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Why does your math plan feel like it resets every time someone new steps in?

You’ve seen it happen: a coordinator retires, a coach changes roles, or a principal moves on—and suddenly all the momentum in your math plan disappears. Teachers feel like they’re starting over (again), and it’s back to square one. It’s not a motivation issue. It’s not even a planning issue. The root problem? Your system depends on people, not process.This episode explores the high cost of person-driven leadership—and what to do instead.

You’ll walk away with:

• A clear understanding of how fragility shows up in your district—even when things look “fine”
• Real-world examples of what happens when improvement isn’t documented
• A new lens for building systems that retain progress, even when people leave

Press play to stop rebuilding from scratch—and start protecting the progress you’ve worked so hard to build.

Attention District Math Leaders:

Not sure what matters most when designing math improvement plans? Take this assessment and get a free customized report: https://makemathmoments.com/grow/ 

Ready to design your math improvement plan with guidance, support and using structure? Learn how to follow our 4 stage process. https://growyourmathprogram.com 

Looking to supplement your curriculum with problem based lessons and units? Make Math Moments Problem Based Lessons & Units

FULL TRANSCRIPT

The biggest threat to lasting math improvement isn’t lack of effort. It’s not buy-in and it’s not better resources, nor is it time. It’s actually fragility. Too many districts have seen years of progress vanish in the moment. A key leader or a coach or a coordinator or an administrator or champion moves on. Why?

because improvement lived in their head and their vision and their eyes and not in the system. When progress depends on a single personality or a single person, the charismatic coach, the visionary principal, the tireless coordinator, the system is built on sand. The moment they leave, initiatives stall. Teachers feel like they’re starting over, momentum dies. 

And that’s what we call a personality or a person-driven math improvement planning system. Great systems don’t depend on single personality, single people. Great systems survive transitions.

And the one secret, there are many secrets, but in today’s video we’re gonna talk about one secret that is behind those systems and that is Codification.

Codification is the process of capturing what works, documenting it, naming it, embedding it into structures and organizations. It’s how you move from heroic leadership to systemic leadership. When your district codifies its math improvement process, success stops living in someone’s memory, in someone’s notes, in someone’s single computer, and it starts living in your culture, in your schools, in your district, in your classrooms.

You know, here are a few examples of codification in action. In the mid 2000s, Ontario’s Ministry of Education was facing a familiar problem. Math literacy and math and literacy initiatives were thriving, but only in pockets, led by exceptional principals and coaches. When those leaders moved on, the progress vanished. The ministry realized we can’t rely on just these heroes. Their solution? Codify what works.

They created the capacity building series, which is a concise, shareable tools that defined effective teaching and leadership practices. Suddenly everyone spoke that same language, that shared language. had teachers, coaches, and principals. They could all describe what great instruction looked like using the same words, the same criteria. There was a shared vision. Ontario didn’t just improve then. It actually professionalized improvement. Here’s another case.

Jefferson County Public Schools in Colorado faced the same challenge. They had bright spots, incredible teachers doing amazing things, but those successes were isolated. So they codified their best practices. 

They made short videos of real classrooms, annotated student work, they made PLCs, and their PLCs had curriculum unpacking sessions, their teacher commentary. They made the practice visible, portable and accessible. And when a teacher and coach left, their wisdom stayed behind. It was documented, it was accessible. It was ready to guide others. It was ready to guide new teachers. It was ready to guide new principals. It was there, it lasted. Here’s another one. 

In Katie, ISD in Texas, district leaders realized their summer workshops weren’t enough. The energy faded by fall, and so they codified their PLC process, their protocols for analyzing student work on packing standards and setting learning goals. They became the rhythm of professional collaboration. turnover didn’t break continuity anymore because the process itself had become part of their identity.

Chicago public schools anchored improvement in a shared process. They called it instructional rounds, turning reflection into a system. New York Visions in New York City codified curriculum and assessment tools so that schools stayed coherent even through leadership changes.

And here in Ontario, here on Perth Catholic District School Board, they shared coaching tools which ensured improvement didn’t skip a beat when coaches rotated.

Across all these stories, one truth stands out. Sustainable improvement isn’t always just about the people. It’s about the systems. And we don’t rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our systems. Every lasting improvement system is created with a flywheel, which is a set of interconnected processes that keep the work turning. It looks like this. the identify and design and measure stage, we clarify what matters and how success will be recognized.

In the align and optimize PD stage, we make sure professional learning reflects those priorities. It’s coordinated. It’s aligned. In the build capacity stage, we equip teachers and leaders to own the vision and build on their successes. In the ignite growth stage, we codify the work. So leadership is distributed. It’s not dependent. We codify it. We make it part of the system. When the flywheel is documented, it’s shared. It’s improvement doesn’t just stop when people change, actually accelerates.

Imagine if your district didn’t just use the flywheel, it lived by it. Cause a flywheel operating system captures how we identify and design and measure, how we align and optimize PD structures, how we build capacity through visible repeated processes, how we ignite growth by documenting and distributing leadership. It becomes the living manual.

It’s not a binder on a shelf. but a shared understanding that lives in your PLCs, your coaching, your staff meetings, your schools, your districts, your your PD plans. And it’s your culture codifying your improvement work. Isn’t bureaucracy. It’s your legacy. It’s how great leaders ensure that progress doesn’t end with themselves. When you build systems that outlast people, you don’t just improve math efforts. 

You create a culture that knows how to keep improving. If your district is ready to move from heroic leadership to systemic leadership, we can help you build that flywheel.

It’s what we do here at Make Math Moments. We build the flywheel operating system. Because great leadership doesn’t end when you leave, it multiplies through the system you leave behind. If you want us to take a look at your system to see where the holes are or where you can be making some improvements in your operating system, let us know. We can talk about what those next steps look like and maybe there’s some nuggets to put into place right away you can head on over to makemathmoments.com, four slash district and book a call with us right now.

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