It is imperative school leaders are instructional leaders. Learn some ways to engage with teachers in 5 Ways Administrators Can Serve as Instructional Coach. This post appears on Corwin Connect.

During the 15-16 school year, my colleague – Randy Ziegenfuss, Ed.D., and I led a year-long visioning process.  We asked stakeholders this question.

• What knowledge, skills, and dispositions do we want Salisbury students to possess when they graduate?

We used the data from multiple sources and developed a Profile of a Graduate and Learning Beliefs for our school district, Salisbury Township School District (STSD).

During the 16-17 school year,  we created a Leading #YourSalisbury cohort which was formed at the district level and comprised of four building leadership teams.  We are sharing the implementation of this process to the building leadership teams which includes approximately four teachers and the building leader(s).  We intend to meet as a full cohort three times (October, January, and May.)  Although I am leading this, Randy and another central office colleague, Ross Cooper, are also facilitating a portion of the professional learning.  After spending 15-16 developing the vision, we have three main goals for 16-17.

• To build a shared understanding of the STSD Profile of a Graduate
• To build a shared understanding of the STSD Learning Beliefs
• To build a shared understanding of the 4Cs.

At our first session in October, we developed schema about the Profile of a Graduate and the 4Cs.  We used materials from p21.org and EdLeader21. We then met with individual building teams  for a half-day in their respective buildings to support them as they made connections to their context and prioritized learning for their staffs. Individual building principals developed agendas and the three of us supported their work. During the half-day building workshops, we shared takeaways and planned the professional learning the building teams would conduct with their respective faculties.

At our first whole group session, we provided resources related to the 4Cs.  Here are a few of my favorites!

• Investigating the 4Cs
• Introductory Video
• Thinking Protocols  (If you don’t check out anything else, dive into these thinking routines!)

Additionally, we curated resources and shared them with our department chairs.  Department chairs embedded conversation and sharing related to the Profile of a Graduate in their regular department meetings.  We want these ideas to permeate our school culture.