Systems I built
and still run.

Built at Universal Academy Irving with 6 middle school teachers across Math, ELAR, Science, and Social Studies. Now running in its second campus at Texans Can Pleasant Grove with 16 teachers on a dropout recovery model, with Joe splitting weeks between two buildings.

This loop became the coaching cycle inside the IgniteEd Leadership OS: Walkthrough, Feedback Given, Coaching Session, In Practice, with a service window on each stage so a stalled cycle shows as stalled.

• Scheduled walkthroughs: 12 per week, each a 10-minute calendar block titled by teacher. If it isn't on the calendar, it doesn't survive the week.
• Capture on the phone, in the room: a single-page walkthrough app Joe built to run on his phone. Pick the teacher from the roster, tap the lesson segment, start a timer. Each Domain 2 and Domain 3 dimension shows its look-fors as tap chips, plus a short evidence line. One tap rates the dimension on the five T-TESS levels. On the way out, one button drafts the feedback note, another produces the tracker row. No clipboard, no laptop, no transcribing at 4 p.m.
• One rubric, focused where instruction happens: walkthroughs rate T-TESS Domain 2 (Instruction) and Domain 3 (Learning Environment) only. Planning and professional responsibilities stay with the formal observation. Same five levels in both settings.
• A feedback note with a fixed shape: two strengths, one growth area, one action. Sent within 48 hours. Short enough to write on a bad day.
• A coaching session, not just a note: every growth area gets a scheduled conversation within the week, with its own record (what goes in place, what support Joe owes, what evidence to look for on the return walk). The return walk looks for the one agreed move, not a whole new lesson.

• Teachers are tiered (self-directed, targeted coaching, intensive support) and the walkthrough calendar is weighted toward Tier 2 and Tier 3. Equal time is not equitable time.
• Feedback is bite-sized and specific. Not "improve questioning." The question asked at 9:22, who answered it, and the one change for tomorrow.
• Coaching sessions own one focus at a time. A second focus is how both get dropped.
• Notes are reviewed weekly for patterns across classrooms. When the same dimension shows Needs Growth in five rooms, that's the next PD hour, not five separate conversations. (A Monday auto-summary is planned, not yet running.)

Built for Joe's current campus, a dropout recovery high school in Dallas, and delivered as a whole-staff refresher. Students are over-age, under-credited, and often carrying prior negative school experiences, which means a public power struggle costs more here than at a comprehensive campus.

Running at Joe's campus. The deck is the whole-staff version; the flowchart is a one-page classroom handout.

• One decision rule: is it minor or major? Minor is teacher-managed first. Major or safety goes to administration immediately. That question sits at the top of the flowchart and everything follows from the answer.
• A three-occurrence ladder for minor behavior: first, cue/proximity/redirect/reteach; second, private conference/seat change/parent contact/document; third, teacher consequence/parent conference/documented incident. Referral only after the ladder is exhausted, submitted in the SIS.
• A non-negotiable safety path: contact administration, keep every student supervised, move the uninvolved away. The reset conversation waits until safety is restored. Teachers don't mediate an active situation.
• The reset conversation: four questions a teacher asks to get a student back into instruction without a public showdown. See it (what is happening), name it (what is the expectation), reset it (what gets you back on track), own it (what will you do differently).
• Six scenarios to practice the line, including one where a teacher gets it wrong by sending a tardy student to the office and creating a supervision problem.

• The scenarios include a teacher getting it wrong. A refresher that only shows students misbehaving teaches nothing about consistency.
• "Repeating step one forever is not consistency; it is avoidance." The ladder has a top.
• An upset student is not automatically a discipline emergency. That scenario exists to stop the escalation that turns a bad morning into a suspension.
• Documentation lives where the office can see it. A consequence with no record is a consequence that didn't happen.

Built at Joe's current campus for the 2026-27 year, for 16 teachers on a dropout recovery high school with no department leads. Every coaching conversation runs through him, so the tiering has to prioritize before the week starts.

