Paul Public Charter School occupies a unique space in the Washington, DC charter school landscape. Born of a neighborhood public school founded in 1930, Paul opened as a public charter junior high school in 2000. After more than a decade as a middle school, Paul expanded to serve high school students and its first class graduated in 2016. Facing a number of successes and challenges in academic achievement, Paul is seeking to better position itself after improving its middle school and achieving Tier 1 status for the high school.

In 2021, Paul PCS partnered with DeliverEd (and data experts from EmpowerK12) to determine the pros and cons of a potential expansion into fifth grade. We conducted a series of interviews, focus groups, and surveys to gather qualitative data on a number of key questions to inform the decision making and planning for expansion. We worked to understand the benefits and concerns of the Paul community around expansion, the capacity of the school to make this shift, and the supports necessary to successfully implement an expansion of the school’s model. Our work resulted in a report to the Board with a recommendation for how and when to make this shift, as well as a follow-up partnership to build a strategic plan to execute on the plan.

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) has an established Delivery Unit that is responsible for running highly-effective, focused performance management routines against their strategic plan. DeliverEd partnered with TEA to support their Delivery Unit to refresh the strategic plan and refine the accompanying routines to ensure they are data-driven and action-oriented.

We collaborate with and coach the TEA Delivery Unit to identify specific opportunities for improvement within their existing systems and processes. This includes working with the Commissioner and Cabinet to re-envision the areas of focus for their strategic plan, identify specific levers for change, and determine targets and trajectories for improvement over time.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has a network of grantees who are receiving funds to convene “Networks for School Improvement” (NSI) focused around “advancing high school graduation and college success rates for Black and Latino students and students experiencing poverty.” The NSI are using similar structures of continuous improvement to identify specific “change ideas” that will have the greatest impact on outcomes for these students.

DeliverEd works closely with the Gates team to structure and facilitate highly-engaging, collaborative learning experiences to allow members of the CoP to share with and learn from one another. This includes both virtual and in-person opportunities to highlight best practices, tackle common challenges, and learn together from content experts to strengthen their work.

Learn more: U.S. Program