The Marzano framework, based on 40 years of educational research, defines five progressive levels of performance that a school must master to become a high-reliability school — where all students learn the content and skills they need for success in college, careers, and beyond. As part of the certification, Marzano staff looks for key indicators, systems for behavior and ways the school is communicating with families to decide if a school has reached certification as a Marzano's High Reliability School.

The Marzano High Reliability Schools framework does not add a new initiative to school efforts. Eldorado is already implementing a wide range of effective initiatives, and many of our staff members at Eldorado are already practicing research-based strategies. This framework shows how best practices work together and provides indicators to empower our schools to measure our progress on attaining five increasing levels of reliability. Using the framework and indicators, Eldorado can drive permanent, positive, and significant impact on student achievement by synthesizing multiple complex initiatives into one research-based system.

In collaboration with our Building Leadership Team and our School Accountability Committee, we are pursuing level 1 certification of Marzano's High Reliability Schools framework which looks at the area of Safe, Supportive, and Collaborative Culture. To begin this process, we are using the Marzano’s Institute High Reliability School Survey to identify areas that are already in place or areas that could be improved at our school. All community members are encouraged to complete this SURVEY.

High Reliability Schools Level 1 (Safe and Collaborative) has 8 research based indicators (1.1-1.8 ) to demonstrate high reliability within level 1. Each one of these indicators is in the survey. This survey will guide us in what we "prove" we are doing at Eldorado and if there are areas that we need to "improve".