Conditions for Effective Partnership 

Relay Instructional Leadership Academies are designed to enhance leadership practice, and a central focus of our training model is to improve participants’ ability to effectively coach other educators. To ensure successful outcomes, we strongly recommend that partners have the following structures in place.

School-Wide Structures

The partner school has, or will have, systems that support the core instructional levers that we explore in our programs. Such core instructional levers include: data-informed instruction, student culture systems and routines, observation and feedback of teachers, instructional planning, and leading adult professional development.

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Commitment from Partner Schools:

The partner school is committed at the district or network level to do the following:

• Ensure opportunities for observation and feedback, including frequent, informal observations of teacher and coaching debrief meetings.
• Ensure that video can be used to capture the participant's work with teachers. This includes, but is not limited to: video-recording classroom instruction, individual feedback conversations with teachers, data meetings with teachers, and professional development sessions.
• Managers of Instructional Leadership Academy participants will support their development through the implementation of the instructional leadership skills learned and by fulfilling their commitments to Relay programming, including attendance at sessions and submission of assessments.

Program-Specific Requirements

For the National Principal Academy Fellowship (NPAF): 

• All participants must use an electronic observation and feedback tracker that enables leaders to track observations, identify action steps, and see trends across multiple observations. If schools don’t already have one, Relay will provide different models to build from.
• Implement common, standards-aligned interim assessments at least three times per year in the grades for which the leader will be responsible. 

For the Inclusive Schools Leadership Institute (ISLI): 

• The managers of ISLI participants will support their development through the redesign of instructional and behavioral systems centering the needs of exceptional learners. 
• Managers will support participants to meet the commitments to Relay programming. This includes session attendance, completion of performance tasks, and participation in the end-of-the-year Hackathon. . 
• ISLI participants also agree to participate in 12 bi-weekly synchronous sessions in the fall and spring.

Selecting Leaders

For our program to be most impactful on student outcomes and the school or school system, we recommend selecting leaders to participate who demonstrate the following mindsets:

• Continuously Improving Effectiveness: Demonstrated openness to feedback with willingness to practice and incorporate feedback to continuously improve.
• Personal Responsibility: Sees it as their personal responsibility as a leader to ensure that all students succeed. 
• Work Ethic and Relentless Drive: Has a strong work ethic and is willing to do what it takes to build a strong school. In particular, they are willing to commit the extra time for this program. 
• All participants must commit to the policies as denoted by the table below: