Pasco County Schools in Florida has been participating for two years in Learning Forward’s Leadership Team Institute, an innovative, in-depth opportunity for school and system leaders to engage in vertical leadership teams and learn strategies and practices for implementing evidence-based policies and practices that increase student success.

Pasco County recently shared their early wins with all teams participating in the Leadership Team Institute 2024-25 cohort. The district’s team had identified as a problem of practice the need to enhance student engagement in order to improve academic, behavioral, and attendance outcomes. Over the two years of their work together with Learning Forward coaches, the district has seen across-the-board increases in 6th-8th grade student English language arts and science scores and increased math scores for 6th and 8th graders on the state’s standardized assessment. The biggest gain was for district 6th-grade students, whose English language arts scores improved by 14% over the course of the district’s first year of participation in the institute.  

The district reported that the following structures and practices have improved since they began participating in the institute: administering staff and student surveys, conducting administrator walkthroughs, and facilitating PLC classroom visits with feedback to facilitate consistency and effectiveness of collaborative structures across classrooms.

Read more at learningforward.org/2025/04/02/leadership-team-spotlight-pasco-county-schools.