This summer, the two of us launched a statewide leadership series in Washington state with our colleagues Kim Fry from the Washington State Administrators Association and Gina Yonts from the Association of Washington School Principals. The statewide leadership series includes over 100 school-based leaders such as principals, assistant principals, instructional coaches, and other districtwide staff.
Our primary focus was fostering collective leader efficacy work, using collaborative inquiry as the process to deepen the impact of leaders and teachers. We define collective leader efficacy as a school or district leadership team’s belief in their ability to develop a shared understanding and engage in joint work and evaluate the impact they have on the learning of adults and students in a school.
The leaders will spend two years exploring what’s impacting, or getting in the way of impacting, student and adult learning. Using several surveys, leaders identified dozens of problems of practice, from high absenteeism to disengagement, inconsistent instruction, inequitable outcomes, and unclear systems. But as we listened closely and examined both their challenges and the strategies they’re testing, we began to see clear patterns emerge.
Here are the 10 themes surfacing most powerfully in their leadership work:
1. Equity - Most leaders understand that equity can’t be reduced to a program or initiative. They are learning, often through trial, error, and some political pushback, how to navigate and fix disparities in access and opportunity. They are working with educators on how to create authentic engagement for multilingual learners, students with disabilities, and historically underserved students. For more information, check out this EdWeek article focusing on four ways principals can better support special education teachers.
2. Student Engagement and Belonging - Leaders are discovering that engagement isn’t just about time on task. Student engagement and belonging is about whether students see relevance and feel ownership in the work. Through walk-throughs and dialogue with students and teachers, leaders are rethinking “engagement” as connection, agency, and voice.
3. Attendance and Chronic Absenteeism - Teachers and leaders are understanding that attendance is rarely about students “not caring.” They are uncovering how belonging, relationships, and trust shape whether students attend school and are finding ways to focus on connection rather than compliance.
4. Multilingual Learners and Language Equity - One of the most frustrating aspects to MLL students is when they are viewed through a deficit lens. Leaders are realizing that multilingual learners thrive when their assets are recognized and leveraged. In practice, they are learning how uneven the shift toward asset-based, standards-aligned instruction can be and that it takes modeling, support, and persistence to make language equity impactful and empowering.
5. Tier 1 Instruction and MTSS Clarity - Teachers and leaders are finding that they often have a shared language around Tier 1 instruction but lack a shared understanding of what it looks like. Clarity around Tier 1 sets the foundation for effective Multi-Tiered Systems of Support, and strengthening those Tier 1 practices is often the first, most overlooked step.
6. Data Use That Drives Instruction - In our work with leaders, we find that they collect data but often don’t have the time or systems to effectively reflect and analyze it. We are working with leaders to create theories of action (If, Then, So That) and we help them tie it to leading and lagging data they can use to drive improvement. Read more here about cycles of inquiry.
7. Culture of Collaboration, Not Compliance - Collaboration has long been a word used in schools, but to those on the receiving end, it feels more like contrived collaboration where they don’t feel they have a voice in the process. Leaders are learning firsthand that collaboration can feel hollow if it’s just about compliance. The shift they are making is toward joint work, where teachers and leaders work together, take risks, share responsibility, and use feedback as fuel for improvement.
8. Instructional Alignment and Coherence - Daily experience is showing leaders how fragmentation across grades and departments undermines impact. They are learning that coherence isn’t about doing fewer things but about making sure every initiative connects back to shared priorities and high-quality instructional practice. The two of us have been working with districts to align their strategic plans with each school improvement plan and connect classroom practices to all of it.
9. Behavior, SEL, and Schoolwide Systems - Social-emotional learning is often a phrase these days that inspires a lot of negative feelings on the part of people who do not really understand what it truly means. Teachers and leaders are navigating this space and through practice are learning how proactive SEL, clear expectations, and consistent systems can create a more predictable and supportive schoolwide environment.
10. Leadership Capacity and Systems Building - Leaders know from experience that no one person can do this work alone. They are learning how to build leadership capacity through distributed roles, inquiry-driven improvement, and systems that sustain collaboration even in times of transition.
Clearly, none of these lives in isolation. What the two of us are finding as we collect survey data from leaders in different parts of the world is that regardless of where we live, these are the issues we are all facing. It’s what we do about them that matters.
Our next step with the leaders we’re working alongside is to invite them to select one of 10 data-informed themes. Based on their choice, they’ll join an Instructional Leadership Collective, which is a group of peers focused on deepening their leadership practice and impact in that area. Each collective engages in monthly, facilitated inquiry using structured protocols. What we’re seeing is powerful: When leaders come together with shared purpose, authentic dialogue, and aligned action, it builds coherence, strengthens capacity, and drives meaningful growth.
