LEARNING LEADERS FOR LEARNING SCHOOLS

LEARNING LEADERS FOR LEARNING SCHOOLS PROJECT SUMMARY: LLLS will engage 80 principals and district office personnel in a three-year intensive professional learning experience beginning in June 2016. The experience involves state-of-the-art learning designs including seminars, small communities of practice, and personalized coaching. Goals and content align with nationally recognized leadership and PD standards and focus on priorities of participants. Facilitated communities of practice promote collective problem solving. Personalized coaching supports application of new knowledge to daily work and goal attainment. BENEFITS: Students and teachers in schools with LLLS participants will experience the benefits of attending/working in a learning school. These benefits include compelling vision, committed, well-skilled, and well-supported leadership, allocated resources, data to support decision making, collective responsibility, learning teams engaged in continuous improvement cycles, and focus on results. Students and teachers will experience greater teacher and principal retention with an ability to maintain focus and sustain improvements. As a result, teaching and leadership practice will improve and student learning will rise. Stable schools contribute to more resilient and caring communities for students. COMPONENTS:  Whole-Group Sessions w/ 70 principals and districts sponsors  Study Teams among principals who focus on a common problem of practice  Principals practicing new skills, receiving feedback from their peers, and reshaping their practice  Coaches supporting principals one-on-one in their learning journey PARTICIPANTS & EXPECTATIONS:  Districts and charter holders in Phoenix urban core and metropolitan area  >51% free and reduced lunch student population  3 year commitment (2016-2019)  ~6 days/year for group meetings in addition to multiple hour-long coaching calls  Executive-level district sponsor  Travel costs for group meetings in Greater Phoenix location, TBD STRUCTURE:  Three year program with a 4 month cycle: o Month 1: one-day large group seminars o Month 2: one-day community of practice o Months 3-4: hour personalized coaching calls o To be repeated ~9 times  Identify problems of practice and create communities of practice

CONTENT:  Wallace Foundation’s 5 Key Responsibilities for the Principal as a Leader: o Shaping a vision of academic success for all students. o Creating a climate hospitable to education. o Cultivating leadership in others. o Improving instruction. o Managing people, data and processes to foster school improvement.  Learning Forward’s Leadership Academy model: o The Learning Forward Academy is an extended learning experience that immerses members in a model of inquiry- and problem-based learning. Participants work collaboratively to gain knowledge to solve significant student learning problems in their schools, districts, or organizations.  Learning Forward’s Standards for Professional Learning o Learning communities o Learning designs o Leadership o Implementation o Resources o Outcomes o Data SUSTAINABILITY: Program will be evaluated by external evaluator, Resources for Learning, and translated into a field guide that will support replication, scale-up, and application for principals across Arizona and the Nation. At the conclusion of the grant cycle, ADE, in partnership with existing leadership development providers and participating school districts, will implement a new principal development cohort informed by the external evaluator’s findings. ADE envisions a sustainability period of 2019-2025. MOVING FORWARD:  Participant Application availability, TBD  Info Session to be scheduled  Interested parties, please use the contact information below: James Buchanan, Ed.D. Deputy Associate Superintendent ECAP & Leadership Development [email protected] 602-542-5510 office 480-332-4717 cellular