Collaborative Leadership: Immersive Learning Experiences for School Leaders

Looking for meaningful practice-based professional learning that connects theory to practice? Do you want to meet and develop relationships with other leaders? Seeking coaching to continue cultivating your leadership practices?

You’ve come to the right place.

Next Micro-Credential course begins October 3rd, 2024

Micro-Credential Overview: Re-imagining Leadership as Collaborative

For collaborative leadership to be successful in schools, multiple stakeholders (inclusive of administrators, students, parents, staff, and community members) must be engaged in meaningful dialogue, work, and decision‐making. Representatives from key stakeholders can provide leadership in multiple ways including serving on committees or a task-force designed to respond to issues or problems (such as improving attendance or developing mental health support systems). It is also important for Community Schools to have a leadership team that is representative of the school community and serves as the keeper of the school’s mission. Having a representative and collaborative leadership team is no easy task and principals in partnership with the Community School Coordinator need to facilitate the formation and development of the leadership team.

In this Micro‐Credential, participants work with a coach and cohort as they partner to further develop and progress the school‐based leadership team (also known as Community School Steering Committee or Advisory Committee), that is inclusive of parents, students, community members, staff and administration. With the support of a coach, cohort, and tools, the integrated team builds systems and structures for collecting and analyzing local data. The data analysis is designed to help leadership teams better understand students and the community. In this case, local data is used to understand assets, challenges, and power distribution within the school. Data collected can also be used for asset mapping.

The Micro‐Credential series includes a combination of group sessions, small group cohorts, collaborative practice at the school, and individualized coaching.

Participants will:

• Build strong collaborative relationships within the school
• Develop a shared understanding of collaborative leadership principles and practices
• Analyze power dynamics and resource distribution within the school to inform equitable decision‐making
• Identify and leverage community assets to support shared goals

These key ideas, practices, and concepts are built into each course:

• Relational trust: Cultivate a critical necessary condition for action through storytelling, equitable discourse, and shared power and decision-making.
• Equity: Achieve equitable outcomes for families and students and process for engaging families, students, staff, and community organizations.

• Practice-based support: Tools, practices, and protocols that are modeled to support collaborative leadership.

• Qualitative and quantitative data/evidence: Gather and analyze evidence with particular attention to local data/evidence.

Key Components of each course include:

• A cohort of 8-10 school leaders
• An experienced leadership coach for each cohort
• An inquiry cycle that includes group sessions with your cohort to learn new ideas and practices, and independent practice time at your school site to apply your new learning.
• A set of tools to support implementation
• A set of practices and protocols that are modeled during group sessions

This course’s synchronous sessions are on Zoom and led by your coach.

Week	Setting	Content
1	Whole group meeting (zoom). All participants meet together and will be divided into their cohort peers and coach during the session (2 hours).	Introduction to MC1 Build a common understanding of Collaborative Leadership Partnership with Community School Coordinator Intentional relationship building for trust Introduction to Participate Introduction to the Mapping Tool Assignment: Begin PhotoVoice (step 2 of mapping tool)
2 – 4	Collaborative Practice at school. Apply practices with tools and collect evidence. Individualized coaching.	Identify opportunities for expanding representation of SBLT to be inclusive and representative of school community Utilize PhotoVoice tool to identify assets in people, groups, structures, school climate, and culture within school community 1:1 with Coach
5	Whole group meeting (zoom). All participants meet together and will be divided into their cohort peers and coach during the session (2 hours).	Analyze PhotoVoice evidence of structures, school climate, and culture within school community and identify opportunities and emerging ideas for growth Build a common understanding of formal and informal decision‐ making and power distribution Introduce power and decision‐making mapping (step 3 of mapping tool) Assignment: Begin mapping formal and informal decision‐making and power distribution across school community using power and decision‐making map tool
6 – 8	Collaborative Practice at school. Apply practices with tools and collect evidence. Individualized coaching.	Identify school strengths and assets that emerged in the PhotoVoice evidence Utilize Power and decision‐making mapping tool to document evidence of informal and formal decision‐making and power distribution across school community 1:1 with coach
9	Whole group meeting (zoom). All participants meet together and will be divided into their cohort peers and coach during the session (2 hours).	Analyze power and decision‐making map tool. Where are the spaces? Where are decisions being made? Who is in control within these settings? Introduce Keystone project that participants will complete for the end of Micro‐Credential Assignment: SBLT team analysis of mapping tool (step 4 of mapping tool)
10 – 12	Collaborative Practice at school. Apply practices with tools and collect evidence. Individualized coaching.	Utilize Analysis of Mapping protocol for SBLT team to hold meaningful dialogue and reflections on evidence and data gathered in mapping tool Compare SBLT reflections, evidence and data from mapping tool to the attributes of collaborative leadership, shared power and voice Identify opportunities for growth in collaborative leadership, shared power and voice Begin working on keystone project 1:1 with Coach
13	Whole group meeting (zoom). All participants meet together and will be divided I to their cohort peers and coach during the session (2 hours).	Keystone Presentations – participants present evidence and reflect on emerging impact on their leadership and community school. Participants reflect on their peer’s keystone projects

Key Partners: