Your story starts the same way every August: new students with complex needs, returning staff facing familiar challenges, and the weight of knowing that despite your best efforts, some learners will still struggle to access what they need.
What if this year's story could have a different ending?
The Story Every Leader Knows Too Well
You've invested in curricula. You've updated technology. You've sent teams to professional development. Yet students with disabilities continue experiencing fragmented support, teachers work in isolation, and your most vulnerable learners fall through systemic cracks.
The plot never changes: reactive problem-solving, disconnected efforts across departments, staff turnover that erases progress, and compliance approaches that miss the real goal—student success.
Your story is common. But it doesn't have to be permanent.
Rewriting the Narrative: Systems That Transform Stories
The THRIVE Systems Leadership Cohort Toolkit gives you the tools to author a different story—one where sustainable systems replace constant firefighting, where collaboration becomes the norm, and where every student's success becomes predictable rather than lucky.
Built on The Ability Challenge's THRIVE Framework, the toolkit offers a systematic approach that transforms how your school operates: Inspect-Interpret-Intervene —a proven cycle that turns persistent challenges into lasting solutions.
Four Schools, Four Success Stories
This toolkit shows how four schools implemented effective systems that helped them meet the needs of all students, with a focus on students with disabilities. It shares their lessons learned and provides tools and guidance to help other leaders implement similar changes - to make your school a place where all students belong and thrive:
AppleTree Southwest's Story: From Crisis to Collaboration
- 50% increase in student engagement after implementing co-planning systems
- Survived three principal transitions without losing momentum
- Teachers took ownership: "They led the discussions, and I just made sure things moved along."
Center City Petworth's Story: From Isolation to Integration
- 72% improvement in teachers using inclusive strategies
- 16% growth in student engagement through systematic collaboration
- Broke down silos: "Teaching can feel like a silo... Bringing teachers together, we could look at student data as a team."
AppleTree Parklands' Story: From Scattered to Systematic
- Students with disabilities outperformed network averages by 41%
- 90% of teachers met fidelity standards while reporting high ownership
- Built sustainability: "Having teachers in the planning stages was key. They were the voice of, 'This is what we need.'"
Washington Yu Ying's Story: From Reactive to Proactive
- 100% of teachers felt equipped to manage classroom challenges
- 14% increase in student engagement through targeted coaching
- Transformed confidence and reduced administrative support requests
These schools didn't have special advantages. They had systematic approaches to change.
Your Toolkit for Transformation
The THRIVE Systems Leadership Cohort Toolkit provides the complete roadmap these schools used:
Assessment Tools: Understand your current narrative and identify where to focus change efforts
Collaborative Design Resources: Engage your team in rewriting the story together—ownership drives sustainability
Implementation Frameworks: Move from vision to reality with structured pilots, reflection cycles, and scaling strategies
Sustainable Systems: Build changes that outlast leadership transitions and staff turnover
Real-World Evidence: Complete case studies, video interviews, and lessons learned from actual implementations
Every tool has been battle-tested in real schools facing real challenges.
Start Writing Your New Story This Year
Your students with disabilities deserve systematic change that makes their success inevitable.
The THRIVE Systems Leadership Cohort Toolkit gives you everything you need to:
- Diagnose what's really driving persistent challenges in your school
- Design collaborative systems with your team's full ownership
- Implement changes that stick and scale across your organization
- Sustain improvements through leadership transitions and evolving needs
The research is clear, the tools are proven, and the results are documented. The only question is: what story will your school tell this year?
Ready to change your school's story?
Access the complete THRIVE Systems Leadership Cohort Toolkit and case study and start building the systems that make every student's success part of your school's story.
