The Playbook

Student success work requires continuous cycles of data review, action, and learning with colleagues across departments. The focus and technology implications of these cycles shift with the time of year. The playbook is designed to support iterative system improvements throughout the school year: each section balances immediate how-to guidance for day-to-day needs with longer-term strategy and planning resources to help teams collaboratively design systems that work for their context.

Before School Year

Before School Year

Investing time in Before School Year plays strategically enables student success teams to focus on addressing district-wide priorities, including chronic absenteeism and on-time graduation. Rostering students supports teams in bridging data from middle and transfer schools to build comprehensive profiles that include historical holistic indicators, preparing all students for the year ahead while also identifying students that may need support from the onset. Setting up gradebooks with research-based, consistent categorizations and weights transforms them from static ledgers into dynamic early-warning tools capable of identifying academic risk in real time. Preparing reports before the school year starts empowers teams to set clear, time-based benchmarks to ensure staff are alerted to key thresholds triggers as soon as students show warning signs of falling off-track. This proactive infrastructure empowers teams to move beyond reactive crisis management, allowing for targeted, student-centered interventions that keep students in school and on the path to graduation. Key data and systems focus areas include:

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During School Year

During School Year

Investing time in During the School Year plays is critical for maintaining the momentum of student success systems and ensuring that each student receives timely support to drive their on-time graduation. By identifying at-risk students through real-time threshold triggers and holistic indicators, teams can move beyond reactionary crisis management to strategic, collaborative at-risk identification for students. Centering students and families in decisions establishes transparent partnerships where students and families are empowered with access to their data to act as equal partners in co-designing success plans that honor their unique perspectives and goals. Assigning interventions through a centralized, logic-driven menu ensures that supports are not only targeted to root causes but are also applied equitably across individual students and groups of students. Monitoring interventions allows staff to track implementation, ensuring students actually receive the intended dosage while accessing the data necessary to pivot intervention strategies if a student isn't making progress toward on-time graduation, as well as building internal understanding of which interventions work for which students under which conditions to drive more strategic assignment. This continuous cycle of data-driven action centers students and families in every decision, transforming the school year into a series of proactive, coordinated steps toward success. Key data and systems focus areas include:

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End of School Year

End of School Year

Investing time in End of School Year plays allows student success teams to reflect on the year’s progress and refine the system for the upcoming year. Planning for Continuous Improvement calls on district and school student success teams to analyze data, patterns, and interventions to evaluate the return on investment for various supports and build institutional knowledge about which processes and interventions were most effective for which students. Wrapping up data processes, which includes archiving holistic student profiles and verifying final credits, ensures that critical historical context and graduation status are preserved and ready for the next grade level. These activities empower leadership to decide on system improvements and identify targeted professional learning needs for staff, ensuring the technical ecosystem remains agile and continuously optimized to support each student’s journey toward on-time graduation. Key data and systems focus areas include:

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