SFUSD Embraces Organizational Leadership to Foster Collective Learning

As part of its commitment to enhancing equity and excellence in student outcomes, the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) has initiated the creation of district-wide Instructional Leadership Teams (ILTs) to provide sustainable guidance, coaching, and support for teaching excellence. These teams leverage innovative practices and research to foster thriving educational communities.

On June 6 and 7, 2024, SFUSD educators convened at Phillip and Sala Burton High School for an Instructional Leadership Team Retreat. The retreat aimed to facilitate connections among ILT members, establish a shared understanding of their purpose, roles, and responsibilities, and plan leadership moves for each school’s ILT to cultivate instructional coherence. 

The primary role of the ILT is to spearhead efforts to enhance teaching and learning, with a specific focus on elevating overall student achievement and accelerating progress for focal student groups. The ILTs are tasked with three key responsibilities:

1. Professional Learning and Support for Teachers: Direct the implementation of the Language Arts Curriculum, foster collegial relationships to support Grade Level Collaboration (GLC), and facilitate professional development.

2. Facilitate Inquiry Cycles: Analyze data and evidence, set goals, identify actions, implement strategies, reflect, and monitor progress, with an emphasis on prioritizing focal student groups.

3. Engage in Learning Walks: Utilize the Instructional Core Rubric to focus on essential content and academic ownership, aiming to cultivate a school culture centered on high expectations.

During the retreat, Dr. Ann Jaquith, director of the Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies master’s program and lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, led a reflective session on the conditions necessary for openness to learning. Jaquith’s research highlights that schools are complex systems requiring collective learning, which depends on effective organizational leadership. Citing Amy Edmondson’s work, Jaquith emphasized that “organizing to learn” involves leadership that promotes critical teaming behaviors to facilitate collective learning.

Craig Berger, principal of Jefferson Elementary School, underscored the significance of ILTs, noting that they empower principals to harness the leadership potential of teachers to improve teaching and learning. Berger described the district’s instructional system transformation as an opportunity to achieve instructional coherence, ensuring consistent quality and curriculum alignment both within and across grade levels. The instructional system transformation initiated by the district is “an opportunity to have instructional coherence, so that not only within the grades, teachers are teaching at a similar level of quality and curriculum