In the evolving landscape of K-12 education, new roles are emerging to address the complex challenges schools face and to drive meaningful improvements in student learning. One such pivotal role is the Learning Strategist. While sharing some similarities with instructional coaches, the learning strategist goes beyond traditional coaching to become a central figure in shaping a school’s academic culture and student outcomes. Learning strategists are not simply classroom support staff; they are agents of change, strategically deployed to analyze data, enhance teaching practices, and provide targeted interventions.
At Whitney Elementary School in Las Vegas, Nevada, the leadership team recognized the transformative potential of this role when confronted with significant hurdles, including chronic absenteeism exceeding 40%, high teacher turnover, and concerning student achievement data. Instead of viewing these challenges as insurmountable, they saw an opportunity to strategically harness the expertise of learning strategists to lead school-wide improvement initiatives. Their approach centered on intentionally embedding “strategy” into the learning strategist role, focusing on strategic scheduling, integrating these professionals into school-wide planning, and leveraging their diverse skills across various domains to maximize their impact on student learning.
Strategic Integration: Embedding Learning Strategists in School Leadership
To truly optimize the learning strategist role, Whitney Elementary School prioritized their inclusion in leadership meetings and training sessions. This intentional integration ensured that their work was directly aligned with the school’s overarching vision, mission, and strategic plan. By being active participants in the creation and monitoring of the school’s performance plan, learning strategists gained a deeper understanding of school-wide goals, enabling them to more effectively target their support for teachers. This strategic approach involved learning strategists in gathering crucial data through classroom observations and teacher surveys. This data-driven approach allowed them to pinpoint specific professional learning needs within the school, ensuring that professional development initiatives were relevant, timely, and impactful.
Maximizing Impact: Leveraging the Diverse Skill Sets of Learning Strategists
While each learning strategist brings a unique background and specialized skills, Whitney Elementary made a conscious decision to avoid limiting them to specific content areas. Recognizing the value of diverse perspectives and cross-curricular expertise, the school committed to providing learning strategists with opportunities to expand their knowledge across all subject areas and grade levels. This commitment was enacted through explicit professional development opportunities and by encouraging strategists to distribute their support across various subjects and classrooms. By periodically shifting their focus areas, learning strategists developed a comprehensive understanding of the school’s instructional landscape, further enhancing their effectiveness.
A key element of this approach was providing learning strategists with dedicated time and resources for their own research and professional growth, particularly in areas aligned with the school’s strategic growth objectives. A prime example of this is their in-depth engagement with the “Writing Across the Curriculum” initiative. Through classroom observations and professional learning community (PLC) interactions, the strategists identified a need for a more consistent and cohesive approach to writing instruction school-wide. With the support of the leadership team, they took the initiative to design and deliver a series of professional learning workshops focused on Writing Across the Curriculum. Over several years, they expertly guided teachers in implementing the writing process, conducting effective writing conferences with students, and seamlessly integrating writing opportunities into subjects like math and science. This multi-year commitment transformed the learning strategists into true experts in writing instruction, empowering them to provide sustained and impactful support to classroom teachers in achieving school-wide writing goals.
Strategic Scheduling: Optimizing Time for Maximum Effectiveness
In the daily pressures of school administration, it can be tempting to assign learning strategists to non-instructional duties simply to fill gaps in supervision or substitute teaching. However, Whitney Elementary recognized that truly leveraging the strategic nature of these roles required a different approach. They resisted the urge to dilute the impact of learning strategists with extraneous tasks and instead prioritized strategic scheduling that directly supported the school’s performance plan goals. This began with collaborative data analysis between the administrative team and the learning strategists to define annual school improvement goals. For instance, a key focus became reducing the number of students performing below the 40th percentile in reading and math, alongside enhancing professional learning communities’ ability to unpack Nevada Academic Content Standards and align assessments accordingly.
To address these goals, a carefully considered daily schedule was designed for the learning strategists. This schedule strategically allocated time for highly focused areas, including:
- Direct Instruction: Providing targeted literacy and math intervention for students requiring additional support.
- Data Analysis: Gathering and analyzing grade-level data from various assessments to identify specific student groups for upcoming instruction and intervention.
- PLC Support: Actively participating in PLC meetings to provide data context, facilitate meeting protocols as expected by administrators, and guide teachers in effective data-driven decision-making.
- Assessment Review: Evaluating curricular assessments used in classrooms to ensure alignment with learning standards.
- Classroom Observations: Conducting non-evaluative classroom observations to gather evidence of professional learning impact, identify areas needing coaching support, and inform leadership about future professional development needs.
- Collaborative Planning: Partnering with teachers during planning periods to provide coaching focused on deep understanding of learning standards and effective instructional strategies.
- Shared Responsibilities: Participating in shared duties, such as lunch supervision, alongside teachers, fostering a sense of team and shared commitment.
Cultivating Success: Supporting and Empowering Learning Strategists
Supporting learning strategists effectively meant making deliberate decisions about time allocation and fiercely protecting their scheduled responsibilities. At Whitney Elementary, a school-wide understanding was fostered regarding the multifaceted role of learning strategists and the strategic importance of their dedicated time. Furthermore, opportunities were created for learning strategists to connect and collaborate with instructional leadership teams from other schools, fostering a broader network of support and shared learning.
As the strategic rationale behind scheduling and role definition became ingrained in the school’s collaborative culture, new avenues emerged to further refine and expand the impact of learning strategists. These dynamic professionals became key catalysts in driving the school’s progress towards achieving high growth for both teachers and students. The core principle at Whitney Elementary was simple yet profoundly impactful: to consciously and consistently put the “strategy” into the learning strategist’s work, unlocking their full potential to drive school-wide improvement and elevate student success.
