DRIVER 05 · THE STUDENT SUCCESS SYSTEM
Workflows
Connecting the drivers in daily school practice.
An agreed next step needs more than a record in meeting notes. Colleagues need to know its educational purpose, who will carry it forward, and when they will examine what the student is learning. Workflows connects those decisions with the school’s daily practice.
True Progress helps schools bring Visibility, Focused Curriculum, Instruction, and Meaningful Data together across classrooms, specialist teams, and leadership. As the fifth driver of the Student Success System, Workflows sustains attention to every student’s strengths, interests, difficulties, and opportunities. Shared practices make follow-through dependable while preserving educators’ judgment about what each student needs next.
Three ideas guide the work
Connected practice gives understanding a continuing purpose
Shared preparation brings the knowledge needed for a question or decision, not simply a collection of updates. What educators learn about a student informs curriculum and teaching; the student’s subsequent work and experience help colleagues decide what to develop next.
Shared responsibility carries decisions into practice
An agreement names the learning aim, who will carry each part forward, and when colleagues will return to it. Review asks what changed for the student, not only whether adults completed their tasks. Educators retain judgment about how to respond as learning unfolds.
Learning carries forward
Colleagues carry forward strengths, interests, current aims, approaches that have helped, and unresolved questions. They preserve the reasoning behind decisions as well as the decisions themselves. That gives the next teacher a starting point without turning earlier interpretations into a fixed account of the student.
The four drivers in shared practice
Each driver contributes to educational decisions. Workflows makes the connections explicit: what colleagues need to know, which work they coordinate, and how they return to the student’s learning.
Visibility
Educators bring relevant classroom knowledge, assessment findings, and student and family perspectives into planning and review. They distinguish what they understand from what remains uncertain, rather than allowing one setting or account to define the student.
Focused Curriculum
Classroom teachers and specialists agree how learning aims and sequences connect. They identify where stronger foundations, further challenge, or intervention belong within the wider program, and clarify who will develop any changes.
Instruction
Teachers and specialists exchange observations that could change a colleague’s next teaching decision. They coordinate relevant approaches across settings without requiring identical teaching, and identify questions about what the student understands or can do in each context.
Meaningful Data
At review, colleagues interpret student work, assessment, and experience against the learning aim. They consider what to continue, deepen, change, or investigate, record the reasoning, and make responsibility for the next step clear.
These connections are not a fixed sequence. A question can emerge from any driver. Shared practice helps the relevant colleagues explore it, decide whether action is needed, and return to what follows.
Workflows across the student’s education
The depth of coordination should match the educational question. Some decisions need a brief exchange; others need several perspectives and a planned review. The aim is sufficient coordination to act and learn, not the same meeting or process for every student.
| Shared work | What educators coordinate | What they return to |
|---|---|---|
| Following every student’s development | At agreed review points, teachers bring relevant classroom knowledge, student perspectives, and periodic assessment findings. Colleagues identify strengths to develop, questions to explore, and any action needed, with a named person responsible and a review point. | What has developed in the student’s understanding, interests, independence, and experience, and whether planned learning opportunities remain appropriate. |
| Developing further challenge | Teachers agree what further challenge is intended to develop, who will plan it, and when to examine the student’s response. They coordinate opportunities within or across subjects rather than simply adding more work. | Whether the new work deepens understanding, extends inquiry, or develops greater independence, and what the student reports about the challenge. |
| Connecting intervention with classroom learning | Specialists and classroom teachers agree what intervention is intended to develop, how it connects with ambitious classroom work, and who will share findings. They set a point to review learning across settings. | What the student understands and can use across settings, with needed accommodations in place, and which difficulties or questions remain. |
| Examining patterns across classrooms | Faculty define the recurring pattern and consider possible explanations before choosing a response. They assign responsibility for any curriculum or teaching change and agree what subsequent student work would help them judge it. | What subsequent student learning and experience suggest about the change, and whether the team should continue, refine, or reconsider it. |
For most students, periodic Screener results provide the True Progress assessment evidence considered alongside classroom work, observation, and conversation. Educators select a Diagnostic or Inventory when a particular ELA or math question requires greater detail. Action and review can take place between assessment windows.
Continuity as students develop
Across teaching settings
Different settings may reveal different strengths and difficulties. Teachers and specialists compare the work, expectations, and conditions to explore those differences. Students and families add context; colleagues agree what the findings suggest for teaching, challenge, or intervention.
Across school years
A useful handover includes more than results or a list of difficulties. Colleagues share strengths, interests, current aims, approaches that have helped, and questions still being explored. The next teacher uses that knowledge as a starting point, checking earlier interpretations through new work, relationships, and conversations.
Developing Workflows with your school
True Progress works with leaders, faculty, and specialists to strengthen how knowledge and decisions travel through the school. We begin with your educational aims and existing practice: where collaboration helps students, where responsibilities become unclear, and where agreed work stalls.
Build from existing practice
Together, we examine how a student question moves from an observation to a decision, action, and review. Teams identify useful practices to preserve, repeated exchanges that could be simplified, and gaps where knowledge or responsibility is lost. The work is designed to fit school life.
Make responsibilities and connections clear
Teams agree the purpose of each shared practice, the people involved, what they need to prepare or share, and who will carry decisions forward. They define when to review and what learning to examine. Professional development and coaching help establish these practices while preserving teachers’ daily judgment.
Refine through experience
Teams ask whether the practices are useful: did relevant knowledge reach the colleague who needed it, did agreed work happen, and did review inform the next decision? They adjust or remove steps that duplicate effort without improving understanding or follow-through.
Shared preparation, responsibilities, and review begin during the first year of Visibility implementation. Focused work on Workflows develops those practices across the wider Student Success System as the school strengthens its other drivers.
Connecting the work at your school
Discuss a recurring point where your school’s shared work becomes difficult: preparing for review, carrying a decision forward, connecting classroom teaching and intervention, or sharing understanding with the next teacher. We can consider which changes would help colleagues act together and follow what students learn.