I believe that any empire has all directions of communication to be successful. If a system is one-sided, the result may not be received with the correct intention. In my experience the upward movement of communication, if received with empathy, will allow for the greatest growth. When a concern is addressed because it may not be seen by upper-level management, changes can occur at the administrative level, which in turn shifts to the downward movement of communication. The education system uses horizontal communication to address issues ranging from internal grade level concerns to department standards. This can lead to diagonal communication between administration and teachers working together. Hernando County recently worked on new curriculum maps for each grade level and subject. I can only speak for middle school math; communication that the standards were not in line with the curriculum textbooks may result from an upward movement. Then we used diagonal face-to-face communication and emailing to come up with a framework for each standard. With the diagonal direction, there was then a downward movement of district mandates to follow curriculum mapping. Horizontal communication about our common assessments occurred during professional learning activities, revealing small changes in the timing of our map for the next