So far, the series has focused on two questions.
In episode 1, the question was: why this, why now? That was the work of urgency—telling the truth about how the current way of working is stretching staff thin and undermining consistent support for students.
In episode 2, the question was: who will help lead this? That was the work of the guiding coalition—bringing together people from across roles who are trusted, connected, and positioned to shape real decisions.
Now the question shifts.
If we know why change matters and who will help lead it, where are we actually going?
Kotter’s third step is forming a strategic vision. In plain language, this is about turning urgency into a clear picture of a better future and a small set of major efforts that will move the system toward that picture.
Without this step, even a strong coalition can find itself busy but unclear. People meet. People care. People work hard. But they are not sure what success would actually look like in daily school life.
This episode is about how to avoid that.
In the context of public education, and especially in the context of MTSS and student support, vision has to do more than sound inspiring. It has to help teachers, counselors, paras, and principals answer a concrete question:
If this works, what will my day feel like that is different from today?
A strategic vision, in this context, is a concise, vivid picture of the future state that connects the urgency you named in episode 1 with the practical reality of work in classrooms, offices, hallways, and meetings.
It is the answer to questions like:
If we do this work well, what will it feel like to teach here?
What will it feel like to serve as a counselor, a para, a principal, or a central office leader here?
How will support for students and staff be recognizably different?
For this series, the vision is not just about scores or compliance.
It is about a future where MTSS is not a confusing set of forms, where behavior support is not a string of isolated reactions, where Tier 2 and Tier 3 systems are not improvised every week, and where adults are not holding broken systems together with personal sacrifice.
That is the level of specificity leaders need to aim for.
Initiatives are the concrete, high-impact efforts that will move the system toward that picture. They are not a long wish list of everything that would be nice to improve. They are the few major moves that the coalition will prioritize and protect.
If you think of the vision as the picture on the puzzle box, initiatives are the clusters of pieces you choose to work on first because they will anchor the rest of the picture.
It is important to understand what vision is not.
Vision is not a slogan.
“Every student, every day” is not a vision. “All means all” is not a vision. Those phrases can be meaningful, but they do not tell anyone what to build, what to stop, or what to protect.
Vision is also not a binder of disconnected projects. A long document with dozens of priorities, each with its own color code and template, is not a vision if people cannot hold it in their minds.
A simple test is this: if a principal, teacher, or counselor cannot describe the vision in a few sentences, it is probably not guiding their daily decisions.
So how do you form a vision that is usable?
One way is to go back to the urgency story from episode 1.
In that episode, the case for change was rooted in several realities.
MTSS processes are fragmented. Students with increasing needs often move through slow or unclear steps before they receive support.
Tier 2 and Tier 3 services are uneven. Some students and families receive timely, coordinated responses. Others experience delays and inconsistent approaches.
Removal-based responses are being used more often than anyone would prefer, in part because alternatives are underdeveloped or hard to access.
And staff feel the strain of this. Teachers are carrying intense student needs without sufficient team support. Support staff are pulled into repeated crisis response. Leaders are trying to manage backlog and urgency at the same time.
If the vision does not clearly address these realities, it will not feel real.
A strong vision is rooted in what people have already said is unsustainable.
Imagine a vision statement that sounds like this:
Within three years, every school in our district will have a clear, usable MTSS process. When a student’s needs begin to rise, staff will know how to seek support. Students will receive timely, layered interventions instead of repeated, isolated responses. Removal-based practices will be rare and used for true safety issues, because reliable alternatives exist. Staff will experience support systems that reduce solo improvisation and make it more possible to do their best work over time.
That statement is not perfect, but it has useful qualities.
It centers the experience of staff and students.
It names coherence and timeliness.
It names removal-based practices without ignoring them.
And it describes a future that is better not only on paper, but in the daily life of adults doing the work.
Notice what it does not do.
It does not promise that everything will be easy.
It does not attempt to name every detail.
It gives enough shape to guide decisions while leaving room for local variation.
