Insight's Supports and Services

Strategic Planning

With the unique challenges of the past year and a half, an aligned strategic plan has never been more critical. Even for districts with an existing strategic plan, the learning disruptions created by COVID-19 provide an opportunity to revisit those plans. Insight uses a collaborative and interactive approach to engage stakeholders in a deliberate strategic planning process that results in new or updated vision, mission, core beliefs, theory of action, organizational goals, key metrics, and action steps.

Leadership Academies

As districts and schools prepare to address the current challenges, effective leadership will play a crucial role in how quickly and effectively we accelerate learning for students. Insight’s Leadership Academies (for current principals, assistant principals, or aspiring leaders) are created in partnership with local leaders to ensure alignment to the district’s priorities and can be in-person, virtual, or hybrid. Academies often include eight hands-on sessions focused on topics such as content, problem solving, and strategic thinking.

Recruitment & Retention

For many schools and districts, teacher recruitment and retention was already an area of need prior to the pandemic, and the last year has only exacerbated teacher shortages. Insight provides customized on-the ground supports to help districts prioritize recruitment and retention in new ways. We work collaboratively to build year-round, multi-stakeholder systems to recruit and retain the effective educators students need and deserve.

PREVIEW THE RECRUITMENT & RETENTION PLAYBOOK

Accelerated Learning Supports

The pandemic has created trauma and hardship for students, communities, teachers, and leaders. Many districts are now grappling with how to best support their learners and teachers. Our goal is to work closely with districts to analyze their learning loss data, identify the areas of greatest need among their students, and provide the resources and implementation support needed for them to execute a robust strategy for accelerating learning. Ultimately, we believe this work will not only help districts resolve unfinished learning, but will also help them grow their capacity and build on the lessons learned to become stronger and more resilient for the years to come.Insight works collaboratively with districts to create and implement accelerated learning supports, as well as embedded social and emotional learning (SEL) opportunities for both students and teachers.

School Level System of Supports

Helping schools create effective and efficient systems to support teachers is at Insight’s core. In fact, Insight was founded over 20 years ago to provide professional learning opportunities directly to teachers. Our experience and the relevant research has shown there are three critical levers to improve educator effectiveness and student outcomes:

Instructional Leadership Teams (ILT) – Our ILT model, known as Traction for School Improvement, provides a process for school and teacher leaders to set goals, identify potential roadblocks, and create action steps for reaching those goals in a 60-minute weekly meeting. Insight provides two days of upfront training on the ILT model and can provide additional coaching and support as needed.
Professional Learning Communities (PLC) – Several years ago, Insight teamed up with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create a new type of PLC. Based on improvement science research, the STEP model is a teacher-driven, asset-based approach that focuses on how to leverage what is working in a school. Schools utilizing STEP have seen increased teacher morale. As we approach the upcoming school year, this PLC model is one way to help address the social and emotional needs of our teachers. Insight provides three days of upfront training on the STEP model and can provide additional coaching and support as needed.
Instructional Coaching – In our two decades of supporting schools and districts, we have rarely seen “one size fits all” approaches work. Our instructional coaching support provides multiple coaching strategies and processes to effectively engage teachers in a reflective conversation that impacts instruction in the classroom. Insight’s three-day training on our coaching model provides opportunities for participants to role-play and receive feedback as they practice the processes.

Additionally, our ADVANCE platform can be used for peer-to-peer video-based coaching, as well as to ensure that all observers in a building are calibrated on identifying effective instruction.

Check out these resources directly related to these systems:

Our Work in Texas

For the past several years, Insight Education Group has supported districts in Texas to implement systemic levers that lead to improved outcomes for all students. Insight provides support to districts around strategic planning, executive and instructional coaching, teacher and leader development, teacher recruitment and retention, learning acceleration, and more.

Insight's Supports for Texas Schools and Districts