By this point in the miniseries, quite a lot has happened.
In episode 1, the focus was urgency: the shared recognition that the current way of working is putting too much strain on adults, producing too much inconsistency for students, and limiting the impact schools are trying to achieve.
In episode 2, attention turned to the guiding coalition: the cross-role group of people who are trusted, committed, and positioned to influence real decisions.
Episode 3 described forming a clear vision and a small set of initiatives: answering the question, what exactly are we trying to build in our systems, and what major moves will take us there?
Episode 4 focused on enlisting a volunteer army: inviting many more people into the work in ways that feel like an opportunity rather than one more obligation.
And episode 5 was about enabling action by removing obstacles: taking on schedules, policies, forms, tools, and norms that quietly block willing people from acting.
If those five steps go well, something powerful is in motion.
People see the need.
A credible group is leading.
The direction is clearer.
More staff are leaning in.
The path is less cluttered.
And yet, a question often rises a few months into the journey.
It sounds like this:
Is any of this actually working?
That question is especially sharp in systems where staff have lived through many past efforts.
They have given extra energy before.
They have sat through planning meetings before.
They have heard this time will be different before.
So they watch.
They listen.
And by midyear, many quietly ask themselves:
Can I point to anything that has actually changed, in ways I can see and feel?
This is where Kotter’s sixth step comes in: generating short-term wins. Kotter describes wins as the molecules of results that must be recognized, collected, and communicated early and often to track progress and energize people to persist.
Short-term wins are visible, believable improvements that appear within months, not years.
They are the early signals that this work is not just a plan on paper.
In public education, those wins have to operate on two levels.
They need to show up in what the system can count.
And they need to show up in what people can feel and say about their work.
In other words, they need to be both quantitative and qualitative.
If the numbers move but daily life feels unchanged, staff may dismiss the data as spin.
If daily life feels a bit better but leaders have no evidence to point to, the work becomes harder to defend in budget meetings, board conversations, and public discussions.
This episode is about how to design short-term wins that do both.
It begins with a familiar scene.
Imagine a district that has spent a year building out its MTSS framework.
The guiding coalition has met regularly.
Forms have been redesigned.
Principals have attended trainings.
New data views have been built.
As winter arrives, the central leadership team meets with teachers, counselors, and school leaders from several buildings and asks, where have you seen this work make a difference so far?
There is a long pause.
One teacher says, I think our meetings are a little more structured.
A counselor says, I know who to email now, so that helps.
A principal says, we have more lists.
No one is being cynical.
They just cannot point to clear gains.
Staff are still waiting weeks for support after raising concerns.
Students with intensive needs are still caught in repeated crisis cycles.
The workload still feels scattered.
In that moment, it does not matter how thoughtful the vision is or how many hours the coalition has put in.
Without visible wins, people begin to doubt.
That is not a sign that they are uncommitted.
It is a sign that they are human.
Short-term wins serve several functions in a system like this.
They matter psychologically.
For staff who have lived through cycles of hope and disappointment, an early win is proof that their effort is not being wasted.
It pushes back against the storyline that nothing ever really changes here.
Wins also matter for leaders.
They are feedback.
They show that the direction is sound, or they reveal that the design still needs adjustment.
If the first wave of change produces no genuine gains, that may be a sign that the focus is off, that impediments remain too high, or that the work is not yet reaching the places it needs to.
Short-term wins also matter organizationally.
District leaders are often asked to show evidence that a new approach is worth continued investment.
Boards, families, and local partners want to know what is different.
Wins provide concrete examples to point to.
And perhaps most importantly right now, wins matter for sustainability.
When early wins make work more coherent and manageable, they do more than signal progress.
They give staff a reason to keep going that is rooted in their own experience.
So what do meaningful short-term wins look like in MTSS and student support?
They are not dramatic, system-wide transformations.
They are specific, local improvements that people can count and feel.
Sometimes they are intentionally modest.
A team may not transform an entire discipline system in one semester. But cutting one unnecessary step from a weekly support routine, or reducing the time it takes for a teacher to get a clear next step after raising concern, can be small and still matter a great deal.
That modesty is not a weakness.
It is part of what makes a win believable.
Take this example.
In two pilot elementary schools, the district sets a clear aim: by midyear, no student in those schools should wait more than two weeks between a documented concern and a concrete plan for support.
At the start of the year, the median time in those buildings is about six weeks.
Concerns are raised, emails are sent, conversations happen, but formal plans take time.
Teachers feel this delay.
They say things like, I brought this up a month ago and I still do not know what is happening.
The guiding coalition, working with building leaders, designs changes.
They streamline the referral steps.
They establish a predictable, twice-monthly MTSS meeting schedule for each school.
