Every district has a graveyard of good ideas, initiatives that launched with energy, drifted, and quietly disappeared when the person driving them moved on. The problem is rarely the initiative. It's the absence of a durable structure to carry it.
This session gives district leaders a practical, initiative-agnostic implementation system: one set of teams, routines, coaching structures, and data practices that any priority can plug into- literacy, attendance, grading reform, AI policy, or whatever comes next. Grounded in implementation science from the National Implementation Research Network and the coherence work of Fullan and Quinn. Participants will leave with the six essential components of an implementation infrastructure, the NIRN Hexagon as a selection gate for deciding what's worth adopting in the first place, a meeting-level operating structure that survives staff turnover, and a self-diagnostic for locating the gaps in their own district.
Participants will be able to:
Distinguish the what of an initiative from the how of implementation, and explain why sustainability lives in the latter Identify the six components of a district implementation infrastructure and assess their district's current state Apply a structured selection process to evaluate new programs for need, fit, and capacity before adoption Name concrete first moves to strengthen implementation infrastructure without a reorganization
