Albert Lea presenters outline High Reliability Schools work, urge districtwide consistency

Albert Lea Public School District staff and building leaders on Monday summarized work using the High Reliability Schools (HRS) framework developed by Marzano Research, described how buildings are progressing through HRS certification levels and urged board support to make HRS a durable, district-wide system.

Presenters said HRS emphasizes research-based “leading indicators,” matching those measures with each school’s “lagging indicators,” and building common instructional tools so teachers can focus on priority standards and student proficiency rather than broad coverage of every standard.

Tyler Johnson, Kim Larson, Sean Gaston and Chris Dibble led the presentation. They described HRS as a multi-level certification process (levels 1–5) in which schools submit evidence via an online platform to demonstrate they meet the prior level’s requirements before moving up. The district, they said, has been working on levels 1 and 2 for several years; the high school recently achieved level 2 prior to winter break and other…