The District Management Council offers an array of management consulting services aimed at raising student achievement while improving operations and lowering costs. These services can fit a variety of budgets.
Central Office Operations Opportunities Review
A Central Office Operations Opportunities Review helps districts identify strategies for increasing efficiency, reducing cost, and improving quality of service across district operations (Transportation, IT, Human Resources, Food Services, School Safety, and other operational services). By auditing key measures of success across these operational categories, DMC will help operations teams select and prioritize opportunities for departmental improvement.
A structured, step-by-step review to identify areas of opportunity to create a highly effective and productive workforce.
Succession Planning ImplementationTechnical and management support to link successful leadership characteristics with employee development practices in order to implement a succession plan.
Management Institute
Working with partner districts such as Boston Public Schools and Springfield Public Schools, DMC helps to deliver a leadership development program called the Management Institute. The program provides senior managers and leaders with formal training and coaching while participants work on projects with specific goals in order to support key district priorities. The Institute is meant to strengthen management skills and change how operational services are delivered in the district. Through formal training and coaching support, the Institute builds the capacity of participants to be more effective and efficient managers. The success rate measured by results and new skills learned (and used) typically exceeds 80% and the value of the impacts compared to costs of the programs easily exceed 25:1.
Strengthening Teacher Effectiveness
Strategic Briefing Session
Strategic briefing: An in-district strategic briefing and facilitation is customized to meet your needs. This service is ideal for facilitating executive team goalsetting and team-building sessions. Topics include:
Strategic Plan Development
A Strategic Plan Design engagement will help improve the clarity and specificity of a district’s strategic plan. The plan design will help the leadership team agree upon the most important metrics and initiatives within the district, and clarify the roles, timelines, and goals that align with these priority metrics/initiatives. The objective of this exercise is to improve and clarify expectations about the work of the district. The plan can then be used as a management tool to communicate internally and externally about the priorities of the leadership team, and it can be used as a tool to improve accountability in the district.
DMC will conduct an audit of the district’s academic, financial, and operational performance to clarify areas of strength and opportunity and to crystallize key objectives.
Dynamic Strategic Performance DashboardBuild a dashboard that provides real-time information on leading indicators of district performance.
Strategic Briefing Session
Strategic briefing: An in-district strategic briefing and facilitation is customized to meet your needs. This service is ideal for facilitating executive team goalsetting and team-building sessions. Topics include:
Stakeholder Engagement Review
Given the complexities of message management in an environment of increasing expectations and dwindling resources, DMC believes that an approach that aligns messages with district actions is the most powerful way to gain long term community support. To do this, DMC will perform an objective brand assessment to help provide a more fact-based set of information to understand how the various stakeholders perceive the value and the services of the district. Following the brand assessment, DMC will help develop and test key messages that will help shift current perception to the desired one.
The design of a targeted communications plan includes identifying and prioritizing audiences and stakeholders, determining key communications objectives, and identifying specific strategies and tactics for reaching those objectives. DMC will help communications teams develop a practical and specific communications plan using objective facts and key messaging strategies that are sourced from a stakeholder engagement review.
Strategic Briefing Session
Strategic briefing: An in-district strategic briefing and facilitation is customized to meet your needs. This service is ideal for facilitating executive team goalsetting and team-building sessions. Topics include:
Analysis – Our team of experienced consultants will work with districts to review and analyze your district’s current programs and benchmark
Opportunities Review for School Districts - An opportunities review includes a systematic study of your district’s current special education and general education services, programs, procedures, staffing, and costs. Based on this data, 75 specific strategies to lower cost and increase student achievement are evaluated and the highest potential ideas for your district are identified. A detailed road map outlining current commendable practices, the three to five highest impact opportunities and projected benefits will be provided in a final report.
Service Review for Collaboratives and Regional Service Centers – Using the proven strategies from our Opportunities Review, we will analyze the effectiveness and cost-efficiency and identify ways to help collaboratives be even more useful and beneficial to their member districts.
Implementation - Our help doesn’t end with a bound report. Our team of veteran educators and consultants provide ongoing support throughout the implementation process.
Project management- District and Community Partners works with your district team to implement the changes outlined in the opportunities review.
Professional Development - By incorporating change management strategies with our special education expertise, we ensure that opportunities are turned into reality.
Tools to Ease Implementation – District and Community Partners has developed a menu of professional development offerings to provide the knowledge and understanding staff need to embrace best practices.
Monitoring and Refining to Assure Success – Systemic change requires a long term commitment. District and Community Partners can provide maintenance and monitoring to make sure that old habits don’t creep back and to bring new staff up to speed quickly. Our monthly reporting allows special education leadership to track results and adjust accordingly.
New Director SupportThis program will ensure the success of your new Director of Special Education. In addition to conducting our opportunities review, we support and coach the new director through the most impactful strategies for improving achievement while lowering costs for a seamless integration into the District.
