Balanced Leadership for Student Learning
School leadership that makes a real difference for students and staff
Effective principals aren’t just good operational managers, they’re also effective instructional leaders who can rally their school community around a united vision of success, a shared understanding of what needs to be done, and the belief that together they can help all students succeed.
Our Balanced Leadership for Student Learning professional learning and coaching services show current and aspiring school leaders the evidence-based keys to positively influencing student achievement and staff success. We give leaders specific knowledge, approaches, tools, and action steps—and the understanding of when, why, and how to apply them—to support quick wins and long-term gains in school improvement and innovation.
Contact us today to learn how we can support your school leadership team.
Professional learning for transformative school leadership
Professional learning, coaching, and resources for principals, assistant principals, leadership teams, and principal supervisors/administrators:
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Focus your leadership efforts on the right work that will have the biggest impact on student success.
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Inspire your teachers, support staff, students, parents, and community with a shared vision and purpose for your school.
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Develop your school’s positive, engaging learning culture and collective efficacy.
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Engage and empower your leadership team to define and drive success together.
Learn more about Balanced Leadership for Student Learning.
Contact us today to start a conversation with our team about your school or district goals,
and how our leadership development services can support your journey.
What superintendents and principals are saying . . .
“I highly recommend Balanced Leadership to any district.”
“Our achievement scores show that McREL’s research-based practices lead to improvement.”
“Balanced Leadership has become our culture. If I were to hire a new principal, I would send them to the training before they ever worked a day.”
“A tremendous learning opportunity for principals and district leaders.”
“I learned how to have a purposeful community at school and it made my life easier,
as everyone agreed on what we needed to do and accomplish.”
Balanced Leadership delivery formats and session overviews
We recommend spacing out the four one-day Balanced Leadership sessions over a semester or a school year to allow for effective learning, application, and reflection cycles. We know that every school is different, so we contextualize our sessions to meet your specific needs and goals, and we’ll create a scope of work that matches your schedule and budget. In addition to on-site sessions, our team can also deliver online learning and coaching to sustain your team’s momentum and continued growth.
Day 1: Leadership for better school performance
In this initial session, you’ll gain in-depth understanding of the vital functions of effective school leadership, including 21 specific research-based responsibilities that drive higher levels of student learning. You’ll also learn the importance of—and a process for—helping everyone at your school define and embrace a shared moral purpose for their work as individuals and a team, including equitable outcomes for all students. You’ll leave with knowledge and skills to lead better decision-making processes using goal-oriented analysis and collaboration focused on your students’ needs.
Day 2: Focusing on what matters most for student learning
During this session, you’ll explore our What Matters Most® pathways and insights from research on effective schools and continuous improvement cycles. Using your own identified high-leverage area(s) of need and school data, we’ll help you identify what matters most right now for your school to improve student outcomes and begin to develop real action steps aligned to your school’s specific contexts. You’ll also learn about a powerful new brain-based model for student learning that can drive your teachers’ professional learning and lesson planning to better engage students and deepen their learning.
Day 3: Inspiring and leading change
Any change worth making at your school will require your staff to alter behaviors, routines, and habits. Even the best school improvement plans can go awry if leaders don’t inspire people to change, support their understanding and adoption of new practices, and sustain the initiative long-term. In this session, you’ll learn the vital differences between 1st and 2nd order implications of change, and you’ll practice using specific leadership responsibilities related to successful change implementation. You’ll leave this session with a better understanding of the phases of change and how to develop action plans for monitoring implementation and proactively supporting stakeholders through the change process.
Day 4: Cultivating a purposeful school community
When school communities coalesce around a shared vision, mission, and values, great things happen for student learning. Researchers have found strong links between student outcomes and the levels of collegiality, professionalism, self-efficacy, and collective efficacy that exist among teachers, support staff, and school leaders.
In this session, you’ll discover how to engage staff, families, and community together to create a shared moral purpose and empower their voices in important decision-making processes. You’ll develop plans for creating a positive, continuous-improvement culture at your school, using the power of asset-based thinking and community engagement.
Balanced Leadership related resources
Learn key concepts and strategies for initiating, managing, and sustaining important changes in your school or system to drive continuous improvement and innovation.
Course length: 3 hours of online PL content and offline reflection/practice activities.
More Info & Registration
Learn how to create and strengthen collective efficacy at your school—a shared belief among teachers and staff that together they have the skills and capacity to make a positive impact on student learning and success.
Course length: 3 hours of online PL content and offline reflection/practice activities.
More Info & Registration
Get insights and strategies for reflecting on, assessing, and strengthening your ability to manage, monitor, and support the implementation of improvement efforts at your school.
Course length: 3 hours of online PL content and offline reflection/practice activities.