Invest in a Culture of Teacher Leadership

Vision of Excellence

Essential Questions

Objectives

Ensuring that school staff understand and are invested in this vision is necessary for building the professional learning culture that will lead to significant gains for teachers and students.

How do school leaders build the mindsets and knowledge that school personnel need to realize the promise of distributive leadership and collaborative structures for teacher growth?

How do effective leaders invest their school communities in the shifts inherent in the Teacher Leadership & Collaboration model?

2. Develop and Communicate Expectations for Key School-Wide Priorities and Structures

3. Engage Early in Teacher Leadership Practices

• Conduct an information gathering survey to better gauge staff buy-in and understanding of how teacher leadership roles will impact teachers and students. Review results with your leadership team and staff, and correct misconceptions about the shifts.

• Facilitate a conversation with teachers about hopes and fears around implementing Teacher Leadership and Collaboration.

• Invite an experienced Senior/Team Lead from another school to engage in conversation with staff around implementation successes and challenges.

• Return to your Teacher Leadership & Collaboration design work and revise as necessary to finalize your school’s vision for teacher leadership.

• Present the vision to the leadership team, and offer guiding questions to focus their input. Consider using Leveraging Teacher Leaders to Achieve Your School’s Desired State to guide your discussion.

• Meet with groups of teachers to communicate which team they will belong to, how they will be supported, and by whom, and how team goals align to the overall vision of the school.

• Share the school’s new organization chart with the entire staff to help communicate new roles and structures. Supplement with descriptions of roles and responsibilities.

• Present an overview of what TLC will look like and how it aligns to your school’s vision. Describe the supports and benefits that teachers will receive and address common questions or fears that your staff has expressed in smaller groups.

• Develop (or have members of the ILT create) a set of talking points, elevator pitch or FAQ document for staff to refer to regarding how teacher leadership will be implemented in the school.

• Use a version of these TLC Sample Communications Plans to develop a plan for outreach to other stakeholders.

• Meet with individual teachers to address one-off concerns. You may choose to offer Team Leads support to drive those conversations.

• Use the learning cycle framework to help your staff understand the role of Senior/Team Leads. At minimum, develop a learning cycle template for your Team Leads to use and share it with staff. To clarify expectations, provide best practices and an annotated exemplar.

• Establish clear structures for one-on-one teacher support and collaborative team time with your Instructional Leadership team. Make sure all school leaders and teacher leaders are prepared to speak with one voice about the goals and purpose of each component of teacher leadership.

• Use any new trackers or templates to observe your Senior/Team Leads so that you can identify potential challenges and begin building familiarity with new systems.

• Arrange release time for new Senior/Team Leads to informally observe their future team members and begin building a culture of observation between colleagues. When possible, co-observe and debrief with the new Senior/Team Lead.

• Observe the work of new Senior/Team Leads, and provide feedback on their instructional practice using coaching strategies. Debrief the coaching session afterward, and allow Senior/Team Leads to provide feedback.