Our Strategy
Our vision is that one day all children in the United States will attend schools that prepare them for the lives they choose. To fulfill this promise, Turnaround creates evidence-based tools and services that help all students, no matter how much adversity they experience.
Develop Tools and Services
We develop tools and services to accelerate healthy student development and academic achievement in schools serving high concentrations of children impacted by adversity. Our tools for practice promote clear and actionable steps that can be used by school leaders and practitioners to cultivate safe and supportive environments strengthen relationships and develop essential skills and mindsets.
Turnaround’s Building Blocks for Learning is an example of a knowledge-based tool. It is a framework that describes the development of essential skills and mindsets students need for success in school and beyond.
Expand Reach
We are working to determine effective and scalable approaches for sharing our strategies and services with more schools and students. Our suite of services are created to serve a variety of education systems.
- Professional Learning – Turnaround’s Professional Learning Series trainings – for principals and school leaders, student support leads and leaders of districts and charter management organizations – build knowledge about the science of learning and development and the impact of trauma. The goal is to equip leaders with strategies and practices to build effective systems that support healthy student development and academic achievement for all children.
- School Partnerships – Turnaround supports school leadership teams to change practices and develop systems and structures that foster healthy student development and academic achievement. School partnerships are aimed at achieving measurable progress for students in physical and emotional safety, relationships, growth mindsets, self-regulatory capacities and sense of belonging – ultimately leading to academic growth and mastery.
- Consulting for Systems Leaders – Turnaround guides systems-level leaders in understanding policy and resource choices that support whole child development and creating or revising systemwide initiatives, accountability structures and resource allocations. Through a customizable service delivery model, Turnaround provides targeted support for districts, states and school systems to establish and improve key systems and frameworks, including Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports and proactive disciplinary policies.
Prompt Action
We raise awareness about how students develop and learn and offer educators tools and strategies to help all children thrive, no matter their start in life or how much adversity they face.
By engaging with and learning from districts, sharing knowledge at thought leadership events, participating in research and practice-based collaborations and arming policymakers with evidence-based insights, Turnaround is creating an effective and sustainable plan for scaling tools and services.
- Thought leadership events including Aspen Ideas Festival, Teach for All Summit and American Federation of Teachers Conference
- Media coverage in outlets such as The New York Times, NPR, Ebony and The Atlantic
- Collaborations with researchers, scientists and coalitions, including Harvard University, the American Institutes for Research (AIR), The Science of Learning and Development Initiative, Aspen SEAD, America’s Promise and America Forward
- Policy initiatives at the city, state and federal levels