In a moment where staff sustainability is fragile, that balance matters. When vision is written only from an outcomes perspective, it can land as one more demand on people who already feel stretched. When it includes explicit attention to coherent systems and sustainable work, staff can see themselves in it.
From there, the coalition has to choose initiatives that will carry that vision.
This is where many systems stumble.
In the excitement of planning, it is tempting to say yes to everything. Each idea sounds reasonable. Each request feels important. Soon, leaders are trying to move on too many fronts at once, and effort becomes thin.
Kotter’s language is helpful here. He talks about strategic initiatives—not just any activities, but a focused set of efforts that directly advance the vision.
For the MTSS and student support work described in this season, the coalition might identify a set that looks like this:
Strengthen and simplify the MTSS flow.
Redesign Tier 2 and Tier 3 supports for coherence.
Improve the quality and timeliness of FBAs and BIPs.
Reduce removal-based responses by building reliable alternatives.
And protect staff time and support so the system is sustainable.
Each of them should be specific enough that staff can imagine what it will change in their day.
For example, strengthening and simplifying the MTSS flow might mean that in each school, there is a clear set of steps for bringing concerns forward, predictable problem-solving meetings, shared decision rules, and a documented plan that everyone involved can see.
Redesigning Tier 2 and Tier 3 supports might mean a more coherent menu of options, clearer criteria for when to use them, and better support for the staff implementing them.
Improving FBAs and BIPs might mean faster timelines, better collaboration with classroom staff, and plans that are actually referenced and adjusted, not just filed.
Reducing removal-based responses might mean piloting and scaling alternatives like structured support blocks or restorative processes with real supports behind them.
Protecting staff time might mean redesigning meetings, stopping or merging some committees, and making sure that support work happens in protected blocks rather than always being squeezed into the margins.
Each initiative should pass a simple test: could a staff member describe how this, if done well, would make their work more coherent and more manageable?
If not, the initiative may be too abstract.
At this point, it is helpful to pause and name what can go wrong.
One common mistake is vision by slogan.
If leaders adopt broad phrases that sound hopeful but do not guide real choices, staff will nod and then return to their routines unchanged.
Another mistake is building the vision in isolation.
If a small inner circle writes a polished statement and a set of initiatives without substantial input from those who will implement them, the result may look impressive but land as distant.
A third mistake is initiative overload.
The plan includes many initiatives, each with its own meetings, tasks, and metrics. Leaders intend to tackle them all. Midway through the year, attention is scattered and none have been driven deeply enough to change daily patterns.
A fourth mistake is ignoring sustainability.
Vision and initiatives are written as if staff capacity were unlimited. The plan asks people to do more of everything with no plan to stop or simplify anything. In that situation, even well‑intended work begins to feel like another burden.
A final mistake is failing to link back to the urgency story.
If staff cannot see how the vision and initiatives address the strain and gaps they named at the beginning, they will perceive a disconnect.
Avoiding these mistakes begins with involving the guiding coalition in the vision work in a real way.
Coalition members bring system perspective and front‑line reality. They can test statements and plans against questions like:
Does this sound true?
Is this doable?
Would people in my building recognize themselves in this?
From there, the task is to make the vision usable in daily leadership, not just presentable in a document.
Imagine a district where the coalition has landed on a clear MTSS vision and a set of initiatives.
In one elementary school, the principal, a teacher leader, the school psychologist, and a para sit together with the one‑page version of that vision.
They ask, if this is where the district is heading, what does that mean for us this year?
They decide that for them, a meaningful short‑term example of the vision will be two things: cutting the time from first concern to a plan in half, and making sure every grade‑level team has at least one collab each month to look at student needs together.
They use the district’s MTSS flow as a guide, but they also adapt it.
They move one standing meeting off the calendar to make room for a monthly problem‑solving block.
They agree to pilot a streamlined referral process.
They ask the counselor to track a simple metric: how many days, on average, between a documented concern and the first concrete support action?
