NewLeaders_Untapped

ELP is a skills-focused, job-embedded leadership training programfor teacher leaders, instructional coaches and assistant principals.We designed the program to minimize theoretical study and toemphasize integrating purposeful leadership practice into participants’daily work at school.We assign each participant a director who provides expert coachingthat helps customize the program to build on participants’ dailyduties and address unique local challenges. Participants are givenjob-embedded activities as assignments, such as providing feedbackon instruction, leading a team meeting to review student dataor having a difficult conversation to help a colleague understandwhere they need to grow. Participants capture these interactionson video, get feedback from their director, and review and reflecton the recording together with fellow participants. Throughoutthe training year, participants practice, review, refine and practiceagain, emphasizing the high-impact skills that we’ve seen oursuccessful principal apprentices master over the years.ELP:AN OVERVIEWAlong the way, we have continually refined our training to smoothimplementation and enhance positive outcomes. We are sharingthese refinements to candidly detail our efforts and discoveries,and to hopefully inspire others in our field to do the same.SelectionELP participants bring diverse strengths and areas of expertise.They are selected based on their current successes and clearpotential to develop into effective leaders in the future. To date, wehave trained 1,000 educators through ELP (Figure 4).Because ELP is a job-embedded program, we collaborate withprincipals long before training begins. Together, we identify localleadership needs and seek nominations for candidates with theexpertise and potential to grow quickly to address those challenges.We work to ensure candidates will have clear, appropriate leadershipresponsibilities at their schools throughout the training yearand beyond. In particular, we want to ensure that all participantswill have the opportunity to lead teams of teachers in their schoolsas a core component of their training.UNTAPPED | 13