Strategy 2: Cultivate Coherence and Collaboration
To advance inclusive principal leadership, state education agencies can organize themselves more collaboratively to ensure consistent messaging and promote coherence across programs and policies.
Ohio Advancing Inclusive Principal Leadership (AIPL) Objectives
Objective 1: Build a scope and sequence around inclusive principal leadership practices using a common set of resources and tools aligned to Ohio’s Strategic Plan, existing principal standards and the continuous improvement process.
Objective 2: Coordinate across the Ohio Department of Education’s Centers (under the umbrella of school improvement efforts) for the deployment and implementation of targeted supports, based on identified common needs.
Collaborating for Inclusive Leadership: Ohio is Breaking Down Silos and Building Up Resources to Support Inclusive School Leadership
As part of CCSSO’s Advancing Inclusive Principal Leadership (AIPL) State Initiative, Ohio is making meaningful progress in its work to ensure school leaders have the support and resources they need to effectively serve students with disabilities. The state has established clear goals that align with existing statewide priorities, developed partnerships with key stakeholders, and begun scaling up coaching and professional development opportunities for principals. These efforts are just the beginning, and the Buckeye State has generated clear momentum toward prioritizing and advancing inclusive principal leadership.
As a state, we had a lot of these structures separately, but [AIPL] brought them together in a way that is more systemic.
– Jo Hannah Ward, Director of the Office of Exceptional Children at the Ohio Department of Education / AIPL Team Lead
A central focus of Ohio’s early work has been establishing clear objectives that are aligned with the state’s broader education priorities.
About the same time the Ohio AIPL team formed in late 2018, the state released a five-year strategic plan for education outlining core principles and priorities. The AIPL team, which includes state, university, district, school, and union leaders, recognized the timing of the plan as both an opportunity and a challenge. On one hand, there was a risk that inclusive leadership could be left out of the state’s goals. On the other, the team saw a real opportunity to meaningfully align its work with the state’s plan, according to Jo Hannah Ward, the director of the Office of Exceptional Children at the Ohio Department of Education and the state’s AIPL team lead. Aligning the AIPL work with state priorities would not only strengthen collaboration across the agency but also ensure that Ohio communicates a clear and consistent message about the importance of inclusive leadership.
To that end, Ohio’s team focused on Strategy 2 of the Supporting Inclusive Schools guide [See Sidebar: Strategy 2: Cultivate Coherence and Collaboration]. Ward says the team has made a point to break down silos at the state level and foster collaboration at the local level. For example, Ohio has integrated the AIPL’s inclusive principal leadership work across five offices within the state education department. The state is also working to ensure that principal standards, professional development, and evaluation and feedback all align with inclusive leadership practices.
At the local level, Ohio has fostered collaboration by including a wide range of perspectives in the AIPL planning and feedback process. Recognizing the important role of teachers’ unions in the state, the AIPL team includes a representative from the Ohio Federation of Teachers. “The Ohio team is very open to ideas from all stakeholders,” said Deb Tully, the director of professional issues at the Ohio Federation of Teachers. “As a result, we can look at ideas from all angles and fully determine the impact on each of the stakeholder groups, which makes our ideas stronger and more likely to succeed once put into practice.”
That collaborative spirit has also helped Ohio’s AIPL team build upon efforts already underway to promote inclusive leadership in the state. Previous work with the University of Florida’s CEEDAR Center, for example, has been integrated into the AIPL’s coordinated efforts. And the state team is working with the Ohio Deans Compact—a coalition of district and university leaders fostering inclusive models of educator preparation. With the University of Cincinnati’s College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services, the Compact is developing a model inclusive leadership preparation program that the AIPL team plans to learn from and support.
Each participating state in the AIPL State Initiative engages in annual meetings with CCSSO staff to take stock of their team’s work in three major domains: quality of planning, capacity, and evidence of progress. An important component of Ohio’s initial AIPL work has been reflecting on progress toward these areas and refining the state’s AIPL plan as necessary.
Ward reports that the reflection process helped Ohio’s team stay focused on its objectives. Based on takeaways following the summer 2019 meeting, the team decided to hone the focus of its plan on two specific objectives related to principals’ professional development and the coordination of targeted supports for districts [See Sidebar: Ohio Advancing Inclusive Principal Leadership (AIPL) Objectives].
The Ohio Department of Education also employed the reflection process, adapting it to manage work within the agency. According to Ward, “we have used the [AIPL reflection and refinement] process in how we manage our state support team… duplicating the process because it helps make us better.”
With its objectives established and aligned with other state priorities, the Ohio AIPL team is focused on providing as many school leaders as possible with the resources and tools they need to effectively support students with disabilities.
To that end, the state plans to expand the Ohio Leadership for Inclusion, Implementation, & Instructional Improvement (OLi4) program—a two-year, evidence-based professional development and coaching program that helps school principals implement inclusive instructional and leadership practices. Ohio intends to make the program available to principals in targeted urban districts this fall. Ward says they anticipate training a cohort of 20 principals this year, with plans to add progressively larger cohorts each year until 2024. With the 2020 outbreak of COVID-19, there is heighted urgency to reach as many principals as possible to better support the state’s students with disabilities who face unique challenges in transitioning to remote learning.
While Ohio’s efforts are just beginning, the state’s early work has helped establish inclusive leadership as a statewide priority. With defined objectives, a broad coalition of partners, and a clear plan to reach and support principals, Ohio is well on its way to ensuring that all students, including those with disabilities, have the opportunity to receive high-quality education in inclusive schools.