 The presentation is being recorded and will be provided to registrants and posted at aasa.org. Please take a moment to introduce yourselves in the chat box. You're encouraged to engage by posting comments in the chat box and we appreciate all of you for being here today for our professional learning. I'm Valerie Truesdale and I want to welcome you on behalf of aasa, the superintendent's association, where I serve as assistant executive director. We are so excited to be able to share this webinar on developing effective principles, what kind of learning matters. We thank the Wallace Foundation for their support of principles and indeed all educational leaders and for their commitment to providing the research that assists us as practitioners to lead well. A new report by the Learning Policy Institute is the focus of our learning today. We know that strong school leadership is critical for shaping productive learning environments, supporting teachers, and influencing student outcomes. This new LPI report looks at the ways that systems support the development and ongoing learning of highly effective leaders. Today's webinar explores district policies and practices that can lead to the presence of strong leaders in schools. These are examples of districts that have successfully implemented such practices with us today to share the report is Dr Linda Darling Hammond, president and CEO of the Learning Policy Institute. Linda is the author of more than 500 publications. She serves as professor emeritus at Stanford University, where she founded the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy and Education. She chairs the California State Board of Education. Following Linda, we will hear from Dr Jill Baker, superintendent of the Long Beach Unified School District. Dr Baker has served Long Beach is 69,000 children for over 30 years. She's known nationally for building a diverse talent pipeline to serve as educational leaders in her community. First of all, welcome Dr Calvin Watts, superintendent in Gwinnett County School District in Georgia. Calvin is formerly superintendent in Kent School District in Washington State, and is known for his bold strategic vision and implementation. Joining Dr Watts, bringing the voice of a principal is Dr Gypsy Hernandez, principal of Coleman Middle School in Gwinnett County. Thank you all for being with us today. We invite you to lean in and learn. And that's my joy to turn this program over to Dr Linda Darling Hammond. Thank you so much Valerie. It's a pleasure to be here. And I'm going to start by trying to share my screen. Let's see if it works. Here we go. I always keep our fingers crossed for the technology. We are going to talk a little bit about the latest report that Learning Policy Institute did for the Wallace Foundation on what do we know about how to develop effective principles. What kind of learning matters. This is one of three reports that were done by multiple researchers across the country. Back in 2007, I was involved with another team at Stanford University in looking at how to prepare school leaders for a changing world. Another Wallace Foundation funded report in which we found out that effective principal preparation and development programs could really transform practice and increase principal success if they were designed in the right ways. And that kind of powerful preparation could really increase not only the likelihood of candidates succeeding but also staying in the principal ship. But at that time, it was the case that a lot of principal preparation programs were kind of sit and get. People would show up and say, you know, I'd like to take some courses at nights and on the weekends and get a credential, get an administrative credential. Most of the people who got those credentials in most states did not go into the principal ship. And there was a lot of concern about the extent to which they actually prepared people for the real day to day experiences on the job. Now, there were exceptions to that, of course, and we studied those. But what we've been doing now is looking to see how has the field changed in all those years. We do know, of course, that principals matter. And one of the studies that was funded by Wallace in this round actually looked at the ways in which principals influence student achievement gains. And the authors of that study, Jason Grissom and his colleagues, noted that it's difficult to envision an investment with a higher ceiling on its potential return than a successful effort to improve principal leadership. We've often heard the statement that teachers are the most important in school resource for student learning and it is quite true that principals are equally important and leverage the capacities of teachers. So now why is my screen not moving? I'm not getting my screen to be able to move. So I'm going to go out of sharing and go back in. Sometimes that works. I've learned this trick, this technology trick. And we'll see if that helps. It's still not moving. I'm sorry about that. Let's stop sharing again and see what we can figure out how to get this to move. All right. So our research questions included what the features and outcomes of high quality principal learning experiences are, how do they matter? We did a research synthesis and we also did an original study in California of features of professional development that predict teacher retention and student achievement. To what extent do people have access to these high quality learning opportunities? How has that changed over the years? And what's the role of policy in shaping principal learning? We did a policy scan. We found that comprehensive principal preparation and professional development are positively associated with many benefits. And I'll come back and say what I mean by comprehensive. But we found that the right kinds of experiences help principals feel more effective, change their actual skills, their efficacy, their effectiveness, teacher satisfaction and retention, and student attendance achievement and graduation rates. So what do we mean by comprehensive preparation? That has to do with the