Featured Case Study
From striving to thriving: How 360° Feedback Helped a Charter Network Find Its Way Back
Charter School Network · Multi-School Organization · Executive Leadership Team · 360° Feedback + Development Planning
The Organization
Thriving Public Charter Schools (TPCS)* is a multi-school charter network serving students across several campuses. Like many growing charter networks, TPCS had made bold structural decisions to strengthen its school-based leadership teams — but the execution of those changes created unintended consequences that rippled across the entire organization.
The Challenge
When Thriving reached out to The Enriched Educator, the network was navigating the aftermath of a significant restructuring of its school-based leadership teams. The intent behind the changes was sound — but the way they were implemented left leaders, teachers, and families feeling disconnected, unheard, and uncertain about the direction of the organization.
The symptoms were hard to ignore. Principal burnout was rising. Teacher turnover was high, with many educators leaving because the changes hadn't been implemented in ways that allowed them to thrive. Family satisfaction was declining. And when the network looked at its internal survey data, a troubling picture emerged: fewer than 1 in 3 school leaders felt heard or valued by the organization, and fewer than half had clarity on where the organization was headed.
The root causes pointed to poor communication, a lack of transparency around decision-making, and leaders who felt they were being led rather than partnered with. The network needed an honest, structured way to surface what was really happening across its leadership ecosystem — and a plan to address it.
The Approach
The Enriched Educator administered a comprehensive 360° feedback process with the executive leadership team, designed specifically to capture the experience of the people closest to the work — school leaders, teachers, and families. The process unfolded across five phases:
1. Define
We began with a deep consultation with the executive team to understand the organizational context, the intent behind the restructuring, and the specific leadership competencies most critical to assess.
2. Design
We customized the 360° survey instrument to reflect the network's unique leadership framework and distributed it to a broad set of stakeholders — including school leaders, instructional staff, and family representatives — to capture a full picture of how executive leadership was being experienced across the organization.
3. Discover
We conducted a comprehensive analysis of all responses, identifying key themes, patterns, and disconnects. The data revealed a clear through-line: the restructuring had created confusion, eroded trust, and left leaders at every level feeling out of the loop on decisions that directly affected their work.
4. Debrief
We facilitated individual and collective debrief sessions with the executive team, creating a space for honest, reflective conversation about what the data revealed. Rather than assigning blame, the debrief focused on understanding — and on what the team was now responsible for changing.
5. Develop
Working alongside the executive team, we co-created a targeted development action plan that addressed the root causes surfaced by the 360° process — with a particular focus on communication, change management, and rebuilding trust with school leaders, teachers, and families.
The Results
The impact of the 360° process and development planning work was significant across every stakeholder group:
School leaders who felt heard and valued by the organization surged from 27% to 88% — a 61-point shift that reflected a fundamental change in how the executive team was showing up for its principals. Leaders who reported clarity on the organization's direction jumped from 47% to 93%, signaling that communication and transparency had been meaningfully rebuilt. Family alignment with the direction of the organization rose from 65% to 91% — evidence that the culture shift was visible beyond the walls of the central office. And 94% of teachers indicated their intent to return the following year, a dramatic reversal of the turnover trend that had been accelerating before the engagement began.
These results didn't happen by accident. They happened because the executive team was willing to look honestly at how their leadership was being experienced — and do the hard work of changing it.
What This Means for Your Organization
Thriving's story is not unique. Many organizations are navigating change, burnout, and disconnection without a clear picture of what's driving it. 360° feedback provides the honest data you need to lead more effectively — and the structured support to turn those insights into action.
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