A strategy that reached classrooms at the pace the district could coach it.

A plan that had to become practice

Arlington ISD had a strategic direction and a superintendent who wanted the same vision of learning in every classroom. The hard part was the move from planning to operations: a strategy written at the district office has to reach thousands of classrooms the authors will never see in the same week.

Design first, then coaching, one cohort at a time

Beginning in 2015, engage2learn and the district finished a strategic design process, wrote a learner profile, and designed the Active Learning Cycle, the district’s own model of how learning should run.

Year zero was leadership development. Midway through it, six school leaders were chosen as a pilot group to lead the implementation, and leadership meetings and working groups designed a set of Cultural Tenets to support active learning.

In 2017 a second cohort of school leaders was chosen with a readiness rubric. From then on, the number of schools joining each year was set by one thing: the coaching capacity the district had built. engage2learn coached the first team of teachers in each school alongside the principals and coaches who would lead the work next.

Coaching capacity the district now owns

A five-year rollout paced by the district’s own readiness, rather than a launch date. Each cohort of schools added principals and coaches who could carry the work themselves, and the district reported educator and learner growth rising in the cohort schools as a culture of coaching spread.