The GRAD Partnership team is proud to highlight the efforts and achievements of Spotlight Schools, their districts, and communities. 

What is a Spotlight School?

Spotlight Schools are national examples of how to implement and sustain one or more of the components of student success systems. By participating in ongoing awareness and outreach efforts, spotlight schools play a vital role in advancing the mission of the GRAD Partnership to bring student success systems to all schools and districts.

Effective student success systems respond to each school’s unique context, and while one school’s strategy may not be appropriate for another, spotlight schools demonstrate a learning and impact process that can guide any effort to improve student success. A spotlight school serves a diverse population and has strong visible leadership at the school and/or district level.

What does it mean to be a spotlight school for the GRAD Partnership?

Spotlight schools are a primary means of sharing peer-to-peer learning and experiences. School personnel partner with the GRAD Partnership team to highlight key components of their student success work through national webinars, blog posts, op-eds, and podcasts so that peers can learn with and from spotlights, and educators can generate ideas together. On occasion, spotlight schools offer in-person site visits and an opportunity to engage with teachers, coordinators, and students.

How are spotlight schools selected?

The GRAD Partnership recognizes schools with a commitment to implementing a student success system to better support the academic progress, college and career transitions, and well-being of all students. There is no competitive process for becoming a spotlight school, rather the following criteria are used by the GRAD Partnership to select spotlight schools:

• Implementing one or more component(s) of student success systems
• Serving diverse communities, reflecting regionality, types of schools (i.e., urban, suburban, rural), schools with a high number of students living in poverty, schools with a high number of students with disabilities
• Demonstrating strong visible leadership at the school and/or district level
• Willing to share and showcase their stories, successes, and learning (‘solutions’ should be portable for other schools)

Spotlight schools are nominated by the organizing partners, Advisory Board members and/or other advocacy partners. 

Spotlight schools are not compensated.