content, the degree to which it focuses on instructional leadership, school improvement, school conditions, climate, staff development, how to support people and how to meet student needs. And then it has to do with the strategies that are used for learning, the ways in which people are enabled to apply their learning to real world situations, to experience internships under the wing of effective principals, to have coaching and mentoring, both during their pre-service and in-service learning experiences, and to participate in networks, professional learning communities, cohorts of various kinds. And we found that principals, these programs do have these multiple effects on both principal efficacy, the experiences that teachers have in schools led by those principals, and that students have. Here are some voices of principals about how they experienced those programs that came from the research. For me, it said one, it was the structure of the program, the projects, the way we would read something and reflect on it, have a concentrated amount of time to apply the concepts. It was through the application that you could see the big picture. The learning by doing had the biggest impact on me, and that came from the structure of the program. Another one in a different program said, now I have an understanding of what it means to create and try to live by a vision, so that it guides any decisions that I make. That's a whole new understanding of what it means to be an instructional leader. And that occurs when the courses in a program are coherent and integrated with each other, and then those are also related to the ways in which people experience clinical practice that instantiates that vision. And a third one said, I used to think that the core work was about managing people in a school. Now, I think it's about ensuring that there is a transformation. And in order to do that, principals have to make sure that everyone is learning and engaged in the transformation. So, we know that it's possible to create these kinds of powerful programs. And we have also found that in our survey analyses that access to important topics and content areas associated with professional development has improved across the country in the areas that I noted earlier, over two-thirds of principals had access to all of the important content areas that were associated with these areas of leadership. And access has been increasing. In pre-service programs, if you talk to folks or survey them who were certified 10 years ago versus those who have been certified in the most recent years, you can see that they feel better prepared and that they've experienced more learning in these key areas around curriculum and improvement, recruiting and retaining staff, meeting the needs of English learners. And interestingly, creating a school environment that uses discipline for restorative purposes, you can see that the ways in which the field is beginning to develop a whole child approach is getting reflected in more and more preparation programs. But, relatively few principals across the country have experienced those kinds of powerful learning opportunities. Less than half of principals have experienced internships with administrative responsibilities and coaching where they're really under the wing of an expert principal doing the work of an administrator for a period of time. Only a third have experienced peer observation at least three times in the previous three years. A little over half have participated in a principal network three or more times in the previous three years, which is not a high rate of intensity. And these things are extremely important to principals. They can describe the effects of the experiences they've had. For example, with coaches, this is a particularly detailed accounting of what one principal learned through that coaching experience. I learned the importance of following up with a discussion about the walkthrough, especially with new teachers or teachers with whom you're concerned. I learned that you should concentrate on the strengths of the teacher and be careful of how you address the areas in which the teacher might need further professional development. I learned that in order for the teacher to really receive an act on feedback, the way in which you give that feedback is so very important. I learned that being specific as to what was observed is critical and that in delivering the message, it's a good idea to do it in person. I learned that it's important to use the proper observation format. I also learned that when delivering feedback, you should be as specific as possible. These are not things that somebody learns just from reading a book or hearing a lecture. It's something that you learn perhaps in part in those ways, but by actively engaging in doing the work with the guidance of an expert mentor who can help you figure out how to do that work well and in a way that will stick. And you can also see the critical importance of doing that work in professional learning communities and networks or cohorts. As one principle put it, for me, this group has been important because I do not feel isolated before I felt like I was practicing in isolation. Because you are at your own school, you have all these issues that arise and issues that you do not really talk to your teachers about. So it was nice to have a sounding board, being able to talk and share experiences with people who are facing similar issues. We were eventually able to problem solve around those issues together and we hear this all the time. I'm sure this resonates for everyone who's been a part of or helped to sponsor these kinds of professional learning communities. It's so important to see the work as a collaborative enterprise where you have colleagues with whom you can problem solve and learn. We see also in the data that access to professional learning really differs across states. Among the data points that we had in this study were surveys from California, which is represented by the red bar here, and surveys from North Carolina, the blue bar here. And there was much more access to professional