Step 2
Assessing the School’s Readiness
Overview
In this phase, the school design lead invites a subset of the school design team to complete the School Readiness Self-Assessment. After taking the assessment, each member reflects individually on the results, reconvenes to discuss their findings, and completes a series of guided exercises to plan the path forward. Finally, this subgroup meets with the entire school design team to present their findings and establish a consensus on the current state of the school.
Assess school capacity, foster shared understanding, and strategize for the design journey
Owner(s)
School design team
Lead Role: School design lead
What the Assessment Is and Why It Matters
The School Readiness Self-Assessment is a group exercise that enables you and your colleagues to collectively create a snapshot of your school’s current capacity for the design journey ahead, along with guidance on areas to focus on.
The assessment comprises 10 key categories of skills and conditions—from vision setting to the school transformation capacity—that have an overwhelming impact on the success of any transformation effort. It leverages key learnings and insights from our deep and ongoing collaborations with school leaders who have already embarked on the design journey.
This assessment is not meant to be prescriptive or conclusive about your future success, nor is it a pass-fail test. Rather, it ensures you and your team have a well-rounded picture of the degree to which these skills and conditions are present in your school, and helps you align on how to best prepare for a successful design journey.
10 Skills and Conditions That Enable Transformation
A set of collective competencies needed to affect transformative changes across a school
Vision Setting
Unites the community around a shared purpose and provides clarity to make decisions and plan direction moving forward
Experimentation & Innovation
Enables schools to adapt to changing needs, pilot new approaches, and ensure equity for all students
Leadership Ability and Alignment
Enables school leaders to guide transformation, build strong teams, and communicate with the community
Individual Conviction
A personally held deep and sustaining belief in the importance and potential of the work being undertaken that fuels engagement and ensures it is prioritized
Individual Capacity
The support of individual knowledge and skill, time, and commitment required to successfully carry out the work
School Design Team Conviction
A team-held deep and sustaining belief in the importance and potential of the work being undertaken that fuels engagement and ensures it is prioritized
School Design Team Capacity
The support of team-wide knowledge and skill, time, and commitment required to successfully carry out the work
School Community Conviction
A community-held deep and sustaining belief in the importance and potential of the work being undertaken that fuels engagement and ensures it is prioritized
School Community Capacity
The support of community-wide knowledge and skill, time, and commitment required to successfully carry out the work
Equity of Opportunity
Ensures that all students have access to an excellent education, regardless of their background or circumstances
Your Assessments
In this section, the school design team can create new assessments or review previous ones. Each assessment offers distinct snapshots of the school’s progress over time.
Select an option to get started.
Create a New Assessment
Give your assessment a name
Use a unique and memorable name that fits this moment for your school. After you create your assessment, you won’t be able to change the name and you will need to share it with other members of your team, so pick something that will make sense to everyone.
We recommend a name that includes your district, month, and year. For example, you might name your assessment “Central Falls Assessment — June 2023”. This will be helpful if you create additional assessments in the future.
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