When: Strategy

Strategy answers the question of when — not just in the sense of timelines and schedules, but in the deeper sense of sequencing, pacing, and sustained direction. It is the connective tissue between vision and execution. Without it, even the most thoughtfully designed systems drift. Initiatives accumulate. Priorities multiply faster than the organization can absorb them. Urgency replaces clarity. People work hard in many directions at once and wonder why progress feels slow.

The Learning Innovation Framework describes Strategy through six interconnected components. Strategic Direction translates community vision and learner outcomes into a small number of clear priorities that guide decision-making over time — functioning less like a fixed map and more like a compass, providing orientation without locking the system into a predetermined route. Leading Change recognizes that strategy succeeds or fails based on the relational and cultural conditions leaders create: whether people understand why the work matters, trust the direction, and feel genuine ownership over it. Finance ensures that resource allocation follows purpose rather than habit, sending clear signals about what the system actually values through where it chooses to invest. Implementation brings priorities into coordinated daily action, drawing on implementation science to pace change through predictable stages rather than treating it as a one-time rollout. Measuring Success builds the transparent feedback loops that show whether progress is real, keep accountability honest, and help teams learn from what is and is not working. And Research and Development creates the organizational habit of testing, learning, and adapting — treating innovation as an ongoing practice rather than an occasional project.

What distinguishes this element from the others is that Strategy is not primarily about design. It is about execution and learning over time. A system can have excellent outcomes, a strong learning model, and a coherent signaling system, and still stall if the strategy that governs how and when those things get built is reactive, underfunded, or disconnected from how change actually unfolds in human organizations. Strategy is what makes transformation durable rather than episodic — and that is what this element will help you build.

Getting Smart Resources

Town Hall: Futures Thinking in Education

TownHall: Futures Thinking in Education is a resource from Getting Smart that introduces educators and school leaders to futures thinking as a strategic tool for navigating change and shaping long-term educational direction. It offers frameworks, conversations, and practical approaches for anticipating emerging trends, challenging assumptions about what schooling could become, and making proactive decisions rather than reactive ones. The resource is particularly relevant for leaders engaged in strategic planning, as it pushes beyond incremental improvement toward genuinely reimagining the purpose and design of education. By grounding futures thinking in real educational contexts, it equips practitioners with the mindset and methods needed to lead transformation with greater clarity and confidence.

Podcast: Adam Kulaas on Tacoma Public Schools Being a City-Connected, Career-Connected District

This Getting Smart podcast episode features Adam Kulaas discussing how Tacoma Public Schools has developed a strategic approach to becoming both city-connected and career-connected, embedding community and workforce partnerships into the district’s core direction. The conversation explores how district leadership has aligned institutional strategy with the economic and civic realities of Tacoma, moving beyond traditional school-community relationships toward deep, systemic integration with local employers, city agencies, and community organizations. For practitioners and school leaders, it offers a concrete case study in how a mid-sized urban district translates a bold strategic vision into operational practice, making it a valuable reference point for those working to anchor learning in real-world relevance. The episode matters because it addresses one of the most persistent challenges in education transformation: turning aspirational district strategy into coherent, place-based action that connects students to meaningful futures while strengthening the broader community.

Building Better Schools: The Art of Leading Change in Education

Building Better Schools: The Art of Leading Change in Education, produced by Getting Smart, is a resource designed to help school leaders and practitioners develop the strategic mindset and practical skills needed to drive meaningful change within their institutions. It explores the complexities of leading transformation in educational settings, offering frameworks and insights for navigating resistance, building consensus, and sustaining momentum across a school community. The resource addresses the human and organizational dimensions of change leadership, recognizing that innovation rarely fails due to lack of ideas but more often because of poor implementation strategy and insufficient cultural alignment. For practitioners and school leaders serious about moving beyond surface-level reform, this resource provides actionable guidance grounded in the realities of school systems, making it a relevant tool for those working to create lasting, systemic improvement.

Mindful Leadership for Change

Mindful Leadership for Change” from Getting Smart is a resource designed to help school and system leaders develop the self-awareness, reflective practices, and strategic thinking needed to navigate complex educational transformation. It explores how mindfulness principles can be integrated into leadership approaches to improve decision-making, build resilience, and sustain meaningful change efforts over time. The resource connects inner leadership development with outward organizational strategy, recognizing that sustainable innovation depends as much on the mindset and presence of leaders as it does on structural reforms. For practitioners and school leaders, this matters because change fatigue and reactive leadership are among the most significant barriers to lasting improvement, and equipping leaders with tools to lead from a grounded, intentional place directly strengthens an institution’s capacity to evolve.