learning in California, for example, on how to equitably serve all children, meet the needs of English learners, create a school environment that develops personally and socially responsible young people, lead schools that support students from diverse ethnic, racial, linguistic and cultural backgrounds. The access is also very different for principals who work in low poverty schools, the bottom green bar here, versus high poverty schools. The upper blue bar with much more opportunity for principals generally in lower poverty schools. So there's work to be done, but I will say that this varies by state. So while we saw this in the national data, if you look at the California data where there have been a number of reforms of practice, there is no disparity. About 90 plus percent of principals have access to almost all of these kinds of learning, and it does not vary between high and low poverty schools. So it is possible to change these distributions, and we have work to do across the states. Also interesting is what professional development to principals want more of. And this is just sort of the top list that 70% or more of principals noted. And I will just point out that so much of this list has to do with the whole child approach to leading a school, to designing a school that people are working so vigorously to adopt. Principals want more learning opportunities around supporting social emotional development, physical and mental health, of course, improving student achievement, but also redesigning for deeper learning, creating a school that develops responsible young people, creating an environment that uses discipline for restorative purposes, develops higher order thinking, meets the needs of students with disabilities and others from diverse backgrounds, equitably serves all children. Those are the preponderant asks, along with the traditional self-improvement, ongoing improvement and gains in achievement that have been put on the plate for all schools for many years. So what kind of policy can make a difference? What has happened over time and where might we go to support more high quality professional learning for principals? In 2005, we had only six states that focused on knowledge and skills to support student learning and their standards. Some states mentioned these skills but did not specify anything about the knowledge or skills. By 2014, we had 35 states that had revised their licensure standards and begun to really focus on how principals support student learning. And in 2018, there were new standards from the National Educational Leadership Preparation Standards that really reinforced the equity emphasis, clinical practice tied to meaningful learning. So we have seen this evolution of standards. States have been adopting these standards, but states have adopted sort of a bimodal approach. All 50 are engaged in policies to improve principal quality. A lot of them using ESSA funds and we've seen some using the Rescue Plan Act funds as well for principal supports and residencies and training opportunities. Many states are pursuing those new leadership standards in a variety of ways, but most are on the one hand both pursuing strong requirements for programs and alternative pathways at the same time. The fastest growing sector is online, often for profit training programs. And we, in the course of our research, heard from a survey of principals in Colorado how problematic those programs have been there where they have been growing extensively. In contrast to what we heard in a survey of principals from Illinois, where a much more robust and rigorous approach to training has been put in place and where the views about principals competencies are much, much more positive. Policy reforms can make a difference in outcomes, as in Illinois and in California, as I mentioned. And some of that has to do with using these high leverage policies that are really rooted in the research. Those include proactively recruiting and selecting candidates who really want to be principals, reaching into the teaching force to those dynamic teachers who are already demonstrating leadership. Persuading them that they want to become principals and then making it possible and easy for them to do so by underwriting the costs and putting them into program models that are district and university partnerships that support that work. The use of school leadership standards, those clinically rich internships a year under the wing of an expert principal that needs to incorporate some kinds of salary supports or an assistant principal position that underwrites that. Regular state oversight with feedback to programs so that they continually improve. The expectations for the right kind of education requirements that access the topics and the kinds of learning that are important assessment, including portfolio review. We have a growing number of states, including California, which have put in place an administrator performance assessment that actually includes action projects, if you will, in which principals demonstrate their ability to evaluate and support teacher learning, their ability to do school improvement planning, their ability to look at the equity dimensions of a school and figure out the next steps toward improvement. And license renewal with continuing education gives us a platform to continue to make it more extensive state progress at the point of the study that looked in 2015. Finally, two states that met the criteria for all of these policies 11 that didn't meet any lots in between. But policy change appeared to influence principals access in California, as I mentioned, there was a set of reforms, which included new standards and performance expectations, new approaches to accrediting programs. A new performance assessment that members of the field helped to build with the commission on teacher credentialing. And you can see that in surveys, the recent completers of programs felt much better prepared in many areas, although the data also showed that there's still a considerable way to go for ongoing improvement. They mentioned not only having more access to content, but