BLOG 2: The Partnership School Leader - When Improvement Plans Meet Real Life

If you lead a Partnership School/District, there's a specific kind of tired that you know, and if you read Blog 1 in this series, you know I understand the tired you’re feeling.  

Not only do I have experience as a building and District leader, but I have been through the paces of the Partnership process.

The kind of tired I’m talking about is not the tired that comes from a long day. It's the tiredness that comes from a long day when every single hour was spent responding to someone else's expectations, and none of those expectations quite lined up with one another.

In the Partnership School/District process, one entity wants aggressive academic growth, like yesterday. Another wants compliance documentation, in triplicate. Another shows up with a program they swear will change everything, if you can just carve out time in the schedule. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, you're actually trying to lead your school.

You don't need me to tell you this is hard. You're living it.  I’ve lived it.  In the Partnership process, I’ve been in those rooms month after month, where you and your team are trying to square the expectations of several groups:  MDE, the ISD, your Board, if you lead a PSA, then your operator, and authorizers are probably there too.  In our case, I remember the inflection point in one of our meetings where a sobering reality hit me…  what the ISD and MDE were suggesting as a strategy was in direct conflict with what our authorizer was holding us to as a contractually obligated academic goal.

This was untenable on its face.  After I lifted this up, discussion ensued, and we collectively got into an honest, creative space to find a resolution so that our little school wouldn’t be stuck in the middle of an ideological/strategic tug-of-war.  If not for the relationships we intentionally formed through our process, we would have been left to languish in the chaos. 

But what if you don’t have those relationships?  I can tell you this: the chaos you're feeling isn't a reflection of your leadership. It's a reflection of a system that wasn't designed with your reality in mind- it wasn’t even considered.  And the schools that find their footing, the ones that start making real gains, almost always have one thing in common: they get honest about how relationships and partnerships (especially in Partnership) actually serve the mission, and park all of the noise.

I know firsthand that these are not comfortable conversations to have. But they are necessary.  The key is how you build up to them and then ultimately how you create space for them.  I can help you do this.

The key question isn't "how many partners do we have?" It's "How do the organizations supporting this school actually align with our school’s 'why,' the community we serve, and our improvement plan? Are the players in the room rowing in the same direction? Are they even in the same boat with us? Are they even operating near it?"

These questions matter more than most groups in the room want to admit.

To help make that easier to figure out, we put our experience into tools and support that can help you through this process.  Take a minute to look at our External Partner Readiness Assessment, a straightforward tool you can share with any partner in the Partnership room (or any vendor/outside organization) that wants to work with your school. It cuts through the sales pitch and gets to the real questions: Do they understand what Partnership Schools are actually dealing with?  Can they align to your goals and YOUR school’s program, not just their program?  Are they ready to be held accountable for outcomes along with you and your staff?

Because here's the truth we keep coming back to: The wrong partner drains your capacity. The right one builds it. 

You deserve the right ones, particularly through the Partnership School/District process.

Partnership District Schools – External Partner Readiness Assessment – Fill out form

If you want to talk through how to structure partnerships that actually lighten your load instead of adding to it, we're here. Reach out to me at [email protected].

You got into this because you care about kids. Let's protect that energy and get your partnerships (and Partnership) on track!