Protecting the Plan: How Principals Sustain Improvement When Everything Competes for Attention

Principals leading improvement work carry two jobs at once: advancing long-term priorities and responding to whatever walks through the door. In this 30-minute webinar, school improvement experts Contann Dabney and Giselle Sherry-Marsh draw on years of partnering with schools nationwide to examine what separates schools in which improvement sticks from those in which it quietly stalls. 

Grounded in the Four Domains for Rapid School Improvement—Turnaround Leadership, Talent Development, Instructional Transformation, and Culture Shift—the session focuses on a practice principals can use immediately: pausing to reflect with precision and then identifying the single next leadership move most likely to advance the work. Attendees will also see how My School Improvement Partner, a new AI thought partner built by WestEd for principals, is designed to support that habit between meetings. 

Attendees will leave with a clear way to diagnose where implementation is losing momentum, a framework for prioritizing their next moves, and practical strategies for protecting focus during a demanding school year.