Strategy 7: Meaningfully Engage Stakeholders as Partners in the Work
State education agencies can involve a variety of stakeholders, including educators, preparation programs, districts, and families of students with disabilities, in the development of their vision and goals for inclusive principal leadership.
Georgia Advancing Inclusive Principal Leadership (AIPL) Objectives
Objective 1: Create guidance and/or toolkits for local education agencies on how to pursue, develop and retain inclusive leaders.
Objective 2: Revisit, realign, and revise the state-mandated evaluation system for leaders – the Leader Keys Evaluation System (LKES) – to ensure inclusion of behaviors and practices that specifically address meeting the needs of ALL learners by race, ethnicity, ability, economic status, and English language learner status.
Objective 3: Develop professional learning opportunities – face-to-face and virtual – to address the behaviors and practices critical to meeting the needs of ALL learners by race, ethnicity, economic status, ability, and English language learner status.
Making the Case for Inclusive Leadership: How Georgia is Building Coalitions and Creating a Shared Vision for Equitable Opportunity
As part of CCSSO’s Advancing Inclusive Principal Leadership (AIPL) State Initiative, the Georgia Department of Education has taken meaningful steps to promote inclusive principal leadership in the state. In less than two years, the state has formed partnerships with key stakeholders, developed a communications and engagement strategy, and created a set of resources for principals and superintendents. In doing so, Georgia has laid important groundwork for its ongoing efforts to strengthen principals’ capacity to lead inclusive schools in which all students, including those with disabilities, have an equitable opportunity to succeed.
It was necessary to make critical connections between inclusive leadership and its positive impact on the teacher pipeline, as well as student outcomes.
– Zelphine Smith-Dixon, State Director for the Division of Special Education Services and Supports / AIPL Team Lead
The Peach State is not new to the work of inclusive leadership and instruction. Among other initiatives, Georgia has worked since 2014 with the University of Florida’s CEEDAR Center to integrate inclusive practice into teacher preparation programs.
But while efforts to prepare and support inclusive school leaders may not be new for Georgia, the AIPL initiative brought focus and much-needed resources to the state’s work, according to Wina Low, the senior program manager in Georgia’s Division for Special Education Services and Supports.
The Georgia AIPL state team formed in fall 2018, consisting of representatives from the Georgia Department of Education, school districts, and principal preparation programs. Among the first steps the team took was to assess programs already in place and identify where inclusive leadership might be prioritized.
In spring 2019, with a review of the current policy landscape complete, the team convened with other AIPL states to draft plans of action. After careful consideration, Georgia established three main objectives for its AIPL work. [See Sidebar: Georgia Advancing Inclusive Principal Leadership (AIPL) Objectives].
Of the three objectives, the state is prioritizing Objectives 1 and 3—the toolkits and professional learning opportunities—to “quickly leverage statewide awareness and capacity,” says Zelphine Smith-Dixon, the state director for the Division of Special Education Services and Supports and AIPL team lead. By taking this approach, Smith-Dixon says, Georgia can focus on building awareness and buy-in to support school leaders before considering how to formally evaluate the inclusion of behaviors and practices in the leader evaluation system.
With its objectives established, the AIPL state team turned to building partnerships with a broad coalition of stakeholders. To meaningfully advance inclusive leadership in the state, the team sought buy-in from stakeholders along the entire principal pipeline – from colleges of education to school districts and individual school leaders. Not only would these stakeholders be critical thought partners for the state team, they would also serve as trusted messengers for communicating a shared vision for inclusive leadership.
As Meg Kamman, director of the CEEDAR Center said, “Georgia hopes to communicate statewide a common message about inclusive leaders and assist in ensuring both leader candidates and current leaders in the field are engaging in practices and supporting teachers to create inclusive environments.”
It was also important to build a broad coalition, Low said, to ensure that the AIPL work was not seen merely as a “special education initiative, but a comprehensive initiative.”
As of spring 2020, the state team has enlisted a number of partners in its work, including the Georgia Professional Standards Commission, Atlanta Public Schools, and the University System of Georgia. The state also established a stakeholder advisory group to solicit feedback on the toolkits and professional learning opportunities from local superintendents and principals across the state.
A “seminal point” for the Georgia team, according to Low, came on the heels of the Georgia Teacher Pipeline Summit, in which district leaders developed strategies to improve how the state attracts, prepares, and retains teachers.
The AIPL team recognized the state’s collective urgency around the issue of teacher effectiveness and seized the opportunity to link this issue to inclusive principal leadership. “It was necessary to make critical connections between inclusive leadership and its positive impact on the teacher pipeline, as well as student outcomes,” said Smith-Dixon. After receiving feedback from a diverse group of stakeholders, including principals and district leaders, “it was quickly determined that Georgia needed common language for common understanding.”
To that end, the team developed a communications and engagement plan and a shared message for what inclusive leadership is and why it matters. “If we’re going to bring people on board, we have to do the communications pieces right first,” said Low.
The team agreed to a common definition of inclusive principal leadership and developed a set of resources for districts and schools. The resources include a fact sheet, video primer, and self-assessment tool.
While the work to meet these objectives is still in its early stages, the Georgia AIPL team has laid a solid foundation. Among its first accomplishments was the state’s development of consistent messaging around inclusive leadership, a set of resources for districts and schools, and a communications strategy that explicitly connects the work to other priorities like teacher effectiveness and student achievement. Additionally, the stakeholder engagement process has helped Georgia align efforts to advance inclusive principal leadership across the state.
With the partnerships and a shared vision in place, the Georgia AIPL team is eager to continue its work toward the three objectives so that every student in Georgia can learn in an inclusive school.