They clarify who owns which parts of the process.
They remove an internal rule that required extra approvals for routine support plans.
They also ask the data team to track the time from first documented concern to the first Tier 2 support action in those two schools.
Over the course of the semester, the numbers begin to shift.
By January, the median time in one school has dropped from six weeks to about two.
In the other, it is closer to two and a half.
The numbers are not perfect.
Some cases still take longer.
But the change is real.
And the people in those schools feel it.
One teacher says, I raised a concern in September and had a concrete plan in place before the end of the month. That has never happened that fast before.
A counselor says, our meetings feel like they actually lead to action now. Before, we would talk and talk. Now we leave with assignments, and those assignments get done.
Those are short-term wins.
The quantitative indicator, a shorter time to support, is visible and simple.
The qualitative evidence, what staff say about their experience, confirms that the numbers reflect something real.
Take another example, this time at the secondary level.
A middle school has a small group of students whose names appear constantly in office visit logs.
Every week, teachers send them out for similar concerns.
Every week, administrators and staff respond in similar ways.
Removals accumulate, but the pattern does not change.
The district chooses this cohort as a focus for early wins.
The guiding coalition, building leaders, and support staff design more coordinated Tier 2 supports for these students.
They create shared schedules for support.
They clarify who checks in with each student and when.
They identify one or two alternatives to immediate removal that staff can use within clear safety boundaries.
They track the number of repeated office visits and removals for this group over the next three months.
At the start, the cohort has dozens of repeated visits each month.
By the second quarter, repeated visits have dropped in a noticeable way.
The reduction is not identical for every student, but it is measurable.
Staff feel a difference.
An assistant principal says, I am still busy, but I am not seeing the same five students ten times a week. We have a plan, and when things go wrong, we adjust the plan instead of starting from scratch.
A paraprofessional who supports one of the students says, transitions are calmer in that hallway now. We have the same routine every day, and everyone knows their part.
Again, the numbers and the stories work together.
The quantitative shift tells a story about fewer repeated crises.
The qualitative shift tells a story about daily life becoming slightly more predictable and less draining.
Yet another example focuses on clarity for staff.
In one district, surveys show that many teachers are not confident they know how to access support for students with increasing needs.
On a staff survey, fewer than half of respondents agree with the statement, I know the steps to take when I have ongoing concerns about a student’s behavior or engagement.
The coalition and a group of building leaders decide to make this a short-term target.
They work with teachers to rewrite the MTSS access steps into a single page: a simple visual that shows what to do, who to contact, and what to expect at each stage.
They introduce this one-page flow to two pilot middle schools at the start of the semester.
They practice using it in grade-level meetings.
They ask staff to use it for every new concern for three months.
Then they ask again, through a brief survey and a small set of interviews.
This time, a clear majority of staff in those schools agree that they know the steps.
Several mention the one-page visual by name.
A grade-level team lead says, we do not spend half the meeting trying to figure out who should do what anymore. We just follow the steps and adjust when we need to.
The win here is not only the improved survey item.
It is a shift in how meetings feel.
They move from scattered and confusing to clearer and more useful.
A fourth example centers on time.
Earlier in the series, episode 5 described how important it is to protect time for the new work.
Imagine a district that has designated a monthly MTSS block during the contract day.
At first, not all schools use that time as intended.
Some buildings repurpose it for other topics.
Others cancel it when schedules get tight.
The coalition and central office decide to make meaningful use of that block an early win.
They clarify expectations.
They provide simple agendas and examples.
They ask schools to document how the time is used: which students are discussed, what plans are made, what follow-up is assigned.
Over a semester, they track participation.
By midyear, most schools are using at least three-quarters of the MTSS block for actual student support work.
The district gathers examples.
In one building, the principal shares that the monthly block has become the primary place where staff align support plans, reducing the number of ad hoc meetings.
In another, a teacher notes that having a predictable time for problem-solving has cut down on hallway crisis huddles.
Again, the district can count something.
And people can feel something.
That combination matters.
Meaningful short-term wins almost never happen by accident.
They have to be designed.
At the district level, that means sitting down and asking a very practical question:
What two or three gains do we want to be able to point to within the next semester?
And for each one, what will we count, and what will we listen for?
That second question is where the mixed-methods mindset matters.
If the coalition says, we want to reduce the time from first concern to first support action, the measurement cannot stop at a timeline metric.
Leaders also need to ask what staff experience will tell us whether this is real.
Do teachers say they feel clearer about what happens after they raise a concern?
Do counselors describe meetings as more purposeful?
Do principals say they are spending less time untangling confusion?
The same is true in reverse.