They also ask teachers, informally, whether they feel clearer about where to bring concerns.
The district’s vision has just become a local plan.
In another building—a middle school—the principal gathers a group that includes a counselor, a dean, two teachers, a para, and an office staff member.
They look at the initiative around reducing removal-based responses.
They identify a small cohort of students with repeated office visits and talk through what it would look like to support them differently.
They use the district’s Tier 2 and Tier 3 ideas as a starting point, but they do not try to implement every option at once.
Instead, they choose a handful of supports they can realistically offer in the next semester.
They adjust schedules.
They clarify roles.
They decide what they will stop doing to make room.
Again, the district’s vision becomes a concrete plan in one place.
In both examples, leaders are using the vision and initiatives as filters.
When new requests or pressures surface—an offer of a new program, a request for another committee, a suggestion for a separate “behavior initiative”—they ask a simple question:
Does this help us move toward our MTSS and support vision, or does it distract?
If it distracts, they look for ways to integrate the underlying concern into the existing work, or they say “not now.”
That is one of the most important roles of a good vision.
It tells you what to say no to.
If the vision cannot help leaders decide what to stop, it is not yet sharp enough.
As the year unfolds, the vision also becomes a sense-making tool.
Principals can say, “We are changing this meeting because it does not serve our MTSS work anymore.”
Counselors can say, “We are trying this new Tier 2 approach because it aligns with our commitment to timely support.”
Teacher leaders can say, “We are spending time here because it connects directly to our goal of reducing repeated crises for a small group of students.”
The vision is no longer a statement on a poster. It is a reason for choices.
This matters because, in a complex system, not every decision can be made centrally.
Building leaders, department chairs, and support teams make hundreds of decisions every month.
If they have a clear vision to steer by, their local decisions can line up more often.
If not, even a well‑designed central plan can fragment.
To bring this down to a set of practical moves, consider a few steps leaders can take as they work on this third step.
One is to draft a one‑paragraph vision statement that is directly tied to the urgency story.
It should describe the future in terms of student experience and staff experience, and it should name coherence and sustainability alongside support and outcomes.
Another is to list three to five core initiatives and then ask, for each one, what will this change in daily routines, and what, if anything, will we stop doing to make room?
If an initiative cannot answer those questions, it may need to be refined or deprioritized.
A third is to write a simple “from–to” description for staff and students.
For staff, that might sound like:
We are moving from a system where teachers often do not know where to bring concerns and feel alone in managing intensive needs, to a system where there is a clear, shared process for support, and teachers can expect coordinated help rather than solo improvisation.
For students, it might sound like:
We are moving from a pattern where support arrives late and inconsistently, to a pattern where students with emerging needs are identified early and receive layered, timely support.
These from–to statements can be used in conversations, staff meetings, and planning sessions. They make the vision feel real.
To close this episode, here are a few questions that can help leaders gauge where you are in this third step.
If a new teacher asked you, what is the big picture of what we are trying to build here over the next few years, could you answer in a few clear sentences?
If your initiative list were shown on a single slide, would staff feel overwhelmed by how much is included, or relieved that the work is focused?
When you look back at the urgency story from episode 1, can you trace a clear line from each of your initiatives to the specific strains and gaps you named, especially around staff sustainability and system coherence?
If not, that is information, not failure.
It may mean the vision needs sharpening, or the initiative list needs pruning. It may mean the coalition needs more time with people from different roles to translate big aims into realistic moves.
Kotter’s third step is about direction.
It takes the energy from urgency and the leadership strength of the coalition and points both toward a specific future.
In this series, that future is a school system where support for students is timely and coherent, where the adults doing the work are not relying on personal sacrifice alone, and where daily routines reflect thoughtful design rather than the accumulation of past decisions.
In the next episode, the focus will be on enlisting a broader group of people in the work.
Once the vision is clear and the core initiatives are chosen, the question becomes: how do you invite many others to participate in ways that feel realistic and hopeful, not exhausting?
That is where the series goes next.
