Shared Leadership

Listen to what principals have to say about the value of Strategic Learning Initiatives in their schools.

Administrators

Shared Leadership

Developing a culture of effective Shared Leadership is an essential aspect of building school capacity. Establishing trust and designing a shared vision around the acceleration of student learning enables schools to improve themselves at all levels. Creating a sustained positive environment, with strong relationships among parents, teachers, and principals is the foundation of Strategic Learning Initiatives (SLI)’s model for strategic school improvement.

The local school principal is a key component in the building and maintenance of a school culture that supports the concept of the "school as a learning community" and "continuous improvement" for all the school stakeholders.

"We no longer believe that one administrator can serve as the instructional leader for an entire school without the substantial participation of other educators." (Lambert, 2002)

"The main job of the principal in shared leadership is to enhance the skills and knowledge of the people in the organization, use those skills and knowledge to create a common culture of expectations, holding the organization together in a productive relationship with each other, and holding individuals accountable to the collective result." (Elmore, 2000)

The Shared Leadership component of SLI’s Scaling Up Best Practices supports the distributive leadership principles outlined above by:

Establishing a network Leadership Team to support a framework for collaborative decision-making and problem solving for the network and each school in the network. The objective is to focus on improving student learning.
Working with the principal and school teams of teachers and parents to review data, articulate performance goals and develop action plans to improve teaching and learning at their school site.

Providing principals, teacher and parent leaders the opportunity to broaden their knowledge of school improvement strategies and tools through network leadership team meetings, network retreats, site visits to other schools, and individual coaching discussions with SLI facilitators.

Offering researched based practical tips for establishing and leading an adult learning community within the school.

Sharing experiences with other network principals, modeling positive change as the school leader, setting high expectations for learning among the teachers and parents, and developing teacher/parent partnerships that supports the entire school community.

Modeling how to create an environment that encourages innovation and reflection on learning.