also feeling better prepared. The stronger requirements in Illinois also produce positive changes in preparation programs. They put in place an expectation for these very strong internships that are year long, the competency based assessments, and rigorous selection requirements that we mentioned earlier. And studies have shown strengths in the programs and strong improvements in student achievement, especially in places like Chicago where the entire city had adopted programs like this sooner than later. And then there's an urban pipeline project that Wallace actually funded that took place in six districts, including Gwinnett County. Hopefully we'll hear about that. Charlotte Mecklenburg, Denver, Hillsborough County, New York, Prince George's County, where they found that where districts adopted standards of practice and really applied them to hiring, preparation, evaluation and support, delivered high quality pre-service preparation often in relationship to local universities, used that selective hiring and placement, created a pipeline of leadership all the way from teaching to teacher leadership to assistant principals to principals, and into the central office, and then aligned that evaluation and support that they got very strong student achievement gains in the schools where principals who had had this experience were leading. This kind of approach I know is also used in Long Beach and we're going to be able to hear from the superintendent there as well. The implications for policy and practice have to do not only with changing state licensing and program approval standards and encouraging greater attention to equity where we see growing attention and stronger outcomes, but also investing in infrastructure for professional learning like principals academies and building these local pipelines that can make such a difference in how we identify and develop talent for the leadership profession. And with that I'm going to stop sharing and look forward to us hearing from folks who are doing this work on the ground. Linda, thank you so much. We're going to shift now exactly to that. The practitioner at Long Beach Unified School District, Dr. Jill Baker has been working in this area for quite a long time and is known nationally. Jill. Good morning everyone or good afternoon depending on where you are. So pleased to be a part of the discussion today and to share a little bit of our work in Long Beach Unified School District. 15 years ago, the only reason I left the principalship was the opportunity to launch a leadership development program in Long Beach Unified School District and so the topic today is very near and dear to my heart. Our first program which I'll talk about in depth our coaching program was the first program that I had the pleasure of launching it was the first time that we had considered differently the needs of principals and what the phase of induction would mean to have a coach what it would do to the phase of induction for a principal. And you'll all end today just by sharing that we have more than 15 programs that serve teachers and leaders who aspire into administration in Long Beach Unified School District. So let me share my screen. And actually, thank you. Here we go. Yeah, let me get into present mode just a few slides to share with you. We're building on our excellence and equity journey in Long Beach. I'm just gonna make four connections to Dr. Darlene Hammond's research and so good to read the report and both be reminded of what makes a difference based on research and also just some new details to really think about in our work in Long Beach. And then talk about transforming the role of principal supervisor, which followed the Wallace Foundation study about pipeline was actually one of their findings was that principal supervisors make a difference and so we participated in the next initiative with the Wallace Foundation, which was transforming principal supervisor. Secondly, I'll just share briefly about coaching as a way of being and what that has meant in Long Beach over a decade of work around building coaching to be a way of being a little bit about how we have centered equity and our evolution and leadership how we're bringing further equity into the expectations that we hope for principles and then I'll end with a little information about our equity leadership talent development programming. So we had this rare opportunity about seven years ago we were rethinking our evaluation systems for principles and as we thought about that we developed an internal system that was based on research and standards but wanted to customize it to be really specific to our work in Long Beach. And so if you imagine in between the then and now was the launch of that principle evaluation system with new expectations, new cycles of improvement and ways that we wanted to interact with our principles. The launch of that system then was complimented by establishing a principal supervisor learning community in service to principles, thinking about a reduced ratio so our principal supervisor ratio became around 10 to one. And then having a really systematic approach to supporting and supervising principles. We define the principal role as I mentioned the principal supervisor role around a new set of standards and indicators that was coming out of the research that we were doing internally but also in relation to the Wallace principle supervisor initiative. And then lastly, we began to think about if we want to support principles who we know are second only to teachers and their effect on student achievement. So we had to think about the role of principal supervisor very differently and prepare those who were effective principles to potentially be principal supervisors in our district. And so in doing so in that professional learning community for principal supervisors, while it's a small community. Right now it holds 11 people in it I still participate in and leading our principal supervisors. We have eight direct principal supervisors to stay at that ratio and then our equity leadership talent director participates in all of the work of principal