Tailored Services
Schools and districts may partner with RISE to build a custom engagement specific to them, often involving a combination of coaching, professional learning, and strategic consultation. Many of our larger district partners collaborate with RISE to form in-district high school networks. These customizable engagements help districts and schools pursue a coherent high school transformation model.
Please email partnerships@ctrise.org to connect with our team.
School Diagnostic Process
RISE partners with school and district leaders to study current systems, practices, and approaches to supporting on-track success and postsecondary access as a way of building a deeper understanding of assets and growth opportunities. This process, which includes meetings with relevant stakeholders and reviewing data and relevant artifacts, helps inform recommendations around both quick wins and longer-term strategic investments. RISE can provide ongoing support with the implementation of recommendations through coaching and/or professional development activities.
On-Track and Postsecondary Coaching
During regular coaching sessions, a dedicated RISE coach collaborates with leaders of the school’s on-track and/or postsecondary work to set and track progress toward goals, design and monitor implementation of change ideas, and reflect on key strategies and student outcome data. Learn more!
Hear from RISE coaches about their shared experiences, challenges, and how they can achieve the greatest impact with their coaches.
Improvement Team Formation / Launch and Ongoing Observation and Feedback
While data teams and professional learning communities are not new in education, RISE’s approach is unique and proven to generate results. We help schools to form and reimagine improvement team structures, bringing together diverse educators to advance shared goals (e.g., on-track, attendance, postsecondary). We also support teams in establishing norms, protocols, and meeting calendars to ensure that improvement team meetings are purposeful. We support team leaders with coaching that includes meeting planning, ongoing observations, meeting co-facilitation, and feedback.
Check out this profile from RISE’s 2024 Annual Report, “Our Improvement Journey,” about how school improvement teams work together to identify root causes, test solutions, and implement sustainable changes, piloting innovations that improve student outcomes.
Improvement Team Support
As we support schools in forming improvement teams to advance on-track, attendance, and postsecondary goals, we also offer ongoing professional development for these teams. Particularly as schools are looking to launch or reimagine team structures, we find that partners benefit from externally facilitated professional development around new protocols, data analysis, mindset, improvement planning, etc. We partner with administrators and team leaders to design professional development sessions that align to the team’s strengths and growth areas, and match annual meeting scope and sequence.
Standalone Professional Development
RISE offers custom-designed professional learning sessions for key school-based educators to build knowledge around on-track and postsecondary work and its importance, strategies, and to support focused planning for the design and refinement of the model for supporting the transition. Session topics can include Grade 9 research, adolescent brain development, “Schools on the RISE” foundational conditions audit and reflection, data protocols, and more.
District Strategy and Support
Many of our larger district partners are working to build coherence and alignment across schools. We support district leaders in establishing a district-wide vision for on-track, attendance, and/or postsecondary work. RISE coaches then serve as a bridge between central office leadership and school staff by establishing a shared vision and then working to operationalize that vision across schools. Through regular coaching sessions with district leaders, we support central office leaders in establishing goals, key strategies, action plans, and shared accountability across schools and districts.
On-Track Mentors
Over the past eight years, RISE has demonstrated that on-track coaches supporting an intentional caseload of Grade 9 students can make a measurable difference in promoting on-track achievement. RISE is exploring a partnership with ServeCT/AmeriCorps to grow a corps of On-Track Mentors embedded in partner high schools five days per week. Through this partnership, RISE would serve as the employer of on-track mentors at school sites offered to districts at a significantly subsidized cost. Learn more!
On-Track and Postsecondary Communication
Much of our work involves building an on-track and postsecondary culture, which requires students, families, educators, and community partners to organize around shared goals. We partner with schools to pursue a multi-faceted communications campaign with diverse audiences through multiple channels. We help schools to craft goals and key messages, and then pursue strategies like signage, regular newsletters, and social media campaigns to support and grow a culture of student success reinforced by all stakeholders.
