Welcome to the Strong Plans Improvement Lab! At our kick-off meeting, we brought together improvement teams from seven schools to dive into continuous improvement and explore how we will work together throughout the year to strengthen postsecondary planning.

Key takeaways:

• Continuous Improvement Approach: Teams explored continuous Improvement and how this approach can help address systemic challenges in building strong plans by testing small changes.

• Strong Plans Reflection and Self-Assessment: Teams discussed what a strong postsecondary plan looks and feels like. They also examined the Career Navigation Roadmap to identify what their school does well and where they might need to improve. 

• Root Cause Analysis: We explored why all students aren't building strong postsecondary plans by creating Fishbone Diagrams.

• Empathy Interviews: Teams began planning empathy interviews to gather insights into student experiences.

NEXT: Teams will (1) Conduct empathy interviews with students, (2) Complete a capacity self-assessment to better understand their strengths and learning goals, and (3) Meet with coaches to plan next steps.

Slide Deck | Session Materials  [Improvement Team Access Only]

The Think Tank brought together Lab participants along with other network members and friends to share ideas with each other. After mini-presentations in our Practice Share, we followed a Huddle Protocol so that each school team could both get ideas from the network on their problems, and share their expertise at other tables. After some holidays snacks, team went back to their tables to consolidate the ideas they heard and start to move toward a decision for what change idea they might try. A change idea is not a strategic plan or year-long program, rather it's a small tweak to our work that might lead to meaningful change when scaled.

Thanks to all our volunteers for the Practice Share!

• Ben Carey, Cypress Hills LDC, spoke about connecting students with persistence programs on CUNY campuses before graduation

• Sam Maroshick, Urban Assembly, showed us CounselorGPT - a new tool you can pilot for free to supplement exploration and planning. 

  • Interested schools should reach out either directly to Sam or through our CounselorGPT Interest Form. There are flexible ways to try it out - big and small.

• Andrea Ferrero-Haggerty, Pockets Change, showed us the Money Personality quiz and a sneak peak of free resources for talking to young people about values, systems, and money. Here are her slides.

• Justina Sharrock, Goddard Riverside, spoke about her out-of-school programs in career readiness and planning. 

Next up: We'll land on a change idea and put it into a Plan for our first Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles!