Case Studies
Elevating Educational Excellence at P.S. 249: The Caton School with Achievement Teams
Brooklyn, New York
Before Achievement Teams, P.S. 249 grappled with a lack of structure or defined approach to data analysis. Despite being a high-performing Title 1 school, challenges in teacher clarity and standards alignment hindered teachers’ ability to consistently meet the diverse needs of its student population. Additionally, like many schools and districts across the country, teacher turnover rates meant an urgent need to upskill first-year and less experienced teachers. To propel student achievement and leadership capacity, Principal Brown, Assistant Principal DeJesus, and the P.S. 249 staff fully committed to the Achievement Teams framework to enhance teacher clarity and performance, thereby ensuring equitable outcomes for students and earning them accolades, including the Blue Ribbon Award for Exemplary Performance from the U.S. Department of Education.
Scaling Achievement Teams to Transform Teaching and Learning in Lindsay Unified School District
Lindsay, California
Before cultivating its current data-driven and learner-centered
culture, powered in part by Achievement Teams, Lindsay Unified
School District faced considerable challenges. Despite being a
community full of dedicated and veteran teachers and supportive
parents, academic outcomes were not meeting the desired standards. Numerous students were graduating from high school unable to read. The district ranked unfavorably in adult literacy and poverty levels, and it faced the uphill task of ensuring progress for learners who needed it most. To enhance instruction and achievement, Cinnamon Scheufele, Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction, along with her team, worked to establish a culture of inquiry and data-driven instruction. With Achievement Teams as a guiding framework, the district began to fully adopt Achievement Teams across campuses in an effort to spread best practices, improve instruction, act more urgently on student performance data, and provide every student with the personalized learning they needed.
Achieving Academic Excellence with Achievement Teams in Washington Unified School District
Fresno, California
Prior to unifying the school district in 2015, Washington Schools in Fresno, CA grappled with fragmented processes and misalignment across K-12 classrooms. Although the district had implemented a local protocol for data collection and analysis, the lack of a unified approach hindered collaboration, student growth, and instructional improvement efforts. With leadership changes and new principals at various school sites, maintaining momentum and fostering a consistent focus on student data analysis became a critical challenge for the district. In an effort to create greater cohesion in academic programming and the student experience, John Sherron, Director of Curriculum and Instruction, along with the district team, adopted Achievement Teams district-wide as means to cultivate a truly unified academic system that ensured growth for all learners.