supervisors to be able to make that connection to our pipeline program. So that the role of principal supervisor it has standards and indicators that include teaching and learning and what the standards for principal supervisor who supports teaching and learning look like standards and indicators around coaching and feedback. And then also other areas, all of these have the underpinning of equity in them and so you'll hear a little bit more about our work in equity as I take a few more minutes of your time just to share. A really important facet of our evolution and our improvement over time has been the establishment of coaching as a way of being. So when I think about the transformation of the role of principal supervisor in service to principles. There was this shift that began to happen as we prepared more and more of our principles and others to be coaches. So initially there was a coaching professional development program in our equity leadership talent development program. So we started to want to be peer coaches. And as we saw the impact of coaching and our work, we decided and began to have all year three principles, go through the coaching PD program because what we realized is that, whether a principal is formerly coaching appear, or using the skills that they're learning as coaches and support of their teachers, both were right moves both were good for our system. That shift also was that anyone who was going into the role of principal supervisor had to be trained specifically trained in being a coach through, through several different methodologies and I'll share that. And then other aspects that have influenced our thinking about coaching as a way of being is that we think of our systems are evaluation systems as coaching based evaluation systems. I mean, that means that most of the time is spent in a coaching relationship asking good questions, prompting for reflection, helping a leader to find solutions that they can really lead and not just direct them around solutions. So our principal supervisors serve in the role of coach, and they serve in the role of supervisor and and we have there is some research that is really shown that it is possible to blend those two roles and to, to be successful. Lastly, we aspire to show that coaching is for everyone and I know it's easy to go to a sports analogy and think about even the finest athletes have coaches. And so while coaching started as something that was for new principles in the phase of induction, or sometimes it was for a struggling principle. Now it is for all it is for new principles for veteran principles it's peer to peer. And one of the things that I love is that because coaching is a way of being in our district. Sometimes in the relationships, even with me or with supervisors will have a principal or a staff member say, you know, I'm noticing you're coaching me you're not telling me which pushes that idea back into being reflective about our practice and not just being directive about our practice. There are a few things that are included so we while we subscribe to ways of being around coaching we don't have one approach, we have worked hard to create an internally developed program that allows our principles and others to certify as that includes many different aspects of the toolkit in their toolkit so all of these have a foundation for us in equity and so when we're using blended coaching, we're coaching with questions that center equity, evocative coaching and candidate compassionate feedback and the work of Shane Sophia, you know, in listening leader. And so the toolkit is built through different methodologies that can be then interweaved so that anyone who's coaching can call upon the tools that are needed in that setting with the principal or with the central office administrator or someone else who they're coaching out in the field such as their teachers. So another aspect of our work is really just wanted to share for a couple minutes about the evolution of our role over the past five years with principles and how we have worked to center equity in all that we're doing. While our original domains and dimensions as they're called the performance expectations while they included aspects of equity. Over the course of five years as we knew better, and wanted to do better, we actually have been able to go back into our domains and dimensions which essentially are a performance rubric, and to revise those and I'll share with you what that looks like. But as central office staff learned more about leading for equity and principal supervisors were trained, including work with the Leadership Academy in New York City, that things have begun to cascade from the role of leader, and now an excellence and equity policy that was passed in December of last year, where our whole system is focusing on excellence and equity. And so it allows us to revise those performance expectations and some of the work just to call out some of the things that we really thought about and making that revision to our expectations was was the work of the Leadership Academy, equity leadership dispositions, our work with the lens of systemic oppression, referring to Fisher and fries work around building equity and so a signature practice of Long Beach is not necessarily taking something just as it's written. But thinking about where we are in the evolution of our work and then working to bring that into our space. And so what that looked like for example, on the right hand side you'll see one of seven domains and dimensions that comprise the expectations for principles this one is actually professionalism disposition and ethics. So rather than completely take a new approach to principle supervision, we took our learning from the different aspects of our work most notably the equity leadership dispositions thought about how they could be weaved into each of those domains and dimensions, and revised our expectations over the last two years for what we expected principles. So in principle supervisors are working with principles these domains are activated in conversations they're activated when we're talking about