Transformation Zone Development and Support
Reimagine school success through transformation zones
We believe that the school is the unit of change and improvement and therefore, “one size fits all” support from district offices is unlikely to lead to dramatic school improvement. Mass Insight’s transformation zone model offers schools, particularly those serving student populations that are highly diverse, historically marginalized, and/or experiencing gaps in opportunity, access, and outcomes, the opportunity to redesign and reimagine the student, family, and staff experience.
Transformation zones are carved out spaces that allow a set of schools to design and operate with new conditions and more tailored supports than other district schools, allowing them to address unique root causes of inequity and low performance. Zones consist of an intentionally selected group of schools (ideally 4-7) with common interests, needs, or goals (e.g., K-12 attendance pattern, similar identified challenges, etc.) and a school support and management unit/lead partner that is either within or outside of the district (i.e., an internal or external zone office).
Transformation zones were first proposed as a strategy for school improvement in Mass Insight’s 2007 report, The Turnaround Challenge. Since then, this model has been adopted nationally across many districts and education partner organizations. We recently revisited the zone strategy, examining zone implementation data from 3 Mass Insight-supported zones from 2012-2019 and current educational ecosystem needs and realities, to identify new lessons learned for transformation work and learning acceleration post-pandemic.
Zone Development
To develop a zone, our district partners receive support to engage their community in a readiness assessment, strategically select zone schools based on needs and vision, develop school redesign plans, create zone office governance structures, secure optimal school-level conditions, and cultivate community-wide understanding and investment in the zone strategy. With a shared vision for the zone and actionable community-informed school redesign plans at the forefront of zone design, districts can then establish more equitable and responsive zone systems, structures, and conditions (e.g., flexibility, support, resources in the areas of people, time, budget and program) to bring the vision and redesigns to life and achieve more equitable and successful outcomes for all students.
Mass Insight zones are defined by 5 key design features based on our research and work in the field. Each design feature includes core indicators to implement and measure resulting in improved outcomes for students in zone schools.
Purpose, Goals, Governance, and Accountability
Clear zone purpose and goals for improvement, formal governance structures, and accountability for equitable outcomes for all students.
Conditions
Guaranteed, codified, and operationalized conditions that empower the lead partner/zone leadership and zone schools to implement school plans and access differentiated and equitable supports resulting in the success of all students.
Focus on Teaching and Learning
A focus on reimagined teaching and learning through evidence-based and actionable improvement plans, progress monitoring, talent and leadership development, and embedded, differentiated supports.
Clustering
Intentional grouping of schools to create networks of support, increase capacity, and leverage economies of scale.
Community, Sustainability and Continuous Improvement for Long Term Impact
Zone and district/external governing board commitment to engaging and partnering with their community and sustaining and continuously improving zone efforts to ensure long term impact.
Zone Support
Once a zone is developed, Mass Insight provides embedded, comprehensive support for zone implementation, capacity-building, and performance management. We work side by side with zone and zone School leaders to adopt, implement, monitor, and improve new zone school designs, improvement strategies, and differentiated conditions and flexibilities. We help our partners engage and center voices of historically marginalized students and families, develop instructional leadership systems and capacity, and work through the technical and adaptive day to day challenges so that plans come to life and result in their intended outcomes. We serve as executive coaches, thought-partners, facilitators, data experts, coalition-builders, and equity champions in support of zone effectiveness and impact.
Zone School Support
Zone Office Support
Performance Management
Community Engagement and Coalition-Building
Authentic stakeholder engagement to strengthen investment in and sustainability of zone efforts.
In one Mass Insight zone partnership,
%
Out-of-school suspensions decreased at 3 of 5 schools, by as much as 49%
4 of 5 schools increased median state growth percentages in ELA
%
One of the zone schools, which was the lowest performing high school in the state at the time, improved one full level on the state accountability system following the first year of zone implementation.
Mass Insight’s ability to understand and adapt to the needs of our district and schools has been critical to helping change practices and operating conditions that schools need to implement their plans and continue to improve. They have a deep understanding of how various systems interact and help or hinder schools’ abilities to improve and meet unique student needs. Mass Insight’s expertise in school and systems-level transformation has helped our action zone make early improvements and establish the systems and structures needed to sustain improvements over time.
Are you ready to create more student success in your school or district?
Our team of former teachers, school and district leaders, and policy experts are ready to support you. Please fill out your contact info and we’ll get right back to you to talk about ways we can partner together.