Charting a Course for Educational Transformation: The Power of Three Portraits

Charting a Course for Educational Transformation: The Power of Three Portraits” is a resource from Getting Smart that uses three distinct school or system portraits to illustrate what meaningful educational transformation looks like in practice. It offers practitioners and school leaders concrete examples of how change strategies are designed and implemented across different contexts, making abstract transformation principles tangible and actionable. By grounding leadership strategy in real-world cases, the resource helps educators identify patterns, make comparisons, and draw lessons applicable to their own change efforts. For those navigating the complexity of systemic innovation, this kind of portrait-based analysis provides both inspiration and a practical framework for thinking about what transformation requires at the school and district level.

To Fully Realize Horizon Three, We Need New Accountability Systems

This Getting Smart resource examines the relationship between ambitious, future-focused educational goals—referred to as “Horizon Three” innovation—and the accountability structures needed to support them. It argues that current standards and assessment systems are misaligned with the kinds of deeper learning, competency development, and whole-child outcomes that transformative education demands, and that meaningful innovation cannot scale without corresponding shifts in how schools measure and report success. The resource offers practitioners and school leaders a framework for thinking critically about how accountability can evolve from compliance-driven metrics toward systems that genuinely reflect the outcomes schools should be pursuing. For those leading or advocating for learning redesign, this piece matters because it names a structural barrier that often goes unaddressed—without new accountability systems, Horizon Three aspirations risk remaining theoretical rather than becoming embedded practice.

New Metrics for Success

New Metrics for Success” from Getting Smart is a resource that challenges traditional assessment frameworks by examining how schools and systems can move beyond standardized test scores to measure what students actually need to thrive in a complex world. It explores alternative indicators of success such as competency development, social-emotional growth, civic engagement, and learner agency, offering practitioners and leaders practical perspectives on redefining what counts as meaningful progress. The resource draws on examples from innovative schools and districts that have redesigned their measurement systems to align with broader learning goals. For education leaders undertaking transformation work, this matters because misaligned metrics are one of the most significant barriers to sustaining innovation — when schools are still held accountable to narrow measures, deeper learning approaches struggle to take root and scale.

Living in Beta: One Stone’s Pilot Results Are In

Living in Beta: One Stone’s Pilot Results Are In” is a resource from Getting Smart that examines real-world findings from One Stone, a student-led nonprofit and innovation lab in Boise, Idaho, that operates as a living prototype for reimagined learning. The resource details outcomes from One Stone’s pilot programs, offering practitioners and school leaders concrete data and qualitative insights into what happens when schools commit to student agency, design thinking, and iterative development as core organizational principles. Rather than presenting a theoretical framework, it grounds education transformation in documented pilot results, showing what worked, what evolved, and how a school can function as its own research and development engine. For leaders exploring innovation strategy, this resource matters because it models how to institutionalize a culture of experimentation and learning from evidence, rather than treating change as a one-time initiative.

Teaching A Big School New Tricks: The Huntley 158 Competency Pilot

This Getting Smart resource examines how Huntley Community School District 158, a large suburban district in Illinois, approached the complex challenge of shifting toward competency-based education through a structured pilot program. It details the district’s strategy for testing and refining competency-based practices within a traditional large-scale system, including how they designed the pilot, engaged staff, and built internal capacity for broader implementation. The resource offers practitioners and school leaders a grounded look at the research and development process behind systemic change, particularly the decisions, structures, and lessons that emerge when a big district attempts meaningful instructional transformation rather than surface-level reform. For leaders navigating similar transitions, it provides a realistic model of how to use pilots strategically to generate evidence, manage risk, and build the internal momentum needed to scale innovation across a complex organization.