teaching and learning. And they're a way of really ensuring that every person in our leadership system, and now in our classrooms is focused on equity leadership for equity and excellence. So lastly just a moment about our equity leadership and talent development division and their work. It's formerly called leadership development, and as we learned more and thought about how important it is to really center equity and to think about excellence and equity in combination. The division actually went through their own transformation. They went back into their curriculum and thought about the entire journey for a teacher who may want to become a teacher leader through programming. They were inspired to administration, and they revised their curriculum to reflect an articulated sequence of learning about excellence and equity and and rethinking what it means to go through this entire sequence. So it all began several years ago as we learned more about coaching and the impact of coaching our ELTD programming included in the field coaching. And so if coaching was important to us. We also wanted it to be a part of the learning so it wasn't just coming to a classroom and talking about leadership theory that also was being activated through coaching from the ELTD office. And then lastly, our promotional processes are almost exclusively through those who have participated in an equity leadership and talent development program. And so really important to us to think about how that curriculum, how the conversations how the experiences of these almost 16 programs or 16 programs at this time, center excellence and equity. And so what's before you and you'll have access to these slides is an articulated way of us thinking about at the top, those who want to continue to be teachers but want access to different learning, learning programs. And then at the bottom those who aspire to take teacher leadership to the next level into administration. So this is a revised curriculum that centers excellence and equity, and really is preparing our teachers, and those who aspire into into leadership roles to be the leaders for long beach unified students into the next generation. And what I'll close by saying is we think of ourselves always as a work in progress. And so what I share with you today is more than a decade of work of learning, and constantly thinking about what our students need from us, how to center those needs, and how to be really intentional and systematic and the work that we do in long beach unified. So thanks for the opportunity to share a little bit of the connections to Dr. Darling Hammond's research and just grateful to have the opportunity to talk with you a little bit today. Thank you jail so impactful. We're going to turn our attention now to when that county public schools. Dr Watts, 180,000 children. There we go. Thank you Valerie I appreciate yes my wife and I have 180,000 children we have one who we still claim in our taxes that's how seriously I do take this work. Welcome to you and Dr Hernandez. Thank you so much and I certainly want to just pay tribute and immense gratitude to ASA it's certainly to our esteemed colleagues Dr. Val and Hammond Dr Joe Baker for setting the stage and really helping to center some key focus focal points with regard to leadership and as we reflect on leadership in that county public schools is Valerie mentioned yes we are the largest school system in the state of Georgia. And I'm humbled and honored to serve. And it is a bit of a home gone, if you will, and I grew up personally in Washington State. However, I grew up professionally as I often share in the state of Georgia specifically in when a county public schools from assistant principal to associate superintendent. I was 18 years of my 21 years where I resided in in Georgia, my first iteration. I grew up again in Gwinnett County public schools so as I think about our work as part of the, the largest school district. And it is about ensuring that each and every leader has the requisite skill sets knowledge and abilities to be not only supportive to be effective as a leader at the local school level at the district office level. As we often refer to from the classroom to the boardroom to the living room, and that's how seriously again we take this work the Winnett County model was derived certainly in the early 2000s based on and grateful to the grants in aid from the Wallace Foundation as an initial seed. And I think it's a lot of money to support this work on our model was based on leadership development. With the understanding that it reflected and should reflect the balance between androgogy and obviously adult learning theory and curriculum what we want and intend for our aspiring leaders to know and be able to do as a result whether in the classroom through knowledge based instruction, most importantly as we've heard earlier from our team colleagues that experiential learning that taking this work into the field and measuring success based on student and school outcomes and so there was a strong emphasis that was placed on recruiting talent, making sure that the curricula was it was appropriate was reliable was certainly valid and, and we were leading in a way that that not not only identified leaders as as principles we identify them for a period of time that one year, one year for the instructional program to, to move along prepare our leaders for not just the schools of the moment but really the schools of the future, and as we reflect on when our quality plus leader Academy as it is referred to today, otherwise known as that quality plus leader Academy experience for our leaders provided opportunities for committed professionals those who embrace the idea of leading at a higher level and create a clear pathway forward that ensure that our leaders will be developed and trained specifically to support and address the needs of our richly diverse schools in 2012. So, Kubla now and continues to serve as that umbrella that overarching scope of work and sequence that that provides activities that are associated with training and development of all leaders in grant kind of