Assembling a diverse district team ensures balanced and multi-perspective discussions. It should include a wide range of stakeholder representation including decision makers, practitioners, and family members with differing cultural backgrounds so that district plans address all children's needs. An ideal number of members is 5-8 with a maximum of 10.
Your district team will champion your initiative, make a commitment to meet regularly to complete each implementation stage, and play a pivotal role in monitoring progress and addressing challenges while progressing through each stage of execution (exploring to full implementation). It also manages infrastructure needs, ensures high-quality, evidence-based, equitable practices are implemented with fidelity, and fosters buy-in within the district and community.
To this end, the team is responsible for developing a clear concrete plan detailing: what needs to happen and how, who is responsible, and a realistic timeline. For the exploration work to be successful, team members must articulate their commitment to and their agreement with the steps identified to achieve sustainable change.
Teams should include:
Someone responsible for accessing and preparing the initiative’s data to use effectively as a decision-making tool
Someone with knowledge and experience in implementing the initiative’s best practices
Someone experienced, or willing to learn about, implementation science to leverage this knowledge to the initiative
Someone able to develop and generate communication about the initiative to team members and stakeholders.
The District Implementation Team considers a range of representation:
Decision-makers
Practitioners
Family
Community partners
Multi-cultural perspective
Citation: National Implementation Research Network (2020). Implementation Stages Planning Tool. Chapel Hill, NC: National Implementation Research Network, FPG Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Alongside administrative decision makers, Literacy Teams should include multi-grade (PK-3) general education teachers, special education teachers, interventionists and other support staff, and family representation.
