The Vanguard Schools include teams from eighteen schools taking the project to the next level of implementation. Each team includes the principal, leadership academy participants and four more teachers who have been active in the initiative for two or three years.

• The Schools
• The Particpants
• The NUA Team
• The IPS Team
• Web Links

The Vanguard Project
Goal: To design a replicable process for each school to develop it's capacity to implement a literacy plan that will serve as a "Blueprint for Literacy", enabling teachers to intensify and accelerate the learning of all students so they will surpass average achievement as indicated on standardized achievement measures.

Participants: Teams from eighteen schools

Program: Five seminar sessions and seven site visits

Description: Schools will formally incorporate what they have learned through the IPS/NUA Literacy Initiative into the ongoing development of their Blueprint for Literacy. The Vanguard Project will address the long-term goal of the IPS/NUA initiative: to replicate successful literacy practices in all IPS schools.

The Vanguard Schools will be expected to:

• Focus on meeting the challenge of under-performing students;
• Discuss, examine and overcome cultural and instructional barriers that contribute to underachievement;
• Implement and share successful organizational process results throughout the school year;
• Document and share student work as part of an assessment process that informs instructional decisions;
• Develop a school "Follow-up Plan for Action" (FPA) to describe school implementation of the practices introduced at the Technical Support and Professional Development Seminars

These expectations will be achieved through technical support and professional development seminars and site visits each of which have three components: technical support (the organizational processes), professional; development (the content strategies), and team homework (to incorporate the process and content into daily practice).

A complete summary of the project is available in Acrobat PDF format.

Forms in Acrobat Files
To read the forms below click on the desired form and it will download to your computer. To read the handouts you will need Acrobat Reader (pdf file format) which comes with most computers (Macintosh and Windows). If you do not have a copy of Acrobat Reader you can download a free copy at the Adobe website.