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Portrait of a Graduate
Digital Promise supports states, districts, and schools by providing research, models, and services to build environments that foster the future-ready skills defined in their Portrait of a Graduate.
Audiences
Educators, Policymakers, Researchers, School and System Leaders
Learning Environments
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Overview
A Portrait of a Graduate is a vision or framework describing the attributes, skills, and competencies that students should have when they complete their education, focusing on comprehensive personal and academic development that prepares them for success beyond school. In an era of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, uniquely human qualities like creativity, critical thinking, and civic engagement are more important than ever for student success.
Our vision is to make the Portrait of a Graduate a reality for students across the country. Digital Promise partners with school districts and states to move your Portrait of a Graduate from a poster on the wall to an integral, daily practice in every classroom.
Lessons from the Field
Digital Promise partners with district leaders to learn what works in making the Portrait of a Graduate come alive—ensuring that Portraits are not just posters hanging on a wall but guideposts for the culture of teaching and learning in a school district. Explore how partners like North Salem Central School District (New York), Norwalk Public Schools (Connecticut), and Ephrata Area School District (Pennsylvania) successfully integrated competencies and built lasting educator capacity.
Portrait of a Graduate Professional Services
Implementing a Portrait of a Graduate program that centers student learning and fosters future-ready skills can be complex. Digital Promise offers the expertise and resources to help you align your district’s culture of teaching and learning with the vision set out in your Portrait.
Our Stackable Offerings
Digital Promise offers three stackable engagement opportunities to build capacity for implementing your Portrait of a Graduate, described in the chart below. For each service, we offer multiple tiers of support. Bundled pricing may be available for districts interested in multiple offerings.
Portrait of a Graduate Capacity-Building Services
| Service | Description |
|---|---|
| Implementation | Strategic guidance regarding curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, and capacity-building customized to the needs and context of your district. |
| Cohorts | Collaborative learning experience with 3–5 other districts to share and consult around opportunities and challenges. |
| Evaluation | Reports, recommendations, and findings on the strengths and opportunities of your Portrait of a Graduate implementation through surveys and focus groups. |
Implementation
Digital Promise staff provides strategic guidance and ongoing support across the four critical areas districts most commonly face during Portrait of a Graduate implementation:
- Visioning and Planning: Aligning your Portrait of a Graduate work with your strategic plan and vision.
- Capacity-Building: Tools and supports for defining competencies and creating shared understanding among staff, students, and community.
- Learning Opportunities: Support for context-specific approaches to integrating Portrait of a Graduate into daily instruction.
- Assessment: Design methods for noticing and recognizing student growth in future-ready skills.
We offer the following services:
Portrait of a Graduate Implementation Support Tiers
| Implementation Tier | Description |
|---|---|
| Comprehensive Implementation Support | Engage in three in-person visits and monthly structured virtual consulting engagements with Digital Promise staff over the school year for more hands-on support tailored to your district’s unique implementation needs and context. |
| Implementation Support | Engage in one in-person meeting and six virtual consulting sessions with Digital Promise staff over the school year for ongoing guidance and progress monitoring. |
| Ongoing Support (for existing district partners) | Engage in four virtual consulting sessions with Digital Promise staff over the school year to support implementation of Portrait of a Graduate plan, including articulation and calibration on district-wide shared competencies, guidance to enhance educator development and community involvement, and build toward ongoing systems of support for Portrait of a Graduate work. |
Cohorts
Districts engage in collaborative learning experiences to share best practices and work through common implementation challenges. We offer the following services when bringing together districts in cohorts:
Elements of Digital Promise Portrait of a Graduate Cohorts
| Cohort Element | What to Expect |
|---|---|
| Format | Annual in-person convening (one time), plus three or four virtual meetings throughout the year. |
| Focus | Each district shares an implementation challenge or success for peer consultation and support. |
| Commitment | Requires two or three personnel from the district leadership team to represent the Portrait of a Graduate work. |
Evaluation
Understand the opportunities and challenges of your Portrait of a Graduate implementation through rigorous, mixed-methods data collection. We offer two tiers:
Portrait of a Graduate Evaluation Services
| Tier | Data Collection Methods | Deliverable |
|---|---|---|
| Comprehensive | Staff/community surveys, focus groups (teachers/administrators/students), and school visits/observations | Cumulative report and presentation defining next steps |
| Standard | Staff, community, and student surveys | Slide presentation defining next steps |
Contact Digital Promise
Ready to build capacity for your Portrait of a Graduate program? Tell us more about the support you’re looking for.
Assessing Future-Ready Skills
Thoughtfully designed assessment systems are the bridge between a Portrait of a Graduate vision and practice. Education leaders need practical, field-informed guidance on designing systems that measure complex, future-ready skills.
Responding to this need, Digital Promise and Pearson have partnered to learn how districts are approaching future-ready skills assessment.
Student-Centered Assessment Resources
Portraits in Progress: Emerging Future-Ready Skills Assessment Strategies
The Portraits in Progress report emphasizes the importance of growth-oriented, student-centered practices that serve as catalysts for deeper learning and the realization of Portrait of a Graduate visions.
Watch District Leaders Share Future-Ready Skill Assessment Strategies
Our recent webinar shared high-level findings featuring two Portrait of a Graduate assessment strategies: performance tasks and defenses of learning. District leaders from Shelby County Public Schools (Kentucky) and Howard-Suamico School District (Wisconsin) described how these assessment strategies have been effective for assessing future-ready skills in their Portraits of a Graduate.