Developing strong leadership skills is essential for school leaders to effectively guide their schools toward academic success. The professional learning series ANet designed with the Philadelphia Academy of School Leaders (PASL) equips leaders in the Philadelphia area with tools to become more impactful instructional leaders. In fact, after the first year of partnership, 100% of school leaders in the program met their outcomes.
Participants engage in a holistic approach to leadership development, focusing on building skills that enhance their leadership capacity and ability to support staff. Through job-embedded coaching, peer collaboration, and practical strategies for managing change and driving improvement, the program ensures that school leaders are prepared to foster positive instructional shifts within their schools.
"Philadelphia is a large city. Any opportunity we can take to help leaders come together and give them the autonomy to be creative and curious in tandem with the experiences they're facing in schools is going to be valuable," remarked PASL Program Manager Hannah Tran.
Developing Leadership Skills
The partnership centers around how to develop school leaders’ leadership skills. Hannah Tran, Program Manager at PASL, shared that she felt developing leaders holistically was essential to the longevity of leaders in the Philadelphia area. She said, “School leaders rely on high-quality programming experiences. Over time, they keep serving in different leadership roles, and so the skills they learn here help them serve longer in various leadership roles.”
The professional learning series helps leaders assess their skills, sharpen their ability to develop and support their staff, and become coaches in their own building to impact instruction. Some of the topics the program covers include:
- How to track data for continuous improvement
- Giving targeted feedback
- Change management
Much time in the program is spent preparing for teacher planning meetings or professional learning communities (PLCs). This is a time for teachers to brainstorm, look at student work, track student progress, and collaborate. Active PLCs can foster a positive school culture and a sense of belonging for educators. With the benefits of PLCs impacting student learning and teacher satisfaction, school leaders can considerably influence that time's overall direction and technical structures. The PASL participants gain resources and tools to shape the instructional elements of their schools' PLC and become more of a thought partner to their educators.
Principal Nicole Freeman leads the William H. Ziegler School, a K-8 school in the School District of Philadelphia, and participated in the 23-24 Instructional Leadership Academy (ILA). When recounting her time in the ILA program, she shared, “Whatever I learned in ILA became the thing that we did on Friday with my instructional team, because it was so powerful, and it was always connected to our planning. It was the through line for everything we do, and it made it really clear and connected to our why.”
Collaborative Peer-to-Peer Learning
The program is set up to create a learning cohort throughout the school year with other leaders from across Philadelphia. For the first year of partnership, ANet partnered with PASL to facilitate professional learning for their Instructional Leadership Academy (ILA), which had 24 educational leaders, and the Breakthrough Results Cohort (BRC), part of their Neubauer Fellowship in Educational Leadership, which had 30 leaders.
Members of each cohort build relationships and form connections with others who may be working on similar goals or to learn from someone with previous experience in their particular situation. This level of collaboration is a vital piece built into ANet’s professional learning series. Time spent discussing and planning with others helps the information stick and fosters a sense of community.
“The community that we built within the ILA cohort brought different resources and thought partners. Each month, you were guaranteed an opportunity to say, ‘Hey, can I pick your brain for this?’” said Principal Freeman.
For many of the leaders in the program, this time was one of the most positive aspects of the program. When asked in a survey at the end of a program if the cohort allowed the participant to establish and deepen meaningful relationships with other school leaders, 95% of participants in the ILA and 96% of the BRC agreed or strongly agreed. Those relationships continue even after the program concludes, with cohort members still communicating in their group text message and meeting up on occasion.
“The cohort itself was special. A lot of us have kind of met up in other spaces. The space was always safe for us from the very beginning to be able to be honest and have those crucial conversations. I think ILA provided that,” said Freeman.
Ongoing, Job-Embedded Support
The ongoing, job-embedded coaching is a crucial differentiator in this program. When speaking to the PASL Program Director, Matt Kelley, he shared that the coaching component helped make the program personalized and practical. “I think the participants appreciate the high practicality of the PD we provided. We designed something practical with designated touchpoints that informed the next sessions. Participants knew the facilitators and knew they were aware of what was happening in their buildings.”
Throughout the programs, participants are assigned a coach to meet with at least once a month between sessions virtually and in person. Their ANet coach visits their schools, observes their practices, and offers feedback to help them grow as leaders. ANet categorizes these as interactions in our internal progress monitoring structure. Each participant sets goals and desired outcomes with their coach, and the ANet coach tracks these throughout the year. By the end of the 23-24 school year, coaches and participants completed 503 interactions across the 54 leaders in both programs.
