Frequently Asked Questions

My School Improvement Partner (MSIP) is an AI-powered leadership tool designed to help school leaders move from school improvement plans to implementation. MSIP is grounded in WestEd’s Four Domains for Rapid School Improvement framework. It provides practical guidance, helps prioritize next steps, supports decision-making, and keeps improvement efforts focused in the periods between coaching sessions and meetings.

Leaders should start the goal-planning workflow to set priorities and provide MSIP with as much information as possible, such as documents (e.g., school improvement plans), relevant data, and context. Leaders move through goal planning to confirm strategies and action items. These action items are used for features such as My Next Move, the Daily Brief, and Reflections that support short cycles of action and progress toward a goal.

MSIP is designed to support the leader’s day-to-day leadership work. The leader can

• ask questions about school improvement challenges;
• upload school documents, such as improvement plans, needs assessments, or leadership frameworks;
• develop action plans;
• prepare for meetings, walk-throughs, and coaching conversations; and
• reflect on progress and determine their next leadership move.

The more context the leader provides, the more tailored the support becomes.

No. MSIP is designed to support the leader’s professional judgment without replacing it. It provides recommendations, identifies considerations, and helps the leader organize their thinking so they can make informed leadership decisions that are based on their unique school context and grounded in an evidence-based framework.

The leader will receive the most useful responses when they

• clearly describe their school or district context,
• upload relevant improvement documents,
• ask specific questions,
• share evidence or data when available, and
• continue the conversation by asking follow-up questions or refining responses.

The leader should think of MSIP as a leadership partner that becomes more valuable as it learns about the leader’s improvement work.

MSIP is designed to fit naturally into the leader’s leadership routine. Logging a note after a walk-through, responding to a Daily Brief, or reading a reflection prompt are all designed to fit into the natural pauses in the leader’s day and not add to their workload.

The leader should trust their judgment. MSIP’s suggestions are grounded in WestEd’s research and frameworks, but the leader knows their school, their staff, and their community better than any tool can. The leader should push back, ask follow-up questions, or simply set a suggestion aside. MSIP will not repeat it unless the leader asks it to.

Yes. MSIP is accessible via web browser on phones and tablets. The experience is designed to work on a small screen so that the leader can log a note or check their Daily Brief from anywhere.

No. MSIP is designed to extend the support that the leader’s CSTI Improvement Specialist provides by being available for use between coaching conversations. As part of their MSIP contract, the leader will have the opportunity to meet with their school improvement specialist five times, which includes an onboarding session and quarterly check-ins. The CSTI Improvement Specialist will plan meetings to help the leader get the most from MSIP. In collaboration with the CSTI Improvement Specialist, the leader will have a chance to review their work, reflect on their progress, refine their priorities, and address their questions as their improvement efforts evolve.

No. The leader’s CSTI improvement specialist will not be able to see the leader’s goals, their progress, or any conversations they have with MSIP. The leader’s work with MSIP is confidential.

To start goal setting, the first-time user will see a “Get started” button on the main landing page or on the My Goals page. Goal setting can begin with an existing district or school goal and extend through an improvement plan or other documents; or, if an improvement plan is not available, leaders can provide data, observations, staff feedback, or other evidence to help identify needs and challenges. MSIP asks clarifying questions to help capture the goal in clear language and make sure it is specific enough to guide development of strategies and action items.

Leaders do not need documents to begin goal planning. If there are no artifacts ready to upload, the leader can chat directly with MSIP. The leader will select the “Get started” button on the main landing page. Inside the goal-planning workflow, the leader can communicate with MSIP about what they are seeing, what feels most urgent, and what they want to improve. That conversation can still help shape the goal and its action items.

Most leaders find that actively working on three to six goals is manageable; too few may leave important work uncovered, while too many can dilute attention and follow-through. However, it is up to the leader to confirm their goals.

The definition of a goal is considered complete when the leader has named the goal, clarified what success looks like, connected it to the relevant improvement focus, and confirmed at least one set of action items. Until action items are in place and confirmed with MSIP, the goal planning is considered still “in progress,” and MSIP will continue to provide the leader a “Continue planning” button to complete the goal-setting workflow. The leader will know when they have successfully confirmed a decision with MSIP when the chat displays a check mark and replies with “Got it.”

When all the goals are confirmed, MSIP will guide the leader in completing at least one goal through strategies and then finally to action items. A set of action items allows the leader to see action items in My Next Move; however, until all strategies and all action items are confirmed for a goal, the planning is still considered “in progress.”

That prompt remains visible as long as any confirmed goal has not yet been planned all the way through to action items. MSIP keeps the button in place so that leaders are nudged to complete planning for each goal and thus not leave any of the goals at an incomplete stage.

The prompt disappears once all goals are fully confirmed, meaning that each one includes a clear goal statement, a definition of success(es), and an agreed-upon set of action items for all strategies. At that point, MSIP treats the initial plan as established and the leader’s goal planning as complete. For example, the leader has confirmed three goals. For each goal there are two strategies, and those are confirmed. However, only one set of action items is confirmed for one strategy. This means goal planning is not complete.

Yes. Once all confirmed goals are fully planned (this means all goals and all strategies have confirmed action items), the leader can move from the setup stage into an update process to refine goals, strategies, or action items as their context changes. Leaders can start the update process by selecting “Update my plan” on the right side near other quick actions, such as “Discuss a challenge.”

MSIP will send a gentle reminder if it notices that the leader has gone quiet. There is no backlog of missed items. The goal is momentum, not compliance.

My Next Move helps the leader focus on a set of near-term, high-impact actions that can realistically move forward in the near term. It is designed to keep improvement work grounded in a goal and its action items rather than create disconnected tasks.

My Next Move is only available after at least one goal has been fully completed, leading to a set of action items. If no goal has reached that point, MSIP will continue to require the leader to finish or resume goal planning before unlocking the My Next Move container.

If the leader has more than three confirmed action items, then the item selected as “Not now” is replaced with the next prioritized action item. If the leader has three actions or less, the action items will remain in the My Next Move card. The My Next Move feature will persist on the page and will not disappear.

The Daily Brief is a summary of previous conversations of the leader when they last logged in. It is designed to keep continuity for the leader and allow the leader to pick up where they left off.

The Daily Brief draws from previous conversations with the leader. Its purpose is to support the leader by helping them stay in context and to serve as a reminder, not to mirror every task in a leader’s full day.

Reflections help leaders take a moment to pull back and take a higher level view and review progress or challenges. This creates space for recognizing accomplishments, affirming effective leadership practices, identifying areas for growth, and strengthening future leadership decisions.

Reflections are part of a standard grouping of Focus Areas in the chats. The leader should select the chat window and then the Reflections folder. They will then see the list of previous reflections.

Evidence can include documents, observation notes, student work samples, meeting notes, planning artifacts, survey summaries, or other materials that help a team judge whether a strategy is taking hold. The aim is to capture evidence that informs decisions, not to create a complete archive of every file a school produces.

MSIP can use a variety of documents to provide context, including the following:

• School Improvement Plans (SIPs)
• District Improvement Plans (DIPs)
• Comprehensive Needs Assessments (CNAs)
• strategic plans
• data reports
• walk-through summaries
• observation notes
• survey results
• leadership frameworks
• other school or district improvement documents

This is not a requirement. Leaders can still move forward without uploading files. MSIP will ask the leader a few questions to build context manually. Observations, staff feedback, student experience, and the leader’s direct conversation with MSIP during goal planning can still serve as meaningful inputs for shaping goals and action items. The leader should know that each time they engage with MSIP their responses will help it build valuable context about the leader’s school and ongoing work toward their goals.

Leaders can attach a file through the chat window by selecting the “+” option. A file selector will appear. The leader can also type any description in the chat window to provide context for the MSIP. This helps connect evidence directly to the part of the plan it is meant to support.

There are several file types, including pdf, docx, xlsx, pptx, md, and txt. The ability to upload other file types, mainly images such as png and jpeg, is not yet available.

Leaders can upload to a current conversation or to their own collection.

The leader has a choice of uploading either to the existing conversation or to the leader’s collection. The leader’s collection can be considered a repository of files that can be used across conversations. When a leader uploads to an existing conversation, the information of that upload is restricted to that particular conversation.

The Four Domains framework—Turnaround Leadership, Talent Development, Instructional Transformation, and Culture Shift—includes 12 practices that help guide leaders in thinking about strategies and leaders’ priorities. The coach does not prescribe a single path; instead, MSIP surfaces questions and examples from multiple practices that help leaders think through the next steps in advancing their school improvement priorities.

No. MSIP uses the Four Domains framework in the background to connect the leader’s goals to relevant strategies and resources. The leader will not be asked to categorize their work or use framework language. Plain language is always the right language.

Yes. Documents and conversations are handled securely and are only used to provide responses within the leader’s MSIP workspace. The leader’s conversations with MSIP are confidential. The leader should always follow their district’s or organization’s policies regarding the information they choose to upload.

The conversations that the leader has with MSIP stay between them and the application. It was designed with security, safety, and confidentiality in mind. The leader should always follow their district’s or organization’s policies regarding the information they share with MSIP.