Learning Forward
Equity and excellence in teaching and learning.
Learning Communities for Leaders
October 2025
Leaders need opportunities to connect, learn, and grow with peers just as teachers do. This issue examines how to foster learning communities for principals, superintendents, curriculum directors, and other leaders.
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In This Issue
FOCUS
Learning communities make leadership less lonely
This issue shows how collaboration with role-alike peers helps leaders learn and grow while overcoming feelings of isolation.
Why school leaders need learning communities
Three field leaders talk about the value of principals and other school leaders learning and growing together.
Taking the loneliness out of leadership
The CIRCLE framework fosters coherence, shared accountability, and authenticity in leadership learning communities in Utah.
Leadership teams make change that lasts
Effective teams can make all the difference in not only building and continuously improving results but sustaining them.
A community of practice elevates principals' instructional leadership
In Tustin, California, principals come together to help each other learn how to support teachers implementing a new problem-based mathematics curriculum.
Curriculum leaders are learners, too
A national professional learning network provides a space for district curriculum leaders to learn and grow.
Principals needed support. They found it in a PLC.
A district’s school leaders struggled to provide clear, consistent feedback – until they came together to tackle the challenge.
Collaborative coaching transforms school leadership
With data-driven, nonevaluative feedback from coaches, a Florida district’s principals and assistant principals were empowered to drive positive change.
How do YOU build learning communities?
Share your advice about building community among new and veteran principals with Learning Forward and the Principal Project.
To improve instruction, build professional learning leaders’ capacity: ONLINE EXCLUSIVE
Three lessons from a leadership development program in Kentucky and Tennessee.
4 strategies for building leadership communities: ONLINE EXCLUSIVE
To develop successful middle level leaders, foster engagement, decision-making, collaboration infrastructure, and recognition of leaders’ contributions.
TOOLS
Apply adult learning principles in your work
Reflect on six principles of adult learning to ensure your professional learning is grounded in an adults’ learning processes.
Read and reflect on learning communities
Discussion questions to help you apply the standards as you implement strategies from this issue.
IDEAS
Planting seeds for student success
Prioritizing student and teacher agency catalyzes positive shifts in schools, say conference keynote speakers Shane Safir and Sawsan Jaber.
Reimagining learning experiences with AI
Conference speakers Dyane Smokorowski and Rob Dickson explain how AI can help teachers meet students where they are.
RESEARCH
Study examines the landscape of AI in professional learning
A research synthesis looks at how professional learning designers are integrating AI into teacher learning experiences.
Data points
The latest research on AI, curriculum alignment, public attitudes toward public schools, teacher stress, and more.
VOICES
UPDATES
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