“I think I got spoiled. I got the best coach!” shared Principal Nicole Freeman when discussing her relationship with her coach, Dr. Srelyne Harris. “I would send her videos [of meetings], and she would give me feedback on it. And I think that's the missing piece for leaders. We don't get feedback consistently enough on our work. And to have somebody who was outside from my usual perspective, she was just helping me improve my practice so I could help teachers improve their practice for students. It was always student-centered.”
Focusing on the skills mentioned earlier, these leaders learn how to uncover actionable insights and apply them immediately into their buildings. The coaches help the leaders set SMART goals for the year and track short and long-term goals that build on each other. This allowed the leaders to remain goal-oriented and work on small shifts that would considerably impact instruction with feedback along the way.
“Eternally grateful for the team that is Anita [Walls] plus Srelyne [Harris]. We know what they were able to give and provide is really instrumental and truly collaborative,” said Hannah Tran.
By the end of the year, ANet coaches spent 678 hours coaching PASL participants.
Data-Informed Shifts in Their Practices
One of the components embedded into the program is providing participants with the knowledge and expertise to make informed shifts to their practices. The facilitators and coaches bring research-based information throughout the sessions, analyze their school-specific data alongside their partners, and reinforce those components in the next session so everything builds on each other. This was the goal when the ANet coaches designed the learning paths alongside Matt Kelley and Hannah Tran.
“It aligned with their priorities as leaders and let them come for an hour or two and leave with something new, different, and affirming to their work,” said Matt Kelley.
The end of the 23-24 school year saw qualitative successes from the program. PASL schools ended the year strong, with 100% of partners meeting their end-of-year outcomes, including:
- 100% of leaders moved up at least 1 level on the PASL Leader Rubric
- 100% of leaders moved up at least 1 level on the PASL School Diagnostic
- Growth across the year occurred most for leaders who focused on developing internal staff to support instruction.
Additionally, participants in both the ILA and BRC were able to synthesize their time and come up with specific practices they were going to change. When asked, “What are you going to do differently as a result of this program,” here were some of the responses from participants.
- “I have more faith in my ability to provide meaningful feedback to teachers about how they can improve their practice.” -ILA participant.
- “Developing my leadership team members as leaders. Implementing better systems for coaching and data collections with follow through.” -BRC participant.
Conclusion
The professional learning partnership with PASL is a powerful catalyst for leadership growth in Philadelphia schools. Leaders stay engaged throughout the entire process and work diligently with actionable and applicable resources they’re able to apply to their daily practices. An example of the high engagement of the PASL programs can be seen through several members of their ILA program applying to the Neubauer Fellowship in Educational Leadership, including Principal Nicole Freeman.
By offering a blend of high-quality coaching, collaborative peer learning, and practical, job-embedded coaching, participants can sharpen their leadership skills and make meaningful, data-informed changes in their schools. The personalized, ongoing nature of coaching helps leaders apply what they learn in real-time, making immediate and impactful changes in their schools and cultivating a more robust, more effective learning environment for teachers and students.
“I think the program is great for leaders who want to improve their work. I think it's important to seek outside support or professional learning and build a network of people who enjoy improving and enhancing their skills,” said Principal Freeman.
About the Philadelphia Academy of School Leaders
The Philadelphia Academy of School Leaders (PASL) is a mission-driven organization dedicated to developing school leaders to develop students. PASL operates on the research-based principle that educational leaders, particularly principals, are critical in the creation of excellent learning experiences. Their impact can be felt in students across Philadelphia. Neubauer Fellows (current and Senior) served more than 92,000 Philadelphia students in 2022-2023 (directly and indirectly), and have seen growth in attendance, academic success, and graduation rates in their buildings.
About The Achievement Network (ANet)
The Achievement Network (ANet) is a nonprofit dedicated to providing all students, regardless of circumstance, with a high-quality education. Through leadership coaching, instructional data tools, and curriculum implementation support, ANet partnerships help districts and schools create an instructional culture in which all students can reach and exceed grade-level expectations.
Explore how a coach can help you at www.achievementnetwork.org/coaching.
This blog is part of our 2024 Coaching Week. Read more of the Coaching Week content: