Through years of research and practice around school resource use and principal training, we have found that high-performing, high-growth schools are responding to the changing context in education by using people, time, technology, and money in ways that look significantly different than the status quo. While there is no one “right way” to organize resources, high-performing schools serving high-need students organize around six common design essentials:

1. Instruction
2. Teacher Collaboration
3. Talent Management
4. Time & Attention
5. Whole Child
6. Growth-Oriented Adult Culture

Strategic designs don’t happen by accident. They happen because school leaders and their teams develop a deliberate strategy for organizing resources. We believe this paper—which has detailed stories of districts putting the strategies into action—is a great place to start for anyone looking to transform their school and invest in principal training.

Our Schools Start Here series of guides offers blueprints for how to organize resources to support students using federal stimulus funds for COVID recovery. Each guide includes concrete examples of what scheduling and staffing models could look like in schools.