public schools who are certainly supportive and included in the quality plus leader Academy, specifically performing identifying those those leaders recruiting those those leaders with the requisite skills and preparing prospective school leaders for a school district that has 140 essentially 142 job opportunities and we trust that we never have to hire 142 at one time. Our goal is to make sure we are preparing those leaders to succeed whenever those leadership opportunities are presented. The design itself was based on. We go back to the 1990s 1998 across functional action team in Gwinnett, it was actually four years before I actually three years I should say before I arrived in Gwinnett County public schools to meet the future needs of a growing county one of the fastest growing communities in the mid 80s in this country, and a growing school district and and obviously that budding impact of some small event that took place in 1996 called the summer Olympics which happened in Atlanta and what we also understood was that the growth that was spurred was spurred by that that event members of our of our team and and as we refer to now as team GCPS continued to research urban school district principal development programs such as the New York Leadership Academy and and to Dr. You should know and I know that your work in Long Beach is revered and certainly was a part of our research and evidence based working in Long Beach unified school district Boston public schools Chicago public schools Philadelphia public schools all understanding that we no one knows this work by themselves but we can learn from one another and determine that selection process program design, which moved us to 2004. The Office of Leadership Development to 2007 our first inaugural quality plus leader aspiring principal program which again part of a home going I was actually a part of that leadership development work in supporting our leaders during that time so returning to the place where I grew up professionally as superintendent is is not only humbling is inspiring to continue this work and to address the needs of again a richly diverse student and staff population. In 2010 and 2012 arrived our first induction of our aspiring leader program, which supports our system principles that we want to make sure as we've heard before that cascading effective leadership support and development, also in our first induction class of a district was also formed and you see the numbers 311 total graduates more than 200 total leadership appointments and that supports 130 current principles of 142 and 33 district leaders, one of whom you'll hear from in just a few moments. Now as we think about leadership development, it is beyond just the development leaders for today is for our future and our programs that were supported by not only teaching and certainly not just telling but creating mentorships and opportunities for guidance in those who are participating in our quality plus leader academy that that overarching development of an inspiring principal program otherwise known as a P P to support our leaders who wish to lead at the local school level at the highest level. And we often refer to what I share, we have to know where we've come from in order to know where we're going. I often use the analogy that it is not lost on me that we we refer to that individual who was responsible for the one room schoolhouse and everything that happened inside as the principal teacher and that's the reason why we still refer to the leaders of our schoolhouses as principles, and so our aspiring principal program is our seminal leadership program, which leads to our leader program that aspirational assistant principal role to our district leader program understand that central office leaders do play a significant role in the teaching and the learning that takes place in our local schools, and that district leader program certainly is a balance of supervision and support from the district office to our local schools in the classrooms where our students are served on a daily basis. We've continued to grow and and help engage our leaders, especially those who are also learners, each and every day that that professional learning opportunity otherwise known as PLO's provides for that constant training and it's designed to create a really professional learning experience for alignment between our newly formed district strategic plan and planning process that centers on empathy, and actually leads to excellence and what we say is that empathy and excellence are the bridge really the bridge that is is actually equity and effectiveness and so we use the for ease from centering on empathy which leads to equity addressing individual needs when those needs arise, then to effectiveness when we're actually creating desired outcomes based on the goals in which we are attempting to to follow and then ultimately that excellence excellence being described as that notable standard of excellence to to which we should all aspire, and that should be those identified outcomes. Many of these programs are certainly in support of that constant value of learning continuously. And as we speak, I'm actually as we prepare for through this leadership opportunity today I'm humbled that towards the end I will actually be transitioning to our summer leadership will begin tomorrow and that's another our signature learning event that brings our district level leaders principles together to continue this learning opportunity, along with our board members. As this is free to core and to help us build that bridge from the end of our 2022 year to the beginning of our 2022 23 year. exciting work. And I am proud and honored to serve. And as I think about this work as as a leader who leads first with empathy, the goal is that we do our very best to, to understand what it might be like what it should be like what it could be like to walk in someone else's shoes. And we can get to that point when we can lead in that way that we can understand to a better extent how to address individual needs and so empathy leads to equity and, and as I have had the opportunity