Chartering School Teams: Tools and Templates to Ensure School Year Alignment

A new academic year or initiative can bring in fresh teams, renewed goals, and the chance to set a positive tone from day one. One of the most effective ways to ensure your school teams hit the ground running is to create a team charter.

A team charter acts as your team’s roadmap. It defines your shared purpose, outlines how you’ll work together, and clarifies what you aim to accomplish. Without a team charter, meetings can drift, priorities can get misaligned, and team members may pull in different directions. With a team charter in place, you have alignment, focus, and a constant reminder of why your work matters.

Here are several tools that can help your team get started:

Grade Team Charter Template

The Grade Team Charter Template is designed for grade-level teams to define their purpose, goals, and agreements for effective collaboration. It covers 

• Team purpose

• Vision

• Goals

• Roles

• Communication styles

• Decision-making considerations

• Meeting norms

• Conflict resolution

• Accountability

• Review parameters

Using this team charter template fosters enhanced collaboration, increased cohesion, improved communication, streamlined decision-making, proactive conflict management, greater accountability, and a positive team culture. Ultimately, this leads to improved student outcomes and professional experiences.

ILT Charter Template

The ILT Charter Template helps school leadership teams define purpose, streamline decisions, and establish collaboration norms. It clarifies priorities with focus areas and measurable goals, and provides a framework for efficient decision-making by defining roles, protocols, and documentation. It also fosters productive team norms through communication, meeting protocols, conflict resolution, and accountability, ultimately improving instructional outcomes and school cohesion.

• Here is an example of an ILT charter template in completion that illustrates how a well-defined purpose helps a team stay focused and progress effectively.

Need to know more about the focus and core work of ILTs? Learn more in this resource about effective ILTs.

Taking time to plan out your team engagement may feel like an additional task on an already full to-do list, but it pays dividends throughout the year. When challenges arise, your team charter provides a stable reference point, helping the team stay aligned, focused, and productive.

Investing in a team charter sets the stage for collaboration, clarity, and lasting progress. It gives leaders and team members a shared framework for navigating the year ahead with purpose and direction.

Looking for more team collaboration insights? We invite you to share and learn with others in the Partners in School Innovation Community where 700+ equity-focused leaders in education are sharing resources weekly.