B6.37 - Approve the Agreement for Technical Services with Alma Advisory Group, LLC (Alma) (Leadership, Professional Development, and School Transformation)

The Alma contract is funded by the Title II grant.  This past school year, Alma worked with Human Resources (HR) staff to systemically improve the caliber of the workforce in Achievement Schools. After meeting with stakeholders, analyzing current HR processes and practices, and providing feedback to HR staff, Alma staff supported the HR team through process redesign with clear goals of recruiting and retaining cohorts of experienced teachers into Achievement Schools.  Major changes have been made to hiring timelines, recruitment efforts, data monitoring, and screening processes during the six months of the first scope of work.

This contract will allow the HR team to receive continued support and consultation through the next phase of the work taking place between June and September, 2019.  Support will include ongoing site visits and weekly check-ins to ensure continued and sustained progress on implementation of strategies and tracking, and reporting on key metrics. Support will also include development of the talent acquisition and hiring dashboards to track and monitor efforts and inform decision making.

* Recruit, support, and retain a highly effective and diverse workforce

Alma consultants were instrumental in the design of the district’s five core competencies and associated selection and evaluation rubrics, as well as current succession planning processes. The tools they have helped to create have been sustained for the past five years with over 150 Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS) Principals and Assistant Principals being hired and developed under the new competencies. The tools and processes have been featured nationwide through webinars, conferences, and in journal articles. In addition to the talent management work they have done with HCPS, Alma consultants also support other large urban districts through the Urban Schools Human Capital Academy. They specialize in helping systems redesign their processes to best support improved talent management and student outcomes.

Since working with the district’s HR team, the following strategies have been implemented:  early hiring for Achievement Schools, hiring to forecasted verses actual vacancies, launching of a robust talent acquisition campaign, establishing new practices to track and monitor data, and strengthening teacher screening processes.