Building a Team for Your Get Focused...Stay Focused!® Initiative
Implementation through Institutionalization: Proven Strategies for High-Functioning Teams

Session 1:
Begin with the End in Mind

Once you discover the answer of why a 9th grade transition program is necessary, this opening session will provide you the opportunity to outline your team’s goals and expectations for a formalized plan for initiating a Freshman Transition program that will grow over the next three days in each of the seven sessions of this institute.

Session 2:
Developing your Planning Team

Save time and frustration by recruiting top performers for your planning and teaching teams. In this session you’ll formalize your recruitment process, articulate year one, two, and three outcomes, create a plan for researching options and identify successful strategies for training your best instructors.

Session 3:
Strategies for institutionalizing your Freshman Transition program

This session is loaded with strategies for institutionalizing your freshman transition program, including how to:

• Fit a freshman transition course into your master schedule
• Determine the course structure (semester, year-long, etc.)
• Generate school, district, and community-wide buy-in and funding for the course and 10-year plan
• Choose a curriculum that meets the Course Standards for Freshman Transition Classes
• Explore Funding Options

Session 4:
Implementing a Freshman Transition Course that gets results

For course instructors to develop a comprehensive, rigorous classroom experience, they need professional development and course planning time. This session details the roles staff development and curriculum fidelity must play in the planning process.

Session 5:
Instructional Leadership Strategies

This session will help you: identify a lead teacher for your course; develop a plan for long-term professional development and leadership continuity; and overcome roadblocks and detours along the way. 

Session 6:
9th Grade Touch Points throughout the year

This session is all about providing meaningful connection points for freshmen through carefully designed orientations, club rushes, career fairs, and mentoring opportunities.

Session 7:
After 9th grade, then what?

By elevating your freshman transition efforts to a School-wide Initiative, you’ll have a true whole-school reform effort. Session Seven focuses on strategies to encourage all instructors to get involved with the updating of their students’ 10-year plans by using them as a common instructional and advisory tool.