Leadership magazine Jan/Feb 2016 V45 No 3 | Page 20
Building Strong School
Leadership Teams to
Sustain Reform
Effective Instructional
Leadership Teams can
be integral to helping
underperforming
schools strengthen
their leadership,
professional learning
systems and core
instruction.
20
Leadership
Administrators in low performing
schools face many challenges, but they do
not have to tackle them alone. By bringing
a small group of teachers and instructional
coaches together to form an Instructional
Leadership Team (ILT), a principal can tap
into the collective wisdom and energy of the
staff to help move a school forward.
An ILT works on behalf of the whole
school to develop a vision, set goals, design
strategies and monitor progress. Specific
projects might include creating an intervention system for students falling below grade
level, setting up peer coaching opportunities among teachers or analyzing student
achievement data to evaluate programs.
Establishing such systems as a team generally leads to more robust implementation by
the staff because teachers have been given
a voice in designing those efforts, and ILT
members have planned the implementation
from a variety of perspectives. Designing solutions collaboratively also tends to sustain re-
form. Broadly shared goals and strategies tend
to outlast those held by a single school leader.
Having an Instructional Leadership
Team also benefits the principal because it
gives her greater insight into teachers’ successes and challenges. It also helps staff
members get to know the principal and her
responsibilities better, which tends to foster
trust and create allies for her as she leads
school improvement efforts.
Ensuring ILTs are effective
In our work at Partners in School Innovation, we help underperforming schools
strengthen their leadership, professional
learning systems and core instruction. We
believe that effective ILTs are integral to
helping schools improve in all three of those
areas, and we have learned that strong ILTs
are marked by several characteristics.
By Brian Edwards and
Jessica Gammell