The 5 Steps of Design Thinking Help Drive School Improvement

This Getting Smart resource outlines how the five-stage design thinking process—empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test—can be applied as a structured framework for school improvement and institutional R&D. It walks practitioners and school leaders through each stage with practical guidance on how to move from identifying real problems within their communities to developing and iterating on solutions before committing to full implementation. The resource positions design thinking not as a one-time exercise but as an ongoing strategic discipline that builds a culture of inquiry and innovation within schools. For education leaders seeking to move beyond reactive problem-solving, this framework offers a replicable, human-centered approach that grounds change efforts in the actual needs of students, staff, and communities rather than assumptions or top-down mandates.

Community-Centered Research and Development

Community-Centered Research and Development from Getting Smart is a resource that examines how schools and districts can embed research and development practices directly within their communities rather than importing solutions from outside. It offers frameworks and examples for engaging local stakeholders—students, families, educators, and community members—as active participants in identifying challenges and co-designing responsive educational approaches. The resource makes a case for shifting away from top-down innovation models toward iterative, place-based inquiry that reflects the actual needs and assets of specific communities. For practitioners and school leaders, this matters because it reframes R&D not as an abstract institutional function but as a relational, equity-oriented strategy that can generate more durable and contextually relevant change in schools.

Education Research and Development

Getting Smart’s Education Research and Development resource examines how schools and districts can build internal R&D capacity to drive meaningful, evidence-informed innovation rather than relying solely on external solutions. It explores frameworks, processes, and mindsets that enable educators and leaders to systematically test new approaches, learn from failure, and scale what works within their specific contexts. The resource draws on examples from forward-thinking schools and organizations to illustrate what structured experimentation looks like in practice. For practitioners and school leaders, this matters because embedding R&D into institutional culture shifts schools from passive consumers of reform to active architects of improvement, making innovation more sustainable, contextually relevant, and responsive to student needs.

Additional Resources

Transforming Strategic Plans into Results: K-12 Action Planning Toolkit

Hanover Research
Hanover Research’s *Transforming Strategic Plans into Results: K-12 Action Planning Toolkit* is a practical resource designed to help district leaders bridge the persistent gap between strategic planning documents and meaningful implementation. The toolkit provides structured frameworks, templates, and guidance for translating high-level goals into concrete, measurable action steps with clear accountability and timelines. It addresses one of the most common failure points in educational change efforts — the disconnect between vision and execution — by giving teams actionable tools to operationalize priorities rather than letting strategic plans gather dust. For school and district leaders serious about driving systemic improvement, this resource offers a disciplined approach to ensuring that planning efforts actually produce results in classrooms and communities.

El Paso Strategic Plan

El Paso SD (TX)
The El Paso Independent School District’s Strategic Plan is a foundational planning document that outlines the district’s long-term vision, priorities, and directional goals for improving student outcomes across its Texas schools. It provides practitioners and school leaders with a structured framework for aligning resources, instructional decisions, and organizational efforts toward shared educational objectives. Resources like this matter for education transformation because they demonstrate how a mid-to-large urban district translates community values and student needs into actionable strategic direction, offering a real-world model for coherent, system-wide planning. For innovators studying district strategy, El Paso’s plan serves as a practical reference point for understanding how intentional goal-setting and priority alignment can drive meaningful, sustained change at scale.

Digital Promise & Ed Elements Implementation Questions and Guides

Digital Promise
This resource from Digital Promise, developed in partnership with Ed Elements, provides structured implementation questions and practical guides designed to help school and district leaders navigate the strategic direction of learning innovation initiatives. It offers a framework of targeted questions and actionable guidance that supports educators in clarifying goals, aligning stakeholders, and making informed decisions as they plan and execute transformation efforts. The resource is particularly valuable for practitioners who need a structured thinking tool to move from broad vision to concrete strategy, reducing the ambiguity that often stalls school improvement work. By grounding strategic planning in reflective questioning, it helps leadership teams build coherent, sustainable direction rather than reactive or fragmented approaches to change.

UCBC School Design Rubric for Implementation

UCBC
The UCBC School Design Rubric for Implementation is a structured evaluation tool developed by UCBC to help schools assess and guide their progress in executing innovative school design. It provides practitioners and school leaders with clear criteria and benchmarks across key dimensions of school design, enabling teams to identify where they are in the implementation process and what steps are needed to move forward. The rubric functions as both a diagnostic and a planning instrument, making it particularly useful for schools in active transformation who need a shared language and framework for measuring fidelity to their design vision. For leaders navigating the complex work of systemic change, this resource offers a concrete way to align staff, track progress, and make strategic decisions grounded in evidence rather than intuition.

