How a partnership works

Diagnose, design, coach, and connect to community.

Most districts buy this cycle piecemeal: a survey from one vendor, a plan from a consultant, coaching from someone else, a platform, a membership, and workshops measured by a sign-in sheet. Nobody holds the whole picture. engage2learn runs the whole cycle as one partner.

Walk through the cycle Why we assess first
A survey from one vendor
A strategic plan from a consultant
Coaching from another provider
A platform for the data, if anyone opens it
A membership for some of the leaders
Workshops counted by the sign-in sheet
Nobody holds the whole picture.
The cycle

One partner, four steps, each aimed by the step before it.

This is how every engage2learn partnership runs. A district can start at any step, with an assessment, a plan, coaching, or the Network and its events, and can add the other steps as its needs grow. Scroll through it one step at a time.

  1. Step 01 · Diagnose · Assessments & Software

    Find out which skills explain the results.

    Four diagnostics look at your district from four angles: the classroom as students live it, how the people in and around each school see it, whether coaching is changing what teachers do, and whether the coaching program itself is set up to succeed. Read together, they show which educator skills sit behind the results you want to change at each school, so no coaching starts on a guess. Explore the diagnostics.

    Dr. Ronald Ferguson of Harvard first fielded the Tripod 7Cs Assessment in 2001. The Gates Foundation later chose it for its three-year MET study, which validated it in 250,000 classrooms with more than 3,000 teachers.

  2. Step 02 · Design · Planning & Design

    Turn the findings into a plan with names on it.

    Whether the work is a strategic plan, an instructional framework, an HQIM rollout or a new coaching program, it starts from the evidence the diagnostics produced. Each priority is assigned to a person and paired with a way to tell it is working. The plan goes into GroweLab in week one, so progress stays visible all year instead of waiting for the annual retreat. Explore Planning & Design.

  3. Step 03 · Coach · Performance Improvement

    Coach those skills where teaching happens.

    Our coaches spent their careers in districts like yours. They work alongside your teachers, principals and coaches on the specific skills the assessment surfaced. GroweLab records changes in classroom practice as they happen, so the measure is what teachers now do, not how many hours they sat in training, and leaders can point to the skills that grew at each school this year. Explore Performance Improvement.

    Our coaching has ESSA Tier 2 / Tier 3 evidence behind it. In the first year of partnership, math and science scores showed 2x growth for students whose teachers we coached.

  4. Step 04 · Connect to community · Network & Events

    Give leaders peers who share the problem.

    Principals, assistant principals and coaches learn with colleagues from other districts through the Jim Knight Impact Network, institutes and the Teaching, Leading, Coaching Conference (TLC). They bring their own evidence to the table: this year’s assessment results, the plan, coaching records and growth data, all kept together. Explore Network & Events.

    This step rests on 30 years of research by Jim Knight. Together, he and the Instructional Coaching Group have trained over 150,000 coaches for instructional roles.

  5. And then

    The cycle turns again, and your people lead more of it.

    A fresh assessment shows what changed and where to aim next. With every turn, your own people take on more of the work: your leaders own the strategy, your staff run the platform and the assessments, and your coaches, grown in the partnership, carry the coaching, with the Coaching Effectiveness Assessment tracking their skill. We work ourselves out of a job, and educator effectiveness becomes something your district does on its own.

Why we assess first

Aim the work before anyone does it.

Every district we meet has a plan, and most have tried a program that should have worked. The materials were strong and the training was well attended. The scores barely moved.

But effort was rarely the problem. Aim was.

No one schedules surgery without the scan. A district shouldn’t commit to a major improvement effort until an assessment has shown which educator skills explain its results.

So the cycle starts there. We assess the system, not the people in it: what students experience in their classrooms, where the views of students, staff and families on a school diverge, whether teachers are doing anything differently after coaching, and whether the coaching program is designed to succeed. What the assessment names becomes the design of the plan and the target of the coaching.

Assess first, then aim everything at what the assessment found.

Piecemeal or one partner

The same four steps, bought two ways.

Buying the cycle piecemeal leaves each piece measured on its own terms, and no one responsible for whether the gap closes. Run by one partner, each step is aimed by the one before it.

The step Bought piecemeal Run by one partner
01Diagnose A survey from one vendor, read by whoever has time. Four diagnostics that look at the district from different angles and name which educator skills explain its results.
02Design A plan from a consultant, delivered as a document. A plan drawn from the diagnostic evidence, where every priority has a person responsible and a sign of progress, kept current in GroweLab all year.
03Coach Coaching from another provider, counted in hours. Coaches who used to work in districts, focused on the skills the diagnostics surfaced, in your classrooms, judged by what changes in practice.
04Connect to community A membership and some workshops, measured by attendance. Principals and coaches learning beside peers in the Jim Knight Impact Network, bringing their own results, plan and coaching records with them.
One partner

Nobody else holds both ends of the cycle.

engage2learn is the only partner offering both validated diagnostic assessments and coaching with public ESSA evidence.

That is what lets the assessment aim the coaching, and the coaching prove the assessment right. See what partners have to say.

This is not top-down. It’s building together, collective ownership, and unity, looking at it from the perspective of student success. The endgame is the student.
Karen SimmonsPrincipal, Memphis-Shelby County Schools
Where it starts

Every turn leaves the district stronger at it.

Most partnerships begin with a single, short assessment rather than a pilot program. Bring us the question your leadership team keeps coming back to, and we’ll suggest the first step.

Book a conversation See partner results
Two educators laughing together in a sunlit school hallway, one in a cobalt jacket holding a laptop, the other in a striped blazer and glasses, lockers on one side and windows on the other