Lead to Extend Your Impact
To achieve our ambitious goals, we believe leadership must be unlocked at every level – classroom, school and district.
APS has invested significant resources to identify aspiring teacher leaders, Assistant Principals and Principals to ensure they have the coaching, mentorship and structured learning experiences required to expand their impact.
Definition of Leadership Excellence
APS’ Definition of Leadership Excellence framework combines insights from APS’ best leaders and national best practice to cast an ambitious vision for excellent student-centered leadership. APS’ leadership hiring processes, Aspiring Leaders programming and school-based development systems are grounded in this framework.
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Aspiring Leaders Program
“Leadership is second only to classroom instruction among all school-related factors that contribute to what students learn at school.” – Louis et al., 2014
In 2016, APS launched two innovative models for developing future leaders via its Aspiring Assistant Principal and Aspiring Principal programs. Based on national best practices – the Aspiring Leader program features:
- A rigorous and competitive selection process focused on selecting aspiring leaders with a track-record of achieving significant outcomes for students, strong principal recommendations and ability to pass a challenging interview process
- On-the-job, relevant experience doing the core work of the job they are preparing for. Each Aspiring leader completes a school improvement project and series of essential experiences to give them real “at bats” for the job they are preparing for
- Real-time, job-embedded coaching from experts inside and outside their schools. Aspiring leaders meet with their coaches frequently to debrief video footage of their practice, receive support on their school improvement projects and participate in coaching protocols to sharpen their skills
- Engaging and interactive workshops on national best practices in their areas of academics, socio-emotional learning, culture and school operations, aligned to APS’ Definition of Leadership Excellence
- Structured learning communities where aspiring leaders have time to problem solve and collaborate
School Leadership Team Capacity Building Meetings
APS believes teams beat individuals, a belief that has resulted in providing regular opportunities for school leadership teams to collaboratively develop their leadership and instructional skills. In school year 2018-19, school leadership team development included:
Definition of Leadership Excellence
APS’ Definition of Leadership Excellence framework combines insights from APS’ best leaders and national best practice to cast an ambitious vision for excellent student-centered leadership. APS’ leadership hiring processes, Aspiring Leaders programming and school-based development systems are grounded in this framework.
- Designing APS’ Academic System Framework
- Participating in simulations of high-impact PLCs
- Sharpening skills in the areas of leading teachers in unit planning, lesson planning, data analyses and coaching
External Partnerships
APS is proud to partner and benefit from the expertise of a wide-range of partners to inform and strengthen principal development, including:
Principals in the South Atlanta Cluster participate in a series of convenings and on-the-ground coaching experiences to strengthen their instructional leadership skills.
Teacher-Leadership Roles
The teacher Leader Career Pathway [framework] empowers school leaders to recognize and reward exemplary teaching, and develop teachers as leaders, and distribute leadership responsibilities.
Teachers to drive their own development by setting career goals and actualizing a path to get there.
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Internal Partnerships
A variety of teacher-leader roles are used by schools and the district level. Examples of these roles can be found on Dr. Qualyn’s site.
Education Resource Services (ERS) provides principals with a range of tools and development on strategically allocating their resources – from budget and staff to school time.
NorthStar Education Partners supports APS’ HR department, principals and school leadership teams to implement a comprehensive talent management strategy. Principals receive training on teacher and leader recruitment, hiring, development and strategic retention.