Beth Petty

The American Alliance for Innovative Systems provides a systemic approach to the difficult work of school redesign and renewal. Founded by experienced educators from diverse backgrounds, AAIS contracts with schools and districts to provide long-term technical assistance that is directly aligned to their improvement goals. The result is not only a strong relationship between the school and AAIS, but also a consistent alignment between renewal efforts and improvement goals. Working closely with leadership teams, AAIS members acknowledge each school’s context in order to design a comprehensive program of professional development, training, monitoring, and evaluation over the long-term. The AAIS founders have a deep understanding of the complexity of change as change agents themselves in their former districts, and recognize the importance of investing in the resources and training necessary to sustain changes over time. A focus on developing the system’s collective capacity is the ultimate goal for all members of the AAIS team. AAIS provides a wide range of technical support for schools and districts across the nation. Long term technical assistance at the campus and district level has allowed for systems alignment, the building of educator knowledge and skills over time, and the ability for AAIS and districts to partner in measuring the impact of the professional development on initiating, implementing, and sustaining newly implemented system structures and strategies. Although single training events add value to an organization's overall learning, long term partnering with districts allows AAIS to foster relationships of trust among stakeholders, provide a consistent framework for increasing instructional capacity as well as collaborative planning.