Toward the Desired State Practitioner Toolkit

School districts commonly work with multiple technical assistance (TA) providers at the same time. These TA providers often work separately and compete for the scarce time and attention of educators. While their function to a district is to provide expertise in the form of knowledge, methodologies, and/or tools and materials, the expertise of TA providers often does not fully realize district goals. Toward the Desired State: Developing More Helpful Relationships between Districts and Technical Assistance Providers describes some of the reasons why technical assistance falls short of the desired aims and offers a tool to assist both districts and TA providers to develop more effective working relationships.

SCOPE’s Questions to Ask tool can be used by a district before TA providers are selected or by TA providers as an opportunity to:

• Examine the district’s goals for technical assistance.
• Identify the groups that need to be part of the TA selection process.
• Consider the existing conditions within the district and the extent to which conditions are likely to support (or constrain) their technical assistance goals.

Our intent in developing the Questions to Ask tool is to enable earlier and better decisions and activities to support fertile relationships among and between TA providers and districts and to encourage districts and TA providers to communicate with each other early and often in the technical assistance process.

The Toward the Desired State Practitioner Toolkit includes 3-page chart/handout that identifies key questions to ask and answer before, during, and after engaging with TA providers and a short narrative that describes the tool and how to use it.