The Paul Cuffee School (PCS) is a public charter school in Providence, Rhode Island, serving students from kindergarten through 12th grade. Founded in 2001, PCS provides a rigorous, student-centered education grounded in the values of community, diversity, and social responsibility. The school reflects the legacy of its namesake, Captain Paul Cuffee, an African American and Wampanoag mariner, merchant, and abolitionist who founded what is thought to be the first integrated school in Westport, MA. PCS serves students across three campuses, with a focus on collaborative learning, critical thinking, and leadership development at each level. As a diverse and inclusive school community, PCS reflects the demographics of Providence:

 

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​In 2020, PCS engaged their community in a thorough strategic planning process that resulted in an ambitious strategic plan. Taking the call for improvement seriously, they recognized that in order to successfully make school-wide systemic changes they would need to work differently than they had worked in the past, changing the way they organized people, activities, evidence streams, and communications in a way that moved strategic priorities forward to meet big goals.

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PCS partnered with Koru Strategy Group to achieve the following goals:

• Strengthen individual leader capacity: Activating PCS leaders’ individual strengths in service of strategic priorities

• Strengthen internal systems: Organizing a strategic planning team, ensuring their time and efforts were used most effectively, and using evidence to assess and adjust strategic plans.

 

In partnership with Koru, PCS leadership has strengthened their approach to strategy and operations, and have successfully advanced key deliverables. Along the way, they have scaled practices organization-wide to dramatically improve their use of collaborative time and evidence.​

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The Challenge​

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The 2020 strategic plan centered on four key priorities:

• College and career readiness – ensuring students graduate with the skills and knowledge to succeed beyond high school.

• A deep culture of literacy – fostering strong reading, writing, and communication skills across all grade levels.

• Anti-racist, anti-bias practice – embedding equity, inclusion, and culturally responsive teaching throughout the school.

• Professional learning and development – strengthening staff capacity and collaboration to drive instructional improvement.

 

Each of these priorities had multiple milestones and action steps that required coordination, communication, and focus. The leadership team was responsible for implementing all strategic priorities, but had not yet established the structures, systems, and shared leadership model necessary to drive and sustain meaningful change.  Additionally, leaders recognized a need for all members of a 12-person school-wide leadership team to understand their connection to teaching, learning, and student growth. 

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"We had broad consensus that our strategic priorities were the right ones, resonant with our community culture.  We had a School Wide Leadership Team with the right people.  What we needed was expert facilitation to help us build the shared mindsets, systems and practices that would empower our leadership teams to inspire and lead collaboratively."

– Becky Coustan, Director of Learning & Teaching

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Recognizing this important need, Koru engaged in exploratory conversations with PCS leadership, which surfaced deeper challenges related to strategic execution, leadership capacity, leadership team interconnectedness, and change management.

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At the time, PCS had a new leadership team, with most members having 0-3 years of experience in their roles. The team was deeply committed to equity and urban education, but the Head of School noted that strategic planning and execution often felt reactive rather than proactive.  PCS needed support in:

• Operationalizing the strategic plan – moving from high-level vision to concrete, measurable action steps.

• Building shared leadership – shifting ownership beyond a small leadership team (previously held largely by two leaders) to ensure broader staff engagement.

• Creating systems for effective collaboration – establishing clear meeting structures, defining team roles, and improving decision-making processes.

• Strengthening the role of evidence – embedding data-driven decision-making so leadership and staff could track progress and adjust as needed.

• Enhancing communication systems – addressing challenges related to clarity, consistency, and alignment across leadership and instructional teams.

• Fostering a culture of continuous improvement – moving beyond a “we’re doing fine” mindset to one where learning, reflection, and iterative improvement were embedded into leadership practices.

 

While PCS had passionate and equity-driven leaders, they were eager to establish systems and structures to manage priorities effectively, and to delegate more effectively, set clear priorities, and establish norms and expectations that would stick.

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The Solution

To address these challenges, Paul Cuffee School (PCS) partnered with Koru Strategy Group to develop a structured, collaborative approach to building capacity of individual leaders and leadership teams to carry out ambitious strategic priorities. The work, over three school years from SY21-22 through SY23-24, empowered leaders at all levels, ensuring that the strategic plan did not remain an abstract vision but became a set of actionable, measurable priorities that could be executed effectively.

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​​​​​​​​​​​​At the heart of this effort was leadership development and cultural transformation. Koru worked with PCS to create a common framework and shared language for improvement, ensuring that leaders across different areas of responsibility had a unified approach to managing change, setting goals, and assessing impact.

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Building Strategic Leadership Capacity

Through summer retreats and ongoing coaching, Koru supported the PCS Executive Leadership Team and key instructional leaders in:

• Strategic team development – clarifying team composition, roles, and responsibilities.

• Norm-setting – establishing shared expectations and professional practices that promoted transparency and accountability.

• Effective meeting facilitation – improving meeting structures, ensuring efficient use of time, and fostering purposeful collaboration.

• Goal-setting and progress monitoring – creating measurable objectives, tracking impact, and making data-informed decisions.

• Action planning and execution – moving from planning to action by forming and implementing detailed strategies at both the leadership and classroom levels.

 

Toward a New Leadership Culture

Beyond structures and processes, Koru guided PCS leaders in cultivating a culture of reflective, adaptive leadership, helping them develop the skills to navigate change, manage challenges, and continuously improve. This included:​

• Reflective leadership practices – utilizing 360-degree feedback to identify strengths and areas for growth.

• Immunity to Change framework – helping leaders uncover and overcome hidden barriers to achieving their goals.

• Communication strategies – improving clarity, consistency, and alignment across leadership levels.

• Navigating leadership transitions and emerging issues – providing thought partnership and coaching through real-time challenges, such as leadership shifts, employee evaluations, and urgent decision-making.

 

By supporting multiple leaders at the same time, Koru ensured that PCS did not rely on a single individual for change but rather built collective leadership capacity. This approach made it possible for PCS to drive improvement collaboratively, sustain progress over time, and embed a continuous improvement mindset into the school’s leadership culture.​

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The Outcome

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PCS successfully executed strategic plan priorities over three years, establishing long-term changes that are in practice today. With Koru’s structured approach to leadership development, strategic execution, and data-informed decision-making, PCS has dramatically improved its ability to manage change, align initiatives, and drive measurable improvement across all key priority areas.

 

Key Achievements

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“The Paul Cuffee School has successfully implemented the key action items of its Strategic Plan through effective team ownership, which has included recruiting and supporting team members, using collaborative organizing tools, developing peer-to-peer accountability systems, and tapping into a personal investment in the School’s mission.”

- Chris Haskins, Head of School

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1. Strategic Plan Execution

• PCS successfully carried out its three-year strategic plan, ensuring that all major initiatives were implemented with fidelity and sustained impact.

• A Portrait of a Graduate was created, defining the essential skills and competencies PCS aims to instill in every student.

• A data dashboard was designed and implemented to track student readiness, particularly in high school, college, and career preparedness.

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“Koru helped us successfully achieve our strategic goals.  Developing a common understanding of all types of evidence helped us move the needle with teachers’ ability to identify and study a problem.”

- Becky Coustan, Director of Learning & Teaching

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2. Academic Program Enhancements

• Adopted and implemented a new curriculum aligned to school-wide priorities.

• Established an instructional coaching model, providing teachers with ongoing support and professional development.

• Dramatically improved the multi-language learner (MLL) instructional approach, ensuring better support for diverse learners.

• Implemented new benchmark assessments, enabling PCS to monitor student progress more effectively and adjust instruction based on real-time data.

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​​​​​​​​​​​“Adopting a school-wide student performance measure in reading has helped to provide buy-in from all teachers and administrators related to instructional improvement. Everyone is working toward the same goal- demonstrated improvement in reading performance based on our local measurements, as the result of foundational literacy instruction and school-wide attention to closing opportunity gaps.” – PCS Leadership Team

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“A focus on internalizing curriculum lessons and assessments is a common practice. Teachers are finding more opportunities to look at student work together.” 

– PCS Leadership Team

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3. Equity and Inclusion Efforts

• Conducted an anti-bias, anti-racist (ABAR) equity audit to examine school-wide policies, practices, and student experiences.

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4. Professional Learning and Leadership Development

• Established a professional goals framework for teachers and staff, creating a structured process for individual growth and accountability.

• Developed a mentorship and coaching model, fostering leadership development among educators at all levels.

 

“With the support of Koru, we’ve felt empowered to combine elements of the Data Wise Framework with our newly established coaching framework, which focuses on establishing student-centered goals for coaching processes and supporting teachers in making adjustments in their instruction to see academic growth from our students.” – Genevieve Schultz, Upper School Principal