Latisha Coleman, director of Redesign and assistant principal at Anacostia High School in Washington, DC, made some tough calls last year. Before COVID-19, the school had worked closely with families and community members to co-design a new “Dream Team” initiative that paired volunteer community partners with ninth graders so that each student was mentored regularly by at least one caring adult. But when the pandemic hit, all these well-laid plans were thrown into disarray. Engaging community partners from outside the school was no longer feasible given health and safety concerns, and meanwhile, students needed support and caring relationships more than ever.

As a result, Anacostia’s leadership made two key decisions: first, the school not only persisted with the Dream Team idea, but rapidly expanded it to include students in all four grades. And second, instead of community partners, the school tapped all the adults inside the school—including the principal—to take on caseloads of students and connect with them regularly. Coleman said that some staff, struggling with the pandemic and a dramatic change in working conditions, felt they couldn’t do one more thing. “It was very overwhelming,” she said. “But our principal really put a stake in the ground to say this matters. We know it works. So everyone’s in, including me.”

One way to interpret Anacostia’s story is to simply see a high school buffeted by forces outside its control: adults had to take on extra responsibilities because of the immense challenges of supporting students during the pandemic. But that narrative over-simplifies what were, in fact, strategic choices to achieve a certain goal, and which resulted in important lessons learned for Coleman and her team.

Coleman is just one of 14 leaders I interviewed recently, as part of the Canopy project, who challenged the notion that the changes they made in 2020-21 were the unfortunate consequences of forces outside of their control. Rather, these leaders had a clear sense of their school’s identity and purpose, and articulated why some of the changes they made were essential—and even exciting—strategic shifts.

Read the full article about strategic shifts in education by Chelsea Waite at Christensen Institute.