Running weekly. Teacher tiers and coaching load are also a metric in the IgniteEd Leadership OS (days since each teacher's last observation or session).

• Three tiers, plain language: Tier 1 proficient and self-directed; Tier 2 targeted coaching on one or two dimensions; Tier 3 intensive support with a full coaching cycle and a scheduled return walk.
• A placement, not a label: every teacher sits in one tier at a time, reviewed as support needs change. Movement is the point.
• A weighted calendar: the 12 weekly walkthroughs are allocated by tier before the week starts, heaviest on Tier 3.
• Support that matches the tier: Tier 1 feedback and autonomy, Tier 2 the walkthrough-to-feedback loop with one named growth area, Tier 3 the full coaching cycle plus video coaching where it fits.
• One focus per teacher, whatever the tier.

• Placement is honest, not flattering. The first tiering put more teachers in Tier 3 than anyone would like to see, and that number is the argument for protecting coaching time, not a reason to soften the placement.
• Tiers are private to the leadership team and the teacher. No public board.
• Tier 1 is not ignored. Maintenance visits are on the calendar.

Built on Joe's own time to run his own job. The protocols inside it are the ones from the case studies above. The demo campus is fictional; the workflows are not.

Hosted as a private web app plus the offline edition. Next build: PDF export of a teacher's cycle as appraisal evidence, and editable look-fors for other frameworks.

• Two coaching protocols in one loop: the everyday cycle (Walkthrough, Feedback Given, Coaching Session, In Practice) and a deeper video coaching cycle (Video Sent, Self-Reflection, Debrief, Action Plan, Verification Walk, Final Reflection). Each stage has an owner and a service window; past its window it reads Waiting, past twice, Stalled.
• Every instrument inside the app: the Domain 2 and 3 walkthrough rubric, the feedback note, the coaching session record, the self-reflection, the debrief checklist, the action plan, the closing check-in. Original question wording preserved.
• Four metrics no tracker could produce: feedback latency (target 3 days or fewer), coaching load equity (days since each teacher's last observation/session), calendar integrity (coaching minutes committed vs held, with a logged reason for every cut), campus trend to PD (look-fors ranked by share of Needs Growth, filterable by department).
• Rules the software enforces: one active cycle per teacher; no stage advances without its artifact; the video debrief opens with the teacher's own reflection before the leader speaks; the return walk looks for the agreed move.
• An offline edition: one HTML file, runs from a laptop with no internet, no account, no install. Backup to a file, restore from a file, export to Excel. Observation notes never leave the machine.

• Calendar integrity is the brand wedge as a number. Campuses say instruction is the priority and cut coaching first; this metric proves it.
• Feedback that arrives two weeks late is documentation, not coaching. The 3-day target is built into the stage window.
• Excel is the companion, not the product. The loop lives in the app; the export goes to the spreadsheet.
• "Your data never leaves your laptop" answers the question every campus leader asks.

Built when Joe was assigned the virtual campus in August 2026, on top of his physical campus role. Students complete courses through a TEA-approved online platform. No teachers are assigned to the virtual campus, so caseload and intervention had to be designed, not inherited.

In use for the virtual campus this year.

• A Google Sheets workbook that turns platform data into a weekly decision: roster and enrollment; weekly progress (one row per student per week, the delta is what matters); an automatic stall flag; teacher caseload with follow-up owners; an intervention tracker that escalates when progress doesn't resume; a completion and credit log; two dashboards (interactive for the meeting, print for the principal); a data-quality tab.

• The unit of analysis is the week, not the grading period. Six weeks is too late on a self-paced model.
• Stalls are flagged by the sheet, not noticed by a person. Attention is the scarce resource.
• Every stalled student has an owner. A list with no owner is a list nobody reads.
• The print dashboard exists because the person who decides staffing doesn't open spreadsheets.