The GRAD Partnership team is proud to highlight the efforts and achievements of our exceptional schools, districts and intermediaries. We also aim to highlight states that are creating the conditions and establishing the frameworks for schools and districts to implement student success systems.

What is a Spotlight?

Spotlights are national examples of how to implement and sustain one or more of the four components of student success systems. By participating in ongoing awareness and outreach efforts, spotlights 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, spotlights demonstrate a learning and impact process that can guide any effort to improve student success. A spotlight serves a diverse population and has strong visible leadership.

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

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

How are spotlights selected?

There is no competitive process for becoming a GRAD Partnership spotlight, rather they are nominated by the organizing partners, Advisory Board members and/or other advocacy partners. Nominations are guided by the following qualities:

• 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)

Spotlights are not compensated.