Introduction to the District Playbook for High-Impact Tutoring

The District Playbook is designed for school district staff interested in implementing high-impact tutoring programs. While district staff members are the primary audience, state educational officials and school administrators will also be able to leverage many of the resources in the Playbook.

The Playbook draws from research and the deep knowledge of districts, tutoring providers and other experts across the country. It is one of several interrelated research-backed tools provided by the National Student Support Accelerator to make it easier for states, districts, schools and nonprofits to develop and implement high-impact tutoring programs with quality.

What is High-Impact Tutoring?

High-impact tutoring is personalized, high-quality instruction in one-on-one or small group settings that creates positive relationships between tutors and students that are motivating and engaging. Importantly, not all tutoring follows the characteristics we outline for high-impact tutoring, and can therefore vary in effectiveness. Numerous studies confirm strong benefits for student academics and overall well-being when high-impact tutoring is implemented with fidelity.

A High-Impact Tutoring Program will have:

Relationship-based instruction
Sessions that meet regularly 3+ times/week for 10+ weeks
Consistent, well-trained tutors
Small group tutoring sessions of 4:1 (preferably 1:1)
Content that aligns with high-quality curriculum
Scheduling that is integrated into the school day with an opt-out model

Why Adopt High-Impact Tutoring?

Some Key Reasons to Adopt High-Impact Tutoring:

Accelerate learning by 3-15 months
Provide personalized, individualized instruction
Boost attendance rates
Boost graduation rates
Career development and teacher pipeline

How to Use this Playbook

The Playbook has a distinct structure for each section that organizes content around your specific needs:

Section Introduction: The landing page is an overview of the section and base knowledge including:

Tutoring Quality Improvement Standards that are aligned to the section, with the relevant indicators from our LEA Self-Assessment
Research insights that have informed recommendations
District profiles that provide implementation stories

Subsection Pages: The subsection pages define and provide context for each domain of Key Recommendations that will be presented. Following these definitions, you will see:

Key Recommendations that include specific steps to move your tutoring program toward effective, research-based practices
Corresponding Resources provides additional readings, resources, templates, and tools to dive deeper into the recommendations. Editable items are available as google doc templates and word document downloads.
- Checklist: A list of executable tasks
- Example: Examples used in other contexts to serve as a model
- One-Pager: A one-page high-level summary of a topic
- Reading: Provides more detailed information regarding the topic
- Research One-Pager: A one-page high-level summary of a research study
- Reflection Guide: A series of questions to assist in decision-making
- Template: A tool to edit and personalize to suit your needs
- Toolkit: A collection of tools, templates, reading, and resources
- Video: Video content to support recommendations
- Website: Website resources outside of NSSA

Annual Revisions and Scalability: This section concludes the Playbook and will contain annual updates of the most current research, new findings, and implications for districts that will be integrated into the Playbook in the next revision.

A Note About the Standards

At the end of each subsection, you will find reference to Tutoring Quality Standards and Self-Assessment Indicators. An Advisory Group developed these standards based on what research and practice shows creates effective tutoring programs and updates them regularly to reflect new learnings. The Self-Assessment Indicators are more in-depth, quality markers developed for each standard. All of our recommendations support a commitment to these seven research-backed standards.

The Seven Quality Standards of High-Impact Tutoring

Where do I start?

Entry Point 1: Take the free, 15-minute Local Education Agency (LEA) Self-Assessment. The LEA Self-Assessment provides a rapid, free, and research-based assessment of their program's quality. Then conduct a search for specific Self-Assessment indicators to find the District Playbook subsections that provide relevant recommendations and resources.

Entry Point 2: Reference the Roadmap to Success for Your High-Impact Tutoring Program to find topics, time estimations, and potential benefits for your journey launching high-impact tutoring in your schools. We encourage you to invest additional time here to ensure that high-impact tutoring is a success.

Get inspired by other districts! Read the district profiles to hear how school districts planned and implemented high-impact tutoring. Learn from their challenges and celebrate their success!