Start Here: Overview of KIPP LA’s One Home Project

In February 2015, KIPP LA Schools hit a breaking point. School leaders were battling to just save performance reviews in their human resources software. And it seemed like the whole talent function was being managed in a series of Google documents.

“There are things you can deal with when you are small that you can’t deal with when you are big” says KIPP LA’s CEO, Marcia Aaron. “We knew we needed better systems but there were all these other talent-related initiatives like compensation and career progression and we just needed to take a big step back as an organization.”

KIPP LA wants to be a home for talented, mission-driven educators who value growth, challenge and fulfillment. The team decided to rebuild its talent systems from the ground up to 1) create a world-class human resources function worthy of its team and family and 2) accommodate the growth of its team that will double in size from 500 to 1,000 in the next five years.

The transformation effort is affectionately titled The One Home Project. KIPP LA’s stated vision for One Home: “Clarify and simplify the recruitment, onboarding, development, retention, and recognition of our KIPP LA Schools team and family by providing tools, systems, and processes anchored in our regional priority to Be the Best You.”

Said another way, KIPP LA wants an integrated set of human resource and talent systems that helps them:

• Offer their team and family an intuitive, user-friendly HR platform that serves as a “one-stop-shop” for all their employee needs including onboarding, payroll and benefits administration, etc. (Core Human Resources)
• Shift their talent management to a competency-based system that creates compelling career progressions for teachers, facilitates powerful and individualized growth opportunities and helps identify critical competencies among job candidates. (Integrated Talent Management)
• Enhance their recruiting capabilities and provide a seamless, modern experience for applicants as they move from candidate to team member. (Recruiting)
• Provide better insights and analytics on how KIPP LA can best support their team and family (Analytics).

KIPP LA believes that by aligning its human resources systems that it can improve both student outcomes and teacher satisfaction and retention.

The journey begins with two major priorities:

• Develop a teacher career progression system that rewards teachers for staying in the classroom and for improving their instructional practice along with student outcomes;
• Implement a new human resources technology solution that serves as a one-stop-shop for team member needs ranging from pay and benefits to career development to professional credentials.

KIPP LA is a nonprofit network of 13 public charter schools in South and East Los Angeles serving nearly 6,000 elementary and middle school students. Ninety-nine percent of KIPP LA students are African-American or Latino and 90% come from low-income families.

KIPP LA is an organization with a strong track record of success. Two of its schools have received the National Blue Ribbon Schools Award, in the Exemplary High Performing category. KIPP LA’s elementary schools outperform 93% of all primary schools in the entire state of California. 71% of KIPP LA alumni are persisting in or have graduated from college, far exceeding national averages for low-income communities. And 85% of families are satisfied and highly satisfied with their child’s school.

Even with all the amazing educators at KIPP LA, the organization is hardly alone in its challenges with its human resources and talent systems. K12, broadly speaking, is still wrestling with big issues like how to provide meaningful feedback and development for teachers, compensate educators fairly and create sustainable jobs for the long-term. And K12 talent technologies have not kept pace with innovations in other industries.

The lessons and resources shared here by KIPP LA are designed to help other public school systems taking similar journeys to improve their human resources functions. This is a long-term, multi-year undertaking by KIPP LA and the learnings will be updated several times a year on this site. We will try to keep a high-level of transparency and candor because organization-building can be messy.

Currently, you can find resources on:

• KIPP LA’s RFP and vendor selection process to identify an “all-in-one” HRIS, performance management, and payroll system
• KIPP LA’s approach to getting this project off the ground, including internal change management and its Internal Systems Task Force
• The decision and process to hire an external HR systems consultant
• Initial lessons learned from the design and initial roll out of KIPP LA’s teacher career pathways
• Project timeline from March 2015 to December 2017, from the initial project launch through the organization-wide roll out and first performance management cycle
• An update on One Home since KIPP LA selected a vendor, including lessons learned from configuring the new HR systems and refining the competency model

KIPP LA is a good benchmark for US K12 education. Of the roughly 14,000 public schools systems, the average school system has about 3,000 students and only 900 districts have 10,000 or more students. The average public school system is more the size of KIPP LA than Los Angeles Unified School District (640k students) or Chicago Public Schools (396k students). This is a major reason why high-performing public charter networks serving 3,000–10,000 students offer important lessons for US public education at large. KIPP LA and others are answering the question: how would we design our ideal public school system if given the chance?

Read more here.