Teacher-Governed Grantee Offerings

Professional Learning Workshops

1. Workshop: Teacher-Powered Design Fundamentals
A full day training with food and drink included. It is vital that the whole teacher-team be involved in designing and running a teacher-powered school, therefore we encourage as much of your team as possible to attend the workshop together. Participants will:

• Learn the basics of what teacher-powered collaborative governance means, in a real, tangible sense. This includes eight common practices of teacher-powered schools, fifteen potential areas of autonomy, and a variety of distributed leadership strategies used by schools.
• Hear stories about teacher-powered schools serving students and communities with needs similar to your own, and begin to name and inventory those needs in your own communities.
• Outline primary elements of a learning program to meet those needs. We will use our Shared Purpose Discussion Starter to guide these conversations.

• Understand and make the connection between the learning program designed in the previous step, and teacher-powered decision making processes and leadership structures—i.e. how the latter enables implementation and sustenance of the former.
• Create a plan for continuing this design process as a group in the coming months.

Interested in this workshop? Please email us at info@educationevolving.org.

2. Workshop: Structures & Processes at a Teacher-Powered School
A full day training with food and drink included. Participants will learn about and begin to design:

• Strategies for governing your school as a team, including running efficient meetings, interfacing with the district central office, and more.
• Decision-making processes that ensure clear communication and expectations.
• Structures (such as committees, leadership teams, etc.) that enable the distribution of leadership and decision-making responsibilities without overwhelming team members.
• Time and space for teacher-powered governance, including hybrid leadership schedules and shared time.
• Strategies for enhancing student democracy and meaningfully involving families and community.

Interested in this workshop? Please email us at info@educationevolving.org.

3. Workshop: Hiring & Cultural Integration
A full day training with food and drink included. Participants in the session will:

• Learn how to identify candidates that contribute well to a distributed leadership model.
• Learn how to integrate newly hired personnel into your team’s existing culture while tapping into skills that new talent can add to the team.
• Identify support options for new team members and develop a process for integration into your teacher-powered governance structure.

Interested in this workshop? Please email us at info@educationevolving.org.

4. Workshop: Peer Coaching at a Teacher-Powered School
A half day training with food and drink included. Participants in the session will:

• Learn how to create a culture of professional growth that prioritizes collaboration, data analysis, and student achievement.
• Learn a variety of peer coaching processes that encourage healthy, constructive dialogue and improve learning across the team.
• Begin to design a peer coaching program for your team.

Interested in this workshop? Please email us at info@educationevolving.org.

Other Professional Learning Options

1. Teacher-Powered School Tour
The best way to understand teacher-powered is to visit a teacher-powered school. On a school tour, educators will be immersed in a teacher-powered school in another state that serves students of similar backgrounds and needs, and has shown success on multiple measures. Participants will be inspired to see in action the critical link between securing autonomy to collaboratively design and run schools, and the strong sense of community and relationships that emerge when students are put at the center of design and management decisions.

Each site visit will include time at the school when students are in session, an observation of a staff meeting, roundtable discussions with teachers and students, and a follow up meeting with EE leaders to debrief.

Fees: $5000, plus $1500-$2000 per participant for travel costs. This includes an EE leader coordinating the visit, stipends for the host teachers and students who will lead the tours and discussions, meeting space, and food. A minimum of 4 teachers must attend from the same site.

2. Mentorship With a Teacher-Powered Ambassador
Mentorship is an important part of any professional development plan. Working with other teacher-powered practitioners who have faced similar challenges and understand the unique opportunities teacher-powered brings to a school is an excellent way to build technical skills as well as a community of support with like minded educators.

EE’s teacher-powered ambassadors are teacher leaders at accomplished teacher-powered schools nationwide. We have a diverse group of ambassadors from multiple states, environments, grade levels, and student populations that are trained to work with other teams.

We will pair your school’s principal and leadership team with an ambassador from a school similar to yours, who will help you navigate the road to teacher-powered. This includes one phone call per week up to one hour, weekly email communication, and a one-hour video-conferencing meeting with your team each month. EE will also work with your team and ambassador to ensure your team is receiving relevant and timely coaching.

Fees: $1500 for a 3 month, $2500 for a 6 month mentorship with a trained teacher-powered ambassador.

3. Facilitated Discussions
There are many design and management decisions that must be made to convert to a teacher-powered governance structure. Teams must establish group norms and procedures to work effectively and efficiently as a team.

At the center of all these conversations must be an agreed upon shared purpose among all staff members. Group decision making has its challenges, and a key to making difficult decisions is a team commitment to putting students at the center of all design and management decisions.

EE will work with your team to identify and facilitate discussions around key topics that your particular school needs to address. Topics might include, creating a shared purpose, collaborative management structures and designs, selection and hiring of team members, cultural integration, defining school success, and more.

Fees: $400 per 2 hour facilitated discussion, which includes an hour call to prepare and a 30 minute follow up. 15% discount for additional facilitated conversations.

4. Micro-credentials
The Teacher-Powered Schools Initiative is a joint project of Education Evolving and the Center for Teaching Quality (CTQ). As part of their teacher-powered work, our partner CTQ has a stack of eight micro-credentials on collective leadership. These micro-credentials are designed to show each team member’s competence in specific leadership skill areas. Working through them together with team members is the best way to get full value at a teacher-powered school.

More information about teacher-powered micro-credentials can be found on this page on the CTQ website. The specific stack of micro-credentials are listed below:

• Building Your Team
• Ensuring Alignment to the Shared Purpose
• Understanding Your Leadership Strengths
• Creating a Plan for Redesigned Learning
• Engaging Stakeholders
• Cultivating a Shared Purpose
• Managing Change
• Assessing How Time is Currently Used

Interested?

For more information about any of these offerings, please contact Alex Vitrella at alex@educationevolving.org