As a teacher or education leader, you may need some guidance when taking a deep look at teaching and learning practices in your school or district to ultimately bring about change. That’s where events like the annual Model Schools Conference (MSC) comes in.
Each year, my team and I interview hundreds of educators from across the country to identify the new class of Model Schools and Innovative Districts. Although each submission is unique, they share a crystal-clear focus on doing what’s best for their students. That focus and the resulting efforts pay off. The teams, who are making small changes for big impacts, will share the ups and downs of their experiences, help generate new ideas, and inspire you to plan your own path forward.
Listening to teachers and leaders tell their stories—why they wake up in the morning determined to make an impact on students’ lives—is exhilarating. How have they made a difference? Overcome obstacles? Faced challenges? Achieved rapid improvement?
10 ways to act for impact in your school or district
Here’s a taste of what we’ve gleaned and of what you will learn about more deeply when you attend the Model Schools Conference.
1. Build strong relationships and a culture of trust.
This starts with the adults. Leaders and teachers who strive to know each other in a deeper way build relationships. They build trust by demonstrating that they’ll do the right thing for students—even when no one is looking—and that they have each other’s backs in prioritizing student achievement.
2. Implement rigorous and relevant classroom instruction.
What is the real value of learning? Being successful in life—and most importantly, in life beyond school. If real-world success is the true goal, then teachers must plan instruction that builds students’ capacity to address real-world situations. Learning must challenge students to think critically rather than memorize and recall isolated facts. Try investing some time into planning intentional, meaningful learning experiences that are student centered, interdisciplinary, and application based.
3. Create future-focused schools.
Schools focused on the future are innovating how they think about education. Rather than protecting the status quo, leaders and teachers in future-focused schools are constantly considering what’s best for children to reach their life goals. These schools use data to assess all students’ achievement, eliminate initiatives that don’t work, replace them with innovative solutions for a strong chance to work better, and use data to assess the new plan’s progress. These leaders and teachers are driven by strong passion for making a positive impact in the lives of each one of their students. Their passion gives them the courage they need to be honest critics of their own work, think creatively, and make changes.
4. Personalize learning using data.
Data that is personalized to the student is very granular. Developing a system and routines for gathering, monitoring, and analyzing does take time and experimentation. However, when implemented with fidelity, the gains can be tremendous.
Model Schools and Innovative Districts find that such data clarifies each student’s progress and needs and positively informs teachers’ instructional decisions. For instance, school leaders who have a pulse on each student’s grades—and whether those grades are moving up or down or remaining constant—can help teachers take actions that support each student’s progress. When data is personal, students feel known and cared about. They also recognize the goal of and the personal-to-them context for next instructional steps. Get to know your data at the individual student level.
5 Encourage empathy.
Empathy—not to be mistaken for pity or permissiveness—is the ability to sense other people's emotions coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling. Encouraging empathy may be difficult to accomplish, so is it worth it? In the experience of the Model Schools and Innovative Districts, growing empathy—among members of classrooms, teams, and school communities—makes a huge difference in the lives and the academic achievement of all their students.
Growing empathy takes modeling as well as intentionally building all stakeholders’ capacity for empathy and motivating them to practice and choose it. When a student is late to class, what might be an empathetic response? When a child gets sent to the principal’s office, what might empathy from adults and fellow students look like? How are these situations handled in your school? How do you model empathy for others? How can you encourage and increase empathy?
6. Foster a growth mindset.
Making the shift from “I can’t do that” to “I can’t do that yet” is step one in developing a growth mindset. Growth mindset is strongest when a person plans to make a change, sets a timetable, and takes specific actions toward accomplishing a goal. Our Model Schools and Innovative Districts all base their work on a growth mindset about student capabilities. They commit to believing in children’s ability to grow and work daily to support all of their students with whatever they need to accomplish today what they were not yet able to do yesterday.
7. Spread kindness.
This is simple if not always easy. Being kind isn’t only what you expect from elementary students. Model Schools and Innovative Districts are consistently intentional about stakeholders and students at every level being kind to one another. Classrooms in one Model School began with a goal of five acts of kindness per week and then progressed to a goal of five acts of kindness per day.
8. Make a difference in the lives of all children.
Model Schools and Innovative Districts share a top-priority focus on students, their needs, and aspirations. The work of helping children succeed in their lives is a personal, professional, and collective passion, and aiming to make a difference in the lives of all students is the most profoundly meaningful work one can do. This focus on students’ success will propel your success.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of HMH.
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Join other passionate educators at the Annual Model Schools Conference, where you can learn more about school improvement plans.
This blog, originally published in 2019, has been updated for 2025.
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