institute & EdResearch for Recovery
This brief offers strategies that can support early-career teachers and/or those who did not complete a traditional student teaching program.
by New Teacher Center
This resource provides research-based foundational, structural, and instructional standards to maximize the impact of school-based teacher mentorship programs.
Increase staffing stability by investing in teacher retention strategies. By actively developing staff and cultivating a culture of collaboration, shared learning, and professionalism, schools can increase the quality of teaching and learning and retain their most successful teachers for the long term.
If You Listen, We Will Stay: Why Teachers of Color Leave and How to Disrupt Teacher Turnover
by Education Trust & TeachPLUS
Diversifying the teacher workforce requires intentional efforts to hire and retain teachers of color. This report investigates underlying reasons why teachers of color leave their classrooms and identifies solutions to this complex problem.
Planning Teacher Stay Conversations
by TNTP
“Stay conversations” are discussions in which a school leader inquires about the conditions under which teachers feel incentivized to stay in their current roles/schools. This resource is a roadmap and planning guide for effective stay conversations.
4 Strategies to Increase Teacher Retention
by Hanover Research
This resource outlines four specific strategies that school and district leaders can implement to support teacher retention.
Teacher Retention Planning Guide
by TNTP
This document offers a structured process that school administrators can follow when planning to retain specific teachers.
Ensure that compensation is highly competitive with other professional roles and can grow based on one’s contribution and impact (for example, through teacher-leadership roles). Budget for significant stipends to incentivize and reward teachers who assume new responsibilities.
Teacher Compensation Calculator
by Education Resource Strategies
This interactive calculator helps district leaders create compensation packages that will attract, retain, and leverage teacher talent. It is designed for districts with traditional salary structures and accounts for teacher experience, leadership roles, education levels, and teacher effectiveness.
Teacher Salary Redesign Lessons from 10 First-Mover Districts
by Education Resource Strategies & Center for American Progress
This report investigates the specific ways in which ten districts restructured teacher compensation to both reward their strongest educators and raise salaries overall. It is most useful to district leaders in the early phases of planning for compensation redesign.
by Arizona State University & ERS
Through examples, diagrams, and budget breakdowns, this resource helps school and district leaders to reimagine staffing models and plan for competitive compensation.
Give teachers opportunities to share their strengths and extend their impact through meaningful leadership roles that allow them to continue working with students. This keeps strong teachers in the classroom and develops high-quality school-leadership pipelines.
Leading from the Front of the Classroom: A Roadmap to Teacher Leadership that Works
by The Aspen Institute
This report is an actionable guide to creating a strong teacher leadership pipeline. It is most relevant to school and district leaders in the early stages of designing teacher leadership plans.
Creating and Sustaining Teacher Leadership Roles: Lessons Learned from Districts
by the Department of Elementary & Secondary Education
This resource presents lessons learned from teacher leadership pilots across Massachusetts. It can inform school and district leaders who are currently planning formalized teacher leadership programs.
Guide to Creating Teacher Leader Positions
by U.S Department of Education for Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF)
This resource is targeted toward school and district leaders currently in the process of defining, finalizing, and hiring for teacher leadership roles. It includes detailed information about roles and responsibilities, and addresses the need for sustainability.
Provide teachers with state-of-the-art technology tools that will help streamline administrative duties, aid instructional planning and delivery, and enable teachers to focus on what matters most - engaging with students.
Digital Instructional Materials: What Are Teachers Using and What Barriers Exist?
by RAND Corportation
This resource highlights technology practices and popular tech tools that teachers use most. Because it centers teacher preferences, this report can inform school and district leaders in the process of selecting technology tools.
Realizing the Promise: How can education technology improve learning for all?
by Brookings Institute
School and district leaders can use this resource, and its accompanying materials, to ensure that they have chosen the appropriate technology for their schools and that these resources are being used effectively.
by Education Resource Strategies
This toolkit provides a vision for the future of the teaching job, with high-impact strategies that districts can use to begin this work. Topics include increasing the sustainability of the teaching job, developing and retaining new teachers, and strengthening compensation and career pathways.
Family and Community Partnerships
Build community partnerships that help deepen and extend learning during the school day. By leveraging the capacity of partners, schools can lighten teachers' loads and expand students' access to high-quality learning opportunities.
Framework for Action: Building a Corps for Student Success
by City Year
Through clear success criteria and concrete implementation recommendations, this resource can help school and district leaders plan to hire more support staff and reimagine networks for integrated student support and community partnerships.
by Aspen Institute
This case study explores a successful community partnership and highlights the specific communication strategies that supported it. From this example, school and district leaders can glean key insights around how to plan for, initiate, and sustain strong partnerships.
Ensure that families have access to high-quality out-of-school childcare, enrichment, and academic programming by working with local partners to connect and serve students and families.
‘Breakthrough is the place I can be myself’:
Connecting Somerville Youth to Out-of-School Opportunities
by Harvard Education Redesign Lab
In this case study, the Harvard Education Redesign Lab makes a compelling case for after school partnerships. For school and district leaders, this report highlights the key qualities of an effective after school program and can help guide leaders who are making critical decisions about which organizations to work with.
Thriving in Afterschool: Promoting Healthy Futures for Young People
by Afterschool Alliance
After school programs are in a unique position to support students and families in the transition back to a post-pandemic "normal." This report outlines the positive impacts of after school programming and can help school and district leaders advocate for strong after school partnerships.
Massachusetts Afterschool Partnership: Funding Guide
by Massachusetts Afterschool Partnership
While ESSER funds can supplement after school partnerships, Massachusetts also has many other funding opportunities available to schools, districts, and their partners. This resource contains information about the various funding sources that support after school partnerships in Massachusetts.
Work with community partners to connect students and families with services that address their wraparound needs. By eliciting community support, schools can fill gaps in access to social services and holistically support students and families.
Leveraging Community Partnerships for Integrated Student Support
by Annenburg Institute
In order to serve the wraparound needs of students, schools need to partner with community-based organizations. This report outlines specific strategies that school and district leaders can use to partner with organizations now and in the future.
by America's Promise Alliance
School leaders and student support professionals can use this resource to guide their thinking about how to holistically serve students through a combination of school and community-based supports.
Building Community Schools Systems
by Center for American Progress
Through case studies of successful community schools, this resource shows school, district, and state leaders that community schools are a feasible and worthwhile investment.
Develop clear norms around who communicates with families, what they communicate, and when/how they do it. This will streamline collaboration between teachers, school staff, and families.
The School Leader Tool: Building your School-wide Approach to Family Engagement
by Flamboyan Foundation
This guide outlines the key tenets of strong family partnerships. It prompts leaders to reflect on their schools' practices and create clear communications protocols.
School-wide Family Engagement Rubric
by Flamboyan Foundation
Through clear objectives and scaffolded action steps/examples, this rubric guides schools toward a comprehensive vision for family engagement.
Family Engagement in Schools: A Comprehensive Guide
by Panorama Education
This guide offers concrete recommendations that can help school leaders and teachers to identify and implement innovative family engagement strategies.
Make sure that all district and school communications successfully reach families by giving consideration to the families that typically fall through the cracks — for example, by communicating in their home language to ensure accessibility, and by using the most relevant and effective methods and messengers (which will likely vary by family and by circumstances).
Connecting with Hard to Reach Families
by Flamboyan Foundation
This resource offers practical strategies that teachers and administrators can use when trying to contact and build relationships with families who are difficult to reach through traditional methods. By implementing this guidance, educators can ensure that all families have equitable access to information and participatory opportunities.
How To Use COVID-19 Relief Funding To Invest in a Parent Teacher Home Visit Practice
by Parent Teacher Home Visits
Home visits are one of the most effective ways to build genuine relationships with families. This brief explains how school and district leaders can channel federal funding into home visits that strengthen relationships between families and schools.
Actively work to foster genuine forms of engagement with families, especially those from underserved communities, around how the school community can better support them and their students — this may range from input used to inform resource allocations and partnerships, to collaborative decision-making, to family-led ways for identifying problems and generating solutions.
Engaging Parents and Families to Support the Recovery of Districts and Schools
by Annenburg Institute
This report, aimed at school leaders and policy makers, suggests culturally-responsive ways to engage families in critical conversations around pandemic recovery and student success.
by Global Family Research Project
Through an emphasis on changing mindsets and building stakeholder relationships, this resource guides leaders toward cultivating a school community that intentionally engages families and effectively serves students.
Equitable Community Engagement Toolkit
by Great Schools Partnership
This toolkit addresses the challenges of community engagement through concrete resources that school leaders, family engagement coordinators, and parent advocates can use to equitably engage communities in their local schools.