Partnering on Prep

Communicate and Meet

RECOMMENDATION 7: Partners should communicate and meet frequently

For partners to build rapport, trust and actually drive change, they must meet regularly. The frequency varies by partner, but typically strong partners meet formally once a month or quarter and have other informal interactions in between meetings. To enable this kind of engagement, partners must identify point people for the partnership, commit to a recurring meeting and be thoughtful about ensuring the right people are in the room.

Steps You Can Take

• Identify point people and make “partnership” a formal part of their role. Strong partners identify (or hire) point people responsible for implementing the partnership. Point people must possess exceptional relationship-building skills, have interest or experience in the partner organization and have the skills to identify and recruit district and teacher preparation leaders who will engage deeply in discussion about instructional quality.
• Commit to regular, in-person relationship building. Almost universally, strong partners commit building strong relationships among leaders across institutions, usually via monthly or weekly meetings, with informal connection points in between.
• Get the right people in the room for the task at hand. Partners often struggle to get the “right people” in the room but remark that this is critical to drive decision-making and change. The “right people” include the point people (from districts and teacher preparation programs) who can drive processes from start to finish and staff with decision-making authority who can set vision and direction.

Highlighted Tools

• STEP UP Coordinator Description

  (University of Texas Rio Grande Valley)
• Governance Meeting Protocol

  (US PREP)