In Learning Forward’s Leadership Team Institute, celebrating early team wins is not just a feel-good exercise, it’s a catalyst for continued success and team cohesion. In fact, two foundational elements for developing effective leadership teams are setting a collective vision and establishing an early win to demonstrate the feasibility of achieving the vision, wrote education leadership and systems change expert Jody Spiro in a recent article for The Learning Professional.

Pasco County Public Schools, Florida, is a two-year participant in Leadership Team Institute. Pasco recently shared their early wins with all teams participating in Leadership Team Institute 2024-25. We spotlight the Pasco team here to congratulate them on their continued student growth and success, and to demonstrate the impact from a leadership team’s focus on increased collaborative structures that improve educator practice and student learning.

Fast facts

Who they are: Pasco County Public Schools has been a member of the Leadership Team Institute since 2023. Their LTI team includes a district leader, principal, assistant principal, and teacher leader.

Problem of practice

Every participating leadership team self-selects a problem of practice. Pasco identified and designed a problem of practice about increasing student engagement through collaborative structures to enhance student outcomes (academic, behavior, and attendance).

Early wins

Leadership teams are coached by a cadre of Learning Forward coaches to ensure they have early wins to promote the success of their work. Pasco was able to leverage remarkable student and practitioner growth to build momentum for a successful year two. Specifically:

  • Pasco’s achievement data showed across-the-board increases in 6th-8th grade student ELA and science scores and increased math scores for 6th and 8th graders from the Florida Standards Assessment from 2023 to 2024. The biggest gain was for district sixth-grade students whose ELA scores improved by 14% in 2024 vs. 2023 prior to collaborative structures.

Other signs of improvement Pasco shared as early wins include:

  • Administer and disseminate results of staff/student surveys related to the use of collaborative structures
  • Administrator walkthroughs to calibrate collaborative structure use in classrooms
  • PLC classroom visits/feedback to highlight effective practices

 

Where they will grow from here: Pasco is scaling their work by turn-keying the Leadership Team Institute model for growing leadership teams to other schools in their district.

According to Paul Fleming, Learning Forward chief learning officer, high levels of collaboration are likely to exist when leadership marks it as a priority. He commended the Pasco County leadership team’s approach to ensuring better feedback to teachers and then ensuring better feedback to students through collaborative structures or tools like ELA walkthroughs.

“Underneath this,” Fleming said, “we talk about how do you build a collaborative culture in a school and in a district where all instructional practices are out of isolation and de-privatized – where it’s no longer ‘my classroom’ and ‘my students,’ but how are we benefiting the good of all?”

Congratulations, Pasco, on your commitment to staff and student growth. We have enjoyed working alongside you throughout this journey!

Learn more

Leadership Team Institute web page

Coming up

Leadership Team Institute 2025-26 application deadline is April 30: Apply here.