Just what does it take to recruit and retain highly accomplished leaders at the site and district levels? ACSA is hoping to answer that very question through partnerships with other educational agencies as well as practicing educational leaders.

A recent invitational at ACSA’s Burlingame office brought together representatives from ACSA, WestEd, the New Teacher Center at the University of California at Santa Cruz, UC Davis School of Education and SRI International to listen to highly accomplished principals and superintendents from Petaluma, San Bernardino, Elk Grove, San Mateo-Foster City, Lafayette and San Leandro.

The idea was to gather input from these highly accomplished principals about what motivates them and what support they need to do their jobs to the best of their abilities. With the Elementary and Secondary Education Act/No Child Left Behind and high stakes accountability, now is the time to search for innovative answers to common concerns.

“When we think of the challenges of getting 100 percent proficiency, we’re not going to do it if we’re doing things the way we’ve always done them,” said ACSA Assistant Executive Director of Educational Services George Manthey.

Karen Kearney, director of WestEd’s Leadership Initiative, explained that the day was meant to elicit actions from the conversation. Much like a focus group, the participants were asked to give their perspectives, which will be used further down the road to help establish best practices in leadership.

“It really means surfacing the issues of what it means to be highly accomplished,” Kearney said. For some, quality leadership is simple.

“When I think of highly accomplished, I think of the person who does what it takes in any way, shape or form to make students successful,” said Jim Negri, superintendent of the Acalanes UHSD.

Joining the meeting were two important guests: Carroll Stevens, senior fellow at the Stupski Foundation and Tom Houlihan, former executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers and current executive director of the Education Leadership Institute.

Houlihan shared his take on public school reform in his presentation, “A National/International Perspective (What I’ve Learned).” One of these lessons is something ACSA has been saying for a long time: Leadership Matters!

“No matter what we’re doing in reading, writing and math, at the end of the day the whole issue of leadership is not going away,” he said.

Houlihan said there are many characteristics that make quality educational leaders, but one of the most crucial is the ability – and willingness – to guide reform.

“The single greatest obstacle we face is leadership and the ability to lead change,” Houlihan said. “This is as fundamental as it gets. There are very few of us that embrace change. We give it lip service but we don’t do what it takes.

“We are often too afraid to try new ways of doing things. But we must come to grips with this because doing what we’ve always been doing won’t work.”

Therefore, highly accomplished leaders understand and follow two main objectives: helping the organization set a defensible set of directions, and influencing staff to move in those directions.

“My definition of an accomplished leader is someone who takes people to places they either can’t or won’t get to on their own,” Houlihan said.

For real reform, the entire system must be changed, and highly accomplished leaders must be able to think systemically.

“Every system produces what it’s designed to produce,” Houlihan said. “If you want to change performance, you have to change the system.”

Invitees were asked to share in several roundtable discussions on key issues surrounding highly accomplished leaders: recruitment and retention, incentives and rewards and professional development, along with policy implications for each.

While state and local authorities are stressing incentive to recruit and retain the most qualified candidates, some educational leaders said it means nothing if principals don’t feel professionally supported along the way.

“I believe in grooming to lead rather than incentive to lead,” said Greta Viguie, superintendent of the Petaluma City Schools.

Negri agreed that grooming highly accomplished teachers to becoming highly accomplished principals is essential. He said a personal invitation to join the administrative ranks can be quite powerful.

“Most people had someone who came to us and talked to us,” he said.

While compensation is certainly important, other incentives or rewards, such as sabbaticals and paid time off for professional learning, are also important, not to mention simply recognizing successes on the job. “It may not be money, but it says we respect you as an educator,” Negri said.

Jim Dilday, principal of Curtis Middle School in the San Bernardino USD and member of ACSA’s Middle Grades Education Council, said communicating creative solutions to common educational issues would benefit everyone.

“I think we need a forum to share exemplary practices,” he said.

Regarding professional development, there was an overwhelming desire to promote leadership coaching and mentoring from the state level down.

“We need some way to allow professional organizations like ACSA to establish coaching models,” Dilday said.

ACSA has already established such a program, its Leadership Coaching program, and many participants expressed the need for the state to fund such programs. They discussed the status of Senate Bill 961, Scott, D-Altadena, which would provide leadership coaching for school leaders, as well as the proposed state budget, which allocates money for administrator training, including a leadership coaching component.