to, to serve as a superintendent my home state of to serve a superintendent now in when that finishing year one and having the opportunity to succeed. A leader in my predecessor who needs no introduction but a serve for 25 years and we're at county public schools as previous superintendent, the shoes that are left to fill are certainly important. And I accept the challenge, but I know, as a leader I cannot do this work by myself, it takes all of us. And at this time, certainly I would like to introduce one of our esteemed quality leaders herself Dr. gypsy command as who serves as principal of Coleman Middle School and is is one of certainly it is Georgia's and Gwinnett's first ever certified steam middle school gypsy the floor is yours. Thank you. So, I was thinking when I was reflecting on what to share today. Yes. Can you hear me. Yes. I thought about kind of sharing with you some of the highlights of these programs that I have been part of in GCPS I have been with when a kind of public school since 2005 I have been a teacher and technology specialist. I have been an assistant principal and now I am currently a principal about the way we like to say it in Gwinnett is an every other responsibility you can think of that we do in our buildings to try to advance the work we do. As Dr. Watts was talking, I was actually making my own list of all the different professional learning opportunities that I have participated. And I was kind of surprised that it has been so many. So I was part of the local school leadership academy that some schools kind of have developed to imitate the process that the district follows. And then I was part of the assistant principal academy the principal account academy. I am actually a first year principal so I have transitioned from the principal academy to the novice principal or the aspiring principal academy to the novice principal academy which is it's been very reassuring to know that I have when I look around I don't ever feel alone. And that is a very, very important I would say kind of theme when I was reflecting yesterday about my experience in leadership in GCPS. There has been a path of coaching and mentorship. There has always been a very intentional attempt in GCPS from my department chairs all the way to my principals and now the leadership development office there has always been that perception of other educators pouring into you. Taking the time paying attention to you that has been reassuring important. It also has an ongoing nature as I just mentioned I don't think I've ever been free of any professional development opportunities along the way. And these professional development opportunities have been two fold on one hand, we have had the academies or the professional learning the PLO opportunities but also there's an ongoing nature to what we do there's always a connection between those professional learning opportunities there either standard base which has been very fundamental to me to make sure I cover all the areas of what describes an effective leader so all of our the academy the principal academy but even the PLO's are always a standard based on those leadership standards so that really really serves as a compass when it comes to understanding first off what the work should be about in order to be effective. What is also in when there's always data and research based resources, we've always had access to books, research or resources out there that are very data driven, always also tailored to the unique needs of our district and our schools or our communities because we're very large districts or school clusters and you know I have lived in other states to our school clusters are almost districts in other states so they're very very unique. But also along all that there's always been the opportunity to reflect as a leader. So there's also those basic skills of what is not just to be an educational leader but to be a leader and opportunity to reflect and in that coaching and mentorship is just having that thought partner that we call them in G.C.P.S. And you know I thought about one word to summarize it all and I think all these professional learning opportunities my path to leadership in Gwinnett has provided me with a community. I feel like I'm not alone, and there's a learning community around me that either, you know, via some of the tech platforms or through our professional learning opportunities in person summer. There's always that thought partner next to you when you need it or when you're wrestling with, you know, some of our daily challenges. So this kind of summarizes what has been my experience in G.C.P.S. What a powerful word community and how blessed we are that you all have been able to develop that kind of wrap around support for leaders. So today we've heard from two amazing exemplars of intentional and systematic leader development that is developed an ecosystem of learning among leaders. Linda, how does that play out in relationship to the research report. Well, I think it really exemplifies what we found in the research that, you know, the community, the pipeline that allows people to find their way along the growth trajectory that is described in both of these districts. And then the ways in which that pipeline is supported by coaching and mentoring and the kinds of applied learning opportunities within the district that really are practical as well as theoretical. There's nothing more practical than a good theory. And when those come together, you can see the power that is represented. You know, and the job of being a school leader in this country is a very difficult job. So those kinds of supports, both along the way and while you're engaged in the work are just critically important. I want to thank all of you for being with us today at AASA and on behalf of the Wallace Foundation who supported this research. Thank you for being here to bring it to life to make it breathe energy into the report and show us how the policies and practices play out. As our thought leader practitioners shared with us today. Thank you everyone please have a wonderful rest of your summer. Thank you. Bye bye.