Framework

Life Beyond High School Preparation Framework

This framework organizes the work around seven connected domains. The aim is to give districts one unified implementation model for clarifying expectations, supporting buildings, reviewing evidence, and strengthening student preparation over time.

What must be in place if a district truly wants to prepare students for life beyond high school?

The seven domains below are intended to work together as one integrated system. Together, they establish the vision, learning experiences, supports, leadership practices, and implementation structures needed to help students develop the knowledge, direction, adaptability, and skills required for success beyond high school. The Building Implementation Guides translate these domains into grade-band action, while quarterly updates help the district monitor progress and provide support.

Leadership, evidence, and improvement are part of the framework backbone. Student belonging and support are also kept tightly connected to success and life beyond high school preparation so that schools focus on the conditions students need to move forward successfully.

What the framework is trying to hold together

Student Aim
Preparation for Life Beyond High School

Students should leave high school with direction, meaningful experiences, support, and the ability to navigate what comes next.

District Role
Define, Support, and Monitor

The district sets the framework, expectations, support routines, and evidence review cadence, then helps buildings remove barriers during implementation.

Building Role
Translate, Implement, and Review

Each school uses the Building Implementation Guides to adapt the framework by grade band, implement practical routines, review evidence, and submit quarterly updates.

One framework, seven domains

1
Life Beyond High School Vision and Student Success

This domain defines what the district believes students should be prepared to know, do, and navigate by the time they leave high school. It gives the framework a clear purpose and a shared definition of student success beyond high school.

Strong Practice
  • Clear district definition of student success, shared language, and visible alignment between vision and priorities.
District / Building Responsibility
  • District: define the vision, establish shared language, and align communication and expectations.
  • Building: translate the vision into local meaning and make sure it is visible in staff practice and student experience.
2
Student Pathways and Future Direction

This domain focuses on whether students are developing purpose, direction, and a growing understanding of future possibilities over time. It includes advising, planning, reflection, and authentic pathway experiences that help students connect school to life beyond graduation.

Strong Practice
  • Students build direction over time, reflect on goals and interests, take an active role in planning next steps, and participate in career exploration, mentorship, service learning, internships, or other authentic pathway experiences.
District / Building Responsibility
  • District: define expectations for pathway awareness, advising, and future planning and ensure students have access to meaningful pathway experiences.
  • Building: implement advising routines, provide experiences that build future awareness, and help students reflect on goals and next steps.
3
Authentic and Applied Learning

This domain focuses on whether learning is relevant, meaningful, and connected to real-world application. It asks whether students are doing work that requires thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, transfer, ownership, and the future-ready skills that prepare them for what comes next beyond high school.

Strong Practice
  • Real-world relevance, authentic tasks, collaboration, inquiry, public demonstration, meaningful student voice and ownership, and opportunities for interdisciplinary problem-solving and application.
District / Building Responsibility
  • District: define expectations for authentic learning, provide tools and examples, and monitor whether students are experiencing relevant, rigorous work.
  • Building: translate those expectations into classroom practice, strengthen tasks and projects, and review student work for authenticity and relevance.
4
Student Belonging and Support for Success

This domain focuses on whether students experience the belonging, connection, and support conditions necessary to engage in school, persist through challenges, and prepare successfully for life beyond high school. It includes adult relationships, coordinated support, and family connection to the extent that they help students succeed and move forward.

Strong Practice
  • Students feel known, supported, and connected, adults guide and encourage them, support systems help them persist, and family communication helps students stay connected to school and future planning.
District / Building Responsibility
  • District: define expectations for belonging, connection, and support conditions that help students succeed.
  • Building: implement school routines that strengthen adult connection, student support, persistence, and family partnership.
5
Access, Opportunity, and Equity

This domain focuses on whether all students have real access to the learning experiences, pathways, and supports the district says matter. It asks whether opportunity is distributed fairly or whether important experiences remain uneven across groups of students.

Strong Practice
  • Broad access to meaningful opportunities, visible participation review across student groups, intentional removal of barriers, and attention to who is and is not receiving important experiences.
District / Building Responsibility
  • District: define which experiences all students should access, review participation patterns, and address system barriers.
  • Building: identify which students are and are not accessing important experiences and improve school-level access and follow-through.
6
Adult Capacity and Consistent Practice

This domain focuses on whether teachers, counselors, administrators, and school teams have the understanding and routines needed to make the district vision real. It includes staff understanding, school-level implementation, and the consistent daily practices that turn district intentions into student experience.

Strong Practice
  • Staff understand the district vision, teams can translate it into practice, routines support advising and authentic learning, and implementation is consistent across buildings.
District / Building Responsibility
  • District: build staff understanding, provide professional learning and implementation support, and monitor consistency across schools.
  • Building: develop staff routines, support consistent practice, and reduce implementation inconsistencies across classrooms, teams, and grade levels.
7
Leadership, Evidence, and Continuous Improvement

This domain focuses on whether district and building leaders are using clear ownership, evidence, and follow-through to improve the work over time. It is the domain that protects the framework from becoming a one-time planning exercise.

Strong Practice
  • Clear ownership, regular review of meaningful evidence, follow-through when barriers or uneven patterns are identified, and systems and routines that protect the work from fragmentation or leadership turnover.
District / Building Responsibility
  • District: establish ownership, review routines, and evidence expectations and protect the work from fragmentation or drift.
  • Building: create local leadership ownership, use evidence to adjust next steps, and sustain the work through regular follow-through.