Leadership magazine Jan/Feb 2016 V45 No 3 | Page 21

First, good ILTs include the principal and
a core group of other stakeholders committed to improving instruction and student
learning. Among those stakeholders should
be a teacher leader from each grade, grade
span or department. Teams also benefit
from having resource and specialist teachers
involved. Although high-performing staff
members who model the school’s culture
are ideal members, an ILT is most effective
when it includes people with a range of perspectives and backgrounds. Having diverse
viewpoints represented in the planning of
schoolwide strategies will foster smoother
implementation when programs roll out to
the whole staff.
Strong ILTs also agree upon their mission
and ways of working and document those
agreements. All members of an ILT need
to be clear about the team’s purpose, goals,
method and frequency of communication,
decision-making protocols, and means of
holding each other accountable.
To provide appropriate support and leadership for the school staff, an ILT needs pro-

tected time to meet regularly. Although the
principal may be a leading voice on the team,
all members of the ILT should play a role
in planning and facilitating ILT meetings.
However, the school’s key reform strategies
should be standing items on the agenda to
ensure that the ILT gives sustained attention to those strategies.
That attention needs to be focused like a
laser on instructional matters, such as trends
observed in classroom walk-throughs, the
design of professional development offerings, and patterns in academic performance
data. Ideally, schools already have strong
grade-level or departmental teams, which
means that ILTs concentrate on schoolwide
issues. If those grade-level or departmental teams do not exist, the ILT will want to
make it a priority to establish them.
Finally, members of an effective Instructional Leadership Team recognize that their
decisions have consequences for others in the
school and understand that they need to be
strong in implementing their decisions, but
also supportive of fellow staff members.

Fostering professional growth
As ILT members contribute their ideas,
perspectives and energy to improving their
school, they grow as professionals.
For example, an instructional coach who
spends most of his day providing individualized guidance to teachers or leading gradelevel professional development will, as part
of an ILT, need to do deeper analyses of
data and apply his expertise in new ways to
solve schoolwide issues. As the coach builds
his skills, he becomes more able to help the
school sharpen its focus and tighten alignment across grades.
Similarly, teachers grow professionally
because ILT activities require members to
think beyond a single classroom and work
from a systems perspective. This broader vision rounds out the planning and facilitation
skills that ILT members may have gained
from being a departmental chair or leader of
a grade-level team.
Taking part in an ILT also helps a teacher
become a leader who is invested in the success of the school without leaving the class-

January | February 2016

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