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Core Curriculum
Why building trust in school communities matters
Discover how the Moline-Coal Valley School District in Illinois used the 5Essentials to foster trust and strengthen student relationships.
The Center for Model Schools
Create the conditions for lasting success
For more than 30 years, the Center for Model Schools, formerly ICLE, has partnered with districts and schools to ensure every student is in the model school they deserve. We empower educational leaders to create thriving environments where growth and achievement excel. Leveraging the research-backed 5Essentials® framework, we prioritize actionable leadership strategies that transform school culture.
5Essentials
Achieve long-term success
Schools excelling in at least three of the five essentials are 10x more likely to improve student outcomes than those weak in three or more. We partner with schools to align people, processes, and culture, uncovering not just what drives outcomes, but also why, to ensure sustainable growth.
Our coach continues to challenge my thinking every time she comes. I can see my growth as a leader throughout this year, and I attribute a lot of that growth to this coaching.
Administrator, Kirby School District, IL
Leadership Services
Partnering for growth and impact
Informed by the 5Essentials, our personalized, collaborative approach helps schools reach their goals through shared learning, job-embedded coaching, observational feedback, and guided planning—available both in-person and online for flexibility and impact.
MODEL SCHOOLS CONFERENCE
Learn from fellow educators
Join us for our 34th year of connecting student-focused educators at the Model Schools Conference (MSC), June 28–July 1, 2026, in Orlando, FL! Share strategies, learn from thought-provoking industry leaders, and reflect on personal and professional growth.
Center for Model Schools Leadership Services
- School Improvement
- Leadership Coaching
- Principal/Aspiring Principal Academy
- Strategic Planning
- Model School Insights
School Improvement
The 5Essentials® survey provides deep insights and measures five key factors linked to better school and student outcomes. Leverage your 5Essentials Survey results to create improvement plans that strengthen the organizational conditions linked to long-term school and student success with targeted 5Essentials Professional Learning.
- 5E Professional Learning Workshops: Understanding the 5Essentials: Gain solid foundational knowledge of the 5Essentials system, scoring, and reports.
- Building Trust: Consider practices that foster trust and reflect on actions to promote deeper levels of trust.
- Fostering a supportive environment: Delve into recent research that provides a framework to consider the structures, policies, processes, and programs that enable schools to create safe, supportive environments.
- Leadership and the creation of successful environments: Explore the role of school leaders in creating change in schools and encounter research that describes the mediated pathway and levers at a leader’s disposal.
- Data and Root Cause Analysis: Learn about the 5Essentials improvement cycle and participate in data analysis exercises that help identify the root cause of your school’s challenges.
- School Improvement and Implementation Planning: Finalize a school improvement plan with a coherent set of improvement goals, methods for progress monitoring, and an implementation plan.
- Evaluating and adjusting: Reflect on and evaluate the initial success of your actions and adjust your plans to promote continued progress.
- Completing the cycle: Evaluate the successes and challenges of the past year, reflecting on multiyear trends and progress.
Leadership Coaching
Leadership Consulting includes shared learning experiences, job embedded coaching, observational feedback, and guided planning to build the capacity of the school leadership team through a consistent, embedded and data informed approach. The Center provides both in-person and online support to maximize flexibility and growth.
Leadership Coaches:
- Guide and support school leaders in developing and implementing sustainable processes, practices, and protocols supporting the essential conditions for effective schools that are embodied in the 5Essentials Framework
- Spend quality time in schools, observing school leaders in action, visiting classrooms and interacting with staff during improvement meetings
- Employ an inquiry method focused on asking open-ended questions and active listening
- Illuminate insights through constructive and strategic feedback
Principal/Aspiring Principal Academy
Principal Academies ensure leaders understand the district vision and mission, develop their own leadership story, and provide opportunities for early candidate vetting, ultimately reducing principal and aspiring principal attrition and addressing the shortage of qualified candidates.
The academies are year-long, blended consulting offerings with the Center for Model Schools. Through our partnership, principals and aspiring principals will experience:
- Actionable Plans to operationalize the leadership vision and story.
- Aligned Leadership aligning values with district needs, while building emotional resilience and a conflict resolution toolkit.
- Collaborative Networking gaining access to a supportive cohort to find solutions for current and common challenges.
- Role Preparedness enabling a swift transition into new, high impact roles.
Strategic Planning
Strategic Planning with the Center for Model Schools guides your district with intentional, data-driven planning, stakeholder engagement, and support designed to help you achieve your goals so that every student is in the Model School they deserve.
As part of the strategic planning process, the Center for Model Schools will work with the district’s Strategic Planning Leadership Team to design a robust, dynamic, and inclusive stakeholder engagement process to maximize constituent input. Our process will summarize findings that include strengths/weakness and opportunities/challenges. We will also utilize our nationally and internationally recognized thought leaders from the Center for Model Schools to provide insight into what districts and agencies across the nation are doing to become Future-Ready.
The Center for Model Schools Strategic Planning process is grounded in three phases:
Phase 1: Analyze the Current State
Phase 2: Develop the Strategic Plan
Phase 3: Implement the Strategic Plan
Model School Insights
Model Schools Insights is a process that creates the context for the transformational leadership work within a district and school. The Model Schools Insights is not an evaluation, but rather a method designed to guide staff through a journey of self-reflection and improvement. Information is gathered around key Model Schools indicators through a series of district, school, and classroom observations and through focus groups. The data are compiled into a comprehensive report, which is shared with leaders and used to guide the partnership—ensuring that leaders remain strategically focused on creating the conditions for success.
Build the future of education with us.
Insights and resources
Learn how you can improve student outcomes with these instructional leadership insights.
Drive positive change and enhance your overall effectiveness as an administrator this year with a school improvement plan.
Improve your student outcomes with these ideas and strategies for school improvement especially for education leaders.
New Analysis by Leading Education Expert: CPS Students Are Learning and Growing Faster Than 96% of Students in the United States
- Report Type: Research Evidence Base
- Grade Level: PreK, Elementary, Middle, High
Webinar
Tackling Chronic Absenteeism: Get Students Back Into Class
Webinar
Crafting Impactful PD for Teachers and Leaders
Webinar
Beyond the Plan: Measuring, Adjusting, and Realigning Strategies for Success
Transformational change starts here.
The 5Essentials Framework
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