If leaders say, we want staff to feel that meetings are more coherent, that cannot remain only a feeling.
What observable change should go with it?
Are follow-up tasks happening faster?
Are fewer concerns disappearing into email chains?
Are fewer students cycling through the same reactive responses?
This is what makes a win believable.
It is not only a number.
And it is not only a story.
It is a number that means something, paired with a story that shows why it matters.
Once the coalition identifies those wins, the next move is to work backward.
If we want time-to-support down by half by January, what has to change in September?
Do we need clearer meeting schedules?
Simpler referral steps?
Better role clarity?
If we want staff to report clearer access, what needs to happen this month?
Do we need to introduce the one-page flow, practice it in meetings, and remove older conflicting procedures?
If we want repeated office visits to drop for a small group of students, what support plans, coaching, and alternatives need to be in place by the next grading period?
From there, the district can identify pilot sites.
Not every school has to lead every change at once.
Choosing a small number of schools or teams where leadership is supportive and conditions are right can increase the chance of early wins.
These are not favorite schools.
They are proof points.
They may receive a bit more coaching, a bit more calendar flexibility, or a bit more direct partnership with the coalition.
The expectation is that when wins appear, they will be shared, not hoarded.
As wins emerge, communication matters.
Kotter’s language is helpful here too. He argues that wins must be recognized, collected, and communicated early and often to track progress and energize people to persist.
That is especially true in schools.
When leaders share wins, they should be concrete.
Instead of saying, our MTSS work is going well, they might say:
In two schools, we have cut the time from first concern to a support plan from about six weeks to about two. Teachers in those buildings are telling us they can feel the difference because they are not waiting nearly as long to see movement.
Instead of saying, we are reducing discipline issues, they might say:
For a group of students who were visiting the office again and again, we put coordinated Tier 2 and Tier 3 supports in place. Over three months, repeated visits dropped, and the assistant principal reports spending more time in classrooms and less time on the same emergency.
Instead of saying, staff are more aware of MTSS, they might say:
In two pilot middle schools, most teachers now say they know the steps to take when a student’s needs increase. Before the one-page flow, that was not the case. Grade-level teams are telling us that meetings are more focused and less confusing.
Each example pairs a metric with a voice.
It avoids exaggeration.
It acknowledges that there is still more to do.
And it points to system changes, not just extra effort.
There are a few pitfalls to avoid here.
One is declaring victory too early.
When an early win appears, it can be tempting to treat it as proof that the whole system is now strong. In reality, these wins are proof that the direction has promise, not that the journey is complete.
Another pitfall is choosing wins that staff cannot feel.
If leaders celebrate small shifts in distant metrics that do not match daily experience, staff become more skeptical.
A third pitfall is manufacturing wins.
That might look like cherry-picking data, overstating what happened, or rebranding routine variance as success. Once staff sense that wins are being exaggerated, trust erodes.
A fourth pitfall is over-extracting from pilot sites.
If pilot schools or teams are pushed so hard to produce wins that their workload becomes unsustainable, early gains may come at the cost of burnout.
And a final pitfall is keeping wins too quiet.
Sometimes, out of caution or modesty, leaders share early success only with a small inner circle. Meanwhile, staff in other buildings assume nothing is working.
To bring this step into practical focus, consider a few moves leaders can make in the near term.
With the guiding coalition, choose two or three short-term wins that matter most for your change effort in the next semester.
For each, name one or two simple metrics and one or two experience markers.
For example, this many days down, paired with teachers describing meetings as more useful.
Then identify one or two pilot sites or teams for each win and be explicit about what support and relief they will receive.
That might mean adjusting schedules, providing coaching, or simplifying expectations elsewhere.
And finally, plan how you will capture the story of each win.
Who will gather the data?
Who will collect the quotes, survey items, or short reflections?
Who will help turn those pieces into a simple, honest narrative you can share?
As you reflect on this step, a few questions may help.
If you asked staff today, where has this work made your day more manageable or more coherent, how many concrete examples would they have?
Are your early wins easing the load on staff, or just making it easier to measure the same strain?
Which potential win, if achieved and communicated clearly, would be enough to convince your most skeptical principal or teacher to keep investing?
Short-term wins are not the whole story.
But they are often the part of the story that people believe.
They are how staff decide whether this change is real, and whether it is worth staying with.
Kotter’s sixth step reminds leaders that wins are the earliest visible evidence that change is producing results, and that those results have to be recognized and communicated often enough to build energy for the next stretch of work.
In the next episode, the focus will shift to sustaining acceleration.
Once early wins appear, the temptation is to ease off and assume the job is largely done.
The next step is about using the credibility and energy from those wins to keep pressing forward, without exhausting the people doing the work.
