Improvement Leadership Education and Development (iLEAD) Research-Practice Preparation Partnership: The University of Virginia and Chesterfield County Public Schools

• In Event: 64.025 - Problem-Focused and Place-Based Leadership Development: The Improvement Leadership Education and Development (iLEAD) Research-Practice Preparation Partnership

Abstract

A Research-Practice-Preparation (RP3) initiative at UVA’s Curry School of Education brings together the Motivate Lab, the Administration and Supervision Program Area, and the Center for Race and Public Education in the South to tackle the multidimensional challenges of addressing programmatic equity in collaboration with school divisions in Virginia. Our inaugural initiative is with the Chesterfield County Public Schools.

● Chesterfield County Public Schools (CCPS): award-winning school division committed to a sustained focus on equity and the development of emerging leaders prepared to undertake challenging change;
● Administration & Supervision (A&S) Program: nationally-ranked leadership preparation program, integrating clinically-enacted, course-embedded powerful learning experiences;
● Motivate Lab: leading center of educational research dedicated to rigorous motivation research that connects with practice in order to cultivate the mindsets that promote learning, growth, and well-being;
● Center for Race and Public Education in the South: newly-established center explores pertinent issues in the education of African-Americans and the educational experiences of immigrants and refugee populations.

Intended Outcomes

The initiative focuses on ensuring that each student is prepared for and has access to high-quality, rigorous coursework. The initiative aims to nurture programmatic equity through: 1) UVA’s initial principal preparation program and the collaborative redesign of approaches to learning and teaching that promote transformational learning; 2) the promotion of practices supportive of leader, teacher, and student learning mindsets through work with school leaders and teachers in Chesterfield; 3) CCPS in promoting the integration of both research and preparation as key components of system-wide efforts to address equity issues; 4) the Center for Race and Public Education in the South as a means of raising awareness and disseminating learning from the initiative to a broader audience across Virginia and the South.

Current Accomplishments and Challenges

UVA is in the second year of piloting a redesigned M.Ed. program with a cohort of aspiring leaders from CCPS. The program uses students’ work settings as a living laboratory through online activities, face-to-face sessions, and structured field-based experiences. Improvement science serves as an important means of integrating learning across these diverse learning environments.
Aspiring leaders in the pilot cohort are carrying out continuous improvement initiatives in their schools. Many of these will focus on programmatic equity, which has become a cornerstone of a district-wide focus on equity that includes integrating programmatic equity in every school’s annual planning process.

Together, CCPS and UVA are refining approaches to continuous improvement that involve a pilot initiative with four schools (2 high, 1 middle, and 1 elementary). Working with these schools and the feeder-pattern schools to which they are connected, the partnership is developing a cascade model of continuous improvement that will involve aspiring leaders in the M.Ed. program. The key challenges lie in the alignment of organizational processes across research initiatives, leadership preparation, and district practice.

Significance

This initiative aims to provide evidence proof of the viability of coupling a focus on leadership preparation with a research-practice partnership around continuous improvement for programmatic equity.

Author

• David H. Eddy-Spicer, University of Virginia