How Does a District Keep ADI Going When the Person Who Championed It Leaves?

A curriculum director asked me this question after her district’s science coordinator took a job in another state:

“She was the one who brought ADI to us. She ran the trainings, answered every question, and kept the materials stocked. Now she’s gone, and I can already feel things slipping. How do we keep this going?”

I have seen this happen in a lot of districts, and I want to start by saying that the champion did nothing wrong. Most new initiatives need one person with the energy to get them started.

The problem is that, in most places, that person also becomes the place where everything about the initiative lives: the knowledge, the relationships, the calendar, the budget line. When they leave, all of that leaves with them.

That is not a people problem. It is a design problem, which means it is something we can actually solve. Sustainability comes from moving what the champion carried out of a single person and into the structures of the district.

Here are six ways to do that. Ideally you start before anyone leaves, but every one of them still works after.

Six Keys for Keeping ADI Going

1. Build a bench, not a champion.

If one person can run the introductory training, you have a single point of failure. If five people across three campuses and two grade bands can run it, you have a system. This is the main reason the ADI Facilitator Institute exists: it certifies instructional leaders, specialists, and experienced teachers to lead our introductory workshops inside their own districts. Aim for more than one facilitator per level, and choose people who are likely to stay.

2. Put ADI into the documents that outlast people.

If ADI lives only in a champion’s head, it disappears with them. If it lives in the scope and sequence, the pacing calendar, and the assessment calendar, it is still there in August. Be specific. Name the investigations for each unit and block out the days, including time for every stage. The Reflect stage in particular needs its own minutes on the calendar, or it becomes the thing that disappears whenever a period runs short.

3. Let the materials carry the design work.

One of the quiet jobs a champion does is helping teachers figure out what to do next. Good materials can take much of that job over. Every ADI investigation and design challenge follows the same seven stages, with the same routines inside each stage. That consistency means a teacher who has taught one investigation already knows the shape of the next one, and it means the district is not depending on one person to explain each lesson.

4. Agree on what good implementation looks like, and write it down.

When the champion was around, teachers and principals could simply ask her whether things were going well. Without her, you need shared look-fors that anyone can use: What are students trying to figure out? Are there multiple ideas on the table? Who are students talking to? What happens when a student says something unexpected? A common set of look-fors keeps coaching conversations consistent even as the people having them change.

5. Make onboarding an annual routine, not a one-time event.

Most districts introduce ADI once, in a big launch, and then assume new teachers will pick it up from their colleagues. They rarely do. Put an introductory workshop on the calendar every year for new hires, led by your internal facilitators, so onboarding never depends on someone remembering to schedule it.

6. Keep a district “note to future self.”

At the end of every ADI investigation, we ask students to write a note to their future selves about what they want to remember. Districts need the same habit. Once a year, have your facilitators and a few teachers record what is working, what is not, which investigations teachers find hardest, and what they would tell the next person in the coordinator role. It takes an hour, and it turns individual memory into institutional memory.

Putting It All Together

None of these keys requires a new initiative, and most of them take less time than the champion was already spending. What they do is spread that work across people, documents, and routines so that no single departure can take it all away.

What I have come to believe is that when an instructional approach fades after its champion leaves, it is rarely because teachers stopped believing in it. It is because the district never built the structures that would let it run without that one person.

There is one more thing worth saying. The moment right after a champion leaves is also a good moment to take stock. Ask teachers what they want to keep, what they want to improve, and where they need help. The answers will tell you where your bench needs to be deepest.

How ADI Makes This Easier

Much of what makes an instructional approach fragile is how much of it has to be reinvented by each teacher. ADI materials reduce that load. The investigations, design challenges, and Phenomenon-Driven Tasks share the same underlying structure, the teacher notes explain the purpose of every stage, and the ADI Learning Hub keeps the materials in one place so they are not scattered across one person’s hard drive.

Pair those materials with a bench of certified facilitators and a calendar that protects time for every stage, and ADI stops depending on whoever brought it in.

Planning for the long term?

Learn more about ADI curriculum materials, the ADI Learning Hub, and the ADI Facilitator Institute at argumentdriveninquiry.com.