Rolling out a new initiative will almost always create challenges for school districts, despite how “ready” a system is. However, leaders can ensure a successful rollout of their bold initiatives using these research-based approaches to change management.
The Center on Reinventing Public Education conducted a year-long study of 11 school districts funded by the Walton Family Foundation as they pilot innovative initiatives designed to “make student learning more joyful, individualized and relevant” during the 2023-24 school year. Their research allows district leaders to understand the early phases of transforming policies, practices and mindsets when implementing district-wide innovations.
The districts’ bold ideas varied widely from launching “AI Future Readiness” pathways to prepare students for a technology-driven workforce to building competency-based assessment systems that enable students to demonstrate mastery in new ways.
The report, shared exclusively with District Administration, uncovers seven challenges observed by the researchers during each district’s piloting phase of their bold ideas. We’re sharing some of those challenges with you, with the stories of how leaders successfully managed change.
Challenge 1: Staffing pilot teams
One of the most common challenges leaders faced when trying to spearhead innovative programs was maintaining momentum. In at least three districts, leaders were trying to implement more than one initiative and their “bold idea” got lost in the mix.
Researchers suggested appointing an “executive-level champion” and adequately staffing pilot teams.
“The result of losing priority meant that progress stalled—though, in some cases, progress restarted once staff were no longer pulled to other initiatives or priorities,” the report reads.
Lydia Rainey, principal researcher at CRPE and one of the report’s authors, says bold initiatives require high levels of support from executive leadership.
“Losing a leader can often spell trouble for these types of initiatives,” she says. In one district, for example, leaders discontinued their bold idea pilot because of shifting leadership priorities.
To mitigate this risk, the research points to two strategies that helped districts sustain their bold idea.
- First, several pilot teams had an executive-level champion who participated in decision-making meetings and argued for resources and policy changes that supported the bold idea.
- Second, the pilot teams maintained robust staffing even as individuals were pulled toward other responsibilities. Ensuring one cabinet-level leader and at least one part-time staffer devoted to the bold idea meant that districts could ensure their pilots were adequately resourced.
Challenge 2: Teacher buy-in
Another challenge was earning buy-in from teachers. Your next “bold idea” must not feel like an added responsibility for your staff, but instead show teachers how it will improve their own work and student learning.
One way leaders encouraged participation was through extra compensation and stipends. Although this strategy often works well in the early stages, it does have a downside: it suggests that the work associated with the pilot initiative is fundamentally separate from the teachers’ existing workload rather than something that would be integrated into core teaching responsibilities.
As one leader pointed out in the study, “If you are stipending, that indicates it is extra work—and when the stipend goes away people will stop doing the extra work.”
A successful alternative is creating multiple “entry points” for teachers to engage with the bold idea and build their “why.” One district sent teachers to drop-in design studios and provided them modest compensation only for their time spent engaged in training and design, not for time spent in classroom implementation.
Then, leaders chose the most enthusiastic early adopters to act as “evangelists” for the work by encouraging them to present at their school’s staff meetings, bring interested coworkers into design studios and train their principals on new pedagogies.
“This approach, dubbed an ‘intentionally organic design,’ has built teacher buy-in across the district, even though many teachers did not go through the initial pilot training and have received only minimal financial compensation for piloting,” the research reads.
Challenge 3: Be explicit about instructional changes
District leaders must also be explicit about how the bold idea changes instruction and provide teachers with targeted professional development. This was a challenge several districts failed to overcome during their piloting phases.
In some cases, leaders hoped teachers would figure out the bold idea and shift their practice on their own, the researchers noted. In one instance, professional development was offered as an introductory onboarding system, followed by occasional check-ins initiated by teachers. By the end of CRPE’s study, two of these districts “paused” their bold idea pilots due, in part, to inconsistent teacher implementation.
Districts that were successful started with a strong theory of action that connected their bold idea to concrete changes in the classroom or in teachers’ practice. Leaders provided educators with clear descriptions of how teaching needed to change.
For example, one leader offered teachers explicit guidance in changing the sequence and pace of their lessons because the new model was a significant departure from the “regular” pedagogy.
Read the full report
You can learn about the remaining four challenges by reading the rest of CRPE’s research here. You’ll discover the importance of involving principals as “innovation leaders,” utilizing user feedback to fine-tune your strategy, navigating state policy barriers and how to survive leadership turnover.
“I hope district leaders find this research inspirational,” says Rainey. “This is hard work, and I know a lot of district leaders want to be doing things differently and know that change management can be really challenging.”
