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Nearly three years ago, we asked ourselves the question: “What can districts and teacher preparation programs, partnering closely together to prepare teachers, truly do to ensure that teachers are ready to support all students to succeed?” Together, with the Joyce Foundation, we embarked on a journey to learn from successful partnerships nationwide, and built a roadmap with 10 recommendations to define how they prepare for, launch and sustain partnerships in service of teachers and students.

Since that time, partnership work nationwide has grown and flourished. More and more teacher preparation programs and districts are collaborating to build a shared vision of instructional excellence, to support mentor and student teachers, to address long-standing workforce challenges and to keep a laser-like focus on ensuring every student is taught by an excellent teacher. States, too, have taken up the charge, using the 10 recommendations as well as their own resources and tools to incentivize,  strengthen and in some cases, even require partnership work. Education First, too, has worked closely with three districts, Chicago Public Schools, Indianapolis Public Schools and Minneapolis Public Schools, to support partnership work. Through our work and conversations, we’ve seen incredible progress, as well as a hunger from partners to learn from their peers nationwide.

So we’re excited to share this toolkit: Partnering on Prep: A Toolkit for Building Strong District-Teacher Preparation Program Partnerships. This toolkit digs deeply into each of the 10 recommendations from the original report, highlighting the work of new partnerships, articulating specific steps partners can take, and providing tools and artifacts developed by partners to support their work. The toolkit is designed primarily for districts and teacher preparation programs who want to launch new partnerships or partner more effectively with one another, but we encourage use by states, funders, technical assistance providers and others looking to strengthen teacher preparation pipelines.

A sneak peek of tools you’ll find:

• Teach Richland Residency Handbook: (Richland Parish Schools, TNTP) This handbook outlines mentor and resident responsibilities and provides guidance to mentors on how to coach adults, have difficult conversations and collect data.
• University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Clinical Practicum Syllabus: (UTRGV) This clinical practicum syllabus establishes the learning outcomes, course objectives, policies and evaluation requirement for resident teachers at UTRGV.
• US PREP’s Governance Meeting Protocol: (US PREP) This governance meeting protocol describes the purpose of governance meetings, who should attend, how frequently members should meet and topics they should cover.

To access the toolkit and set of tools, click here.  We are thrilled to share this resource with you, and hope that it supports your endeavors to build stronger partnerships for the benefit of teachers and students nationwide.