Portland Public Schools Strategic Plan

Portland Public Schools (OR)
The Portland Public Schools Strategic Plan is a district-level planning document that outlines the organizational priorities, goals, and directional commitments guiding one of Oregon’s largest urban school districts. It provides practitioners and school leaders with a concrete example of how a major public school system articulates its vision, aligns resources, and structures accountability around student outcomes and equity. For those exploring learning innovation, the plan offers insight into how systemic change is framed at the district level — including how priorities are sequenced, how stakeholders are engaged, and how improvement efforts are connected to broader community needs. It serves as a practical reference point for understanding the gap between aspirational strategy and operational reality, making it useful for leaders who are designing or refining their own transformation roadmaps.

Farmington Schools Strategic Goals and Dashboard

Farmington Public Schools (CT)
Farmington Public Schools in Connecticut publishes a strategic goals framework paired with a live dashboard that tracks district-wide progress across defined priority areas. The resource makes institutional strategy transparent by connecting high-level goals to measurable indicators, allowing administrators, educators, and community members to see how declared intentions translate into tracked outcomes over time. For practitioners and school leaders exploring learning innovation, it offers a concrete example of how a district can align strategic direction with accountability infrastructure — moving beyond static planning documents toward dynamic, data-informed governance. This matters for education transformation because it demonstrates how systemic change efforts can be made visible and navigable, providing a replicable model for districts seeking to build coherence between vision, implementation, and continuous improvement.

Holly Area Schools Strategic Plan 2030

Holly Area Schools (MI)
The Holly Area Schools Strategic Plan 2030 is a district-level planning document from Holly Area Schools in Michigan that outlines the district’s long-term vision, priorities, and directional goals through the year 2030. It provides practitioners and school leaders with a concrete example of how a public school district translates broad educational values into structured strategic commitments, likely encompassing areas such as student achievement, community engagement, operational sustainability, and instructional innovation. For those exploring learning innovation, this resource is valuable as a real-world model of how district leadership aligns institutional direction with evolving educational demands, demonstrating the planning frameworks and goal-setting approaches that can drive meaningful, system-wide transformation. Examining this plan offers insight into how strategic thinking at the district level can either enable or constrain school-level innovation, making it a practical reference for leaders designing or refining their own long-range strategies.

Frankenmuth Strategic Plan

Frankenmuth Public Schools (MI)
The Frankenmuth Public Schools Strategic Plan is a district-level planning document from Frankenmuth, Michigan, that outlines the organization’s priorities, goals, and directional commitments for guiding institutional decision-making and resource allocation. It provides practitioners and school leaders with a concrete example of how a public school district translates its vision and values into structured, actionable long-term goals across areas such as student achievement, community engagement, and operational effectiveness. For those exploring learning innovation, the plan offers insight into how district leadership frames strategic direction—what gets named as a priority, how goals are sequenced, and how accountability is built into planning structures. Studying this type of document helps innovators understand the governance and strategic architecture that either enables or constrains school transformation efforts, making it a practical reference point for anyone working to align innovation initiatives with district-wide strategy.

Goodrich Area Schools Strategic Plan

Goodrich Area Schools (MI)
The Goodrich Area Schools Strategic Plan is a district-level planning document from Goodrich Area Schools in Michigan that outlines the organization’s long-term vision, priorities, and directional goals for advancing student learning and institutional improvement. It provides practitioners and school leaders with a concrete example of how a public school district translates broad educational values into structured, actionable commitments across areas such as curriculum, community engagement, and operational excellence. For those exploring learning innovation, the plan offers insight into how district leadership frames transformation as a systemic effort rather than a collection of isolated initiatives. Examining this kind of strategic document helps school leaders understand how to align stakeholders, allocate resources, and create coherent conditions for sustainable change, making it a practical reference point for districts at any stage of strategic planning.

Top 30 Key Performance Indicators for Education Management

ClearPoint
ClearPoint’s “Top 30 Key Performance Indicators for Education Management” is a practical reference guide that outlines the most meaningful metrics educational institutions can use to track and evaluate performance across academic, operational, and financial dimensions. The resource provides specific KPI examples—such as graduation rates, student-to-teacher ratios, cost per student, and staff professional development hours—giving school leaders a concrete vocabulary and measurement framework for strategic planning. For practitioners driving learning innovation, this matters because transformation efforts without clear data scaffolding often lose accountability and direction; well-chosen KPIs connect vision to evidence. By grounding change initiatives in measurable outcomes, leaders can better communicate progress to stakeholders, identify gaps in implementation, and make informed decisions that sustain improvement over time.

Leading Change in Modern Schools: The Essential Role of Change Agents in Education Reform

Partners in School Innovation
Partners in School Innovation’s resource “Leading Change in Modern Schools: The Essential Role of Change Agents in Education Reform” examines how designated change agents—whether administrators, instructional coaches, or teacher leaders—can drive and sustain meaningful school reform. The resource explores the competencies, dispositions, and strategic approaches that effective change agents need to navigate institutional resistance, build stakeholder buy-in, and align improvement efforts with a school’s broader vision. It likely addresses practical frameworks for leading adaptive change, including how to diagnose organizational readiness, sequence reform initiatives, and cultivate distributed leadership across a school community. For practitioners and school leaders, this resource matters because it moves beyond surface-level change management to address the human and systemic dimensions of transformation that so often determine whether reform efforts take hold or stall.

How to Effectively Manage Large-Scale Change in School Districts

EdElements
This resource from EdElements focuses on practical strategies for managing large-scale change initiatives within school districts, addressing the complex organizational and leadership challenges that come with systemic transformation. It offers guidance on how district leaders can plan, communicate, and sustain change efforts across multiple schools and stakeholders, likely drawing on frameworks for change management adapted to the K-12 education context. For practitioners and school leaders, this resource matters because large-scale change in districts frequently stalls due to poor implementation planning, staff resistance, or lack of coherent strategy—common failure points that undermine even well-resourced innovation efforts. By providing actionable approaches to leading change at scale, it equips leaders with the tools needed to move beyond isolated pilots toward district-wide transformation that actually sticks.

Leading Change in Education: How Responsive Leadership and Teamwork Transform Schools

EdElements
Leading Change in Education: How Responsive Leadership and Teamwork Transform Schools is a resource from EdElements designed to help school and district leaders build the leadership capacity needed to drive meaningful, lasting change. It examines how responsive leadership—characterized by adaptability, collaboration, and a clear focus on student outcomes—can shift school culture and improve the conditions for innovation. The resource explores how effective teams function as engines of transformation, offering practical frameworks for distributing leadership, fostering trust, and aligning collective effort around shared goals. For practitioners and school leaders navigating the complexity of education reform, this resource matters because it moves beyond theory to address the real organizational and human dynamics that determine whether change initiatives succeed or stall.

Crafting an Effective Strategic Plan: A Guide for School Leaders

Relay GSE
Relay Graduate School of Education’s guide on crafting effective strategic plans provides school leaders with a structured framework for developing, articulating, and executing school improvement strategies. The resource walks practitioners through the core components of a viable strategic plan, including goal-setting, prioritization, resource alignment, and accountability mechanisms that connect vision to daily practice. It is particularly relevant for leaders navigating the gap between ambitious school goals and the operational realities of implementation, offering concrete tools rather than abstract theory. For education innovators, this resource matters because sustainable transformation depends not just on having good ideas but on building the institutional infrastructure to carry them through—and this guide directly addresses that often-neglected execution layer of school leadership.

Annual School Planning Toolkit

TEA System of Great Schools
The Annual School Planning Toolkit, developed by TEA’s System of Great Schools, is a structured resource designed to guide school leaders through a comprehensive, cyclical planning process that aligns instructional priorities, resource allocation, and improvement goals. It offers practical frameworks, templates, and protocols that help leadership teams translate strategic vision into actionable annual plans grounded in data and focused on student outcomes. The toolkit supports coherent decision-making by connecting campus-level planning to broader system goals, ensuring that improvement efforts are purposeful rather than reactive. For practitioners and school leaders pursuing meaningful transformation, this resource matters because it builds the organizational discipline needed to move from isolated initiatives to sustained, systemic improvement across a school year.

Best Practices in School Improvement Planning

Hanover Research
Hanover Research’s “Best Practices in School Improvement Planning” is a practitioner-focused resource that examines evidence-based approaches to developing and executing effective school improvement plans (SIPs). It outlines key structural and process components that distinguish high-impact planning from compliance-driven exercises, including stakeholder engagement, data use, goal-setting frameworks, and accountability mechanisms. The resource is particularly valuable for school leaders and district administrators navigating the gap between planning and real implementation, offering concrete strategies to ensure improvement efforts translate into measurable outcomes. For those driving education transformation, it provides a grounded framework for building organizational capacity and sustaining change rather than cycling through reforms that fail to take root.

How Championing Data Can Contribute to Sustainability

KnowledgeWorks
This resource from KnowledgeWorks examines how strategic use of data can support the long-term sustainability of learning innovation initiatives within schools and districts. It offers practitioners and school leaders practical guidance on identifying, collecting, and leveraging meaningful metrics that demonstrate the value and impact of innovative programs over time. Rather than treating measurement as a compliance exercise, the resource positions data as a tool for building stakeholder confidence, securing ongoing investment, and making informed decisions that keep transformation efforts alive beyond initial implementation. For educators working to sustain change amid shifting priorities and limited resources, this resource provides a framework for making the case that innovation is working and worth continuing.

How Can You Measure a School’s Success? It’s Not Just Through Test Scores

EdWeek
This EdWeek resource examines how schools and districts can move beyond standardized test scores to adopt broader, more meaningful measures of school success. It explores alternative and complementary indicators such as student well-being, engagement, graduation pathways, attendance, and social-emotional development, offering school leaders a more holistic framework for evaluating institutional performance. The resource is particularly relevant for practitioners and leaders working to redefine accountability in ways that better reflect the full range of student outcomes and school health. For those driving learning innovation, it provides a conceptual and practical foundation for making the case to stakeholders that success metrics must evolve alongside changing educational priorities. Rethinking how success is measured is foundational to sustaining systemic transformation, as the data schools track ultimately shapes what educators value and invest in.

Rubric for CBE Implementation of Aurora CBE Framework

Solution Tree
The Rubric for CBE Implementation of the Aurora CBE Framework, published by Solution Tree, is a structured assessment tool designed to help educators and school leaders evaluate the fidelity and progress of competency-based education implementation within their schools or districts. It provides clearly defined performance indicators aligned to the Aurora Institute’s CBE framework, allowing practitioners to identify where they are in their implementation journey across key dimensions of a competency-based system. By offering a common language and measurable criteria, the rubric supports teams in diagnosing gaps, setting priorities, and making evidence-informed decisions about next steps. For leaders driving education transformation, this resource matters because it moves CBE implementation from abstract aspiration to concrete, actionable self-assessment, grounding systemic change in measurable outcomes rather than good intentions.

Skills for the Future High School R&D Agenda

Carnegie, ETS
The Skills for the Future High School R&D Agenda is a strategic research and development framework developed by Carnegie and ETS that outlines a focused agenda for redesigning high school education to better prepare students for postsecondary success and an evolving workforce. The resource identifies priority areas for investigation and investment, including how schools can develop deeper competencies—such as critical thinking, collaboration, and adaptive problem-solving—that traditional academic measures often fail to capture or credential. It offers practitioners and school leaders a research-grounded roadmap for understanding where systemic gaps exist and where intentional innovation efforts are most needed. For those driving education transformation, this agenda matters because it moves beyond vague calls for 21st-century skills and instead provides a structured, evidence-oriented foundation for making decisions about curriculum, assessment, and institutional design at the high school level.

New Hampshire’s Performance Assessment of Competency Education

PACE (NH)
New Hampshire’s Performance Assessment of Competency Education (PACE) is a state-level initiative that replaces traditional standardized testing with locally developed performance assessments tied to competency-based progressions. The resource documents how New Hampshire partnered with a small cohort of districts to design and validate assessments that measure deeper learning outcomes—such as problem-solving, collaboration, and application of knowledge—rather than recall-based skills. It offers practitioners and school leaders a concrete model for how assessment systems can be redesigned at scale while maintaining accountability requirements, including how PACE secured a federal waiver to substitute its performance assessments for portions of standardized state testing. For educators pursuing competency-based or mastery-based learning transitions, PACE matters because it demonstrates that rigorous, locally owned assessment is both legally viable and practically achievable within public school systems, providing a replicable R&D framework for states and districts ready to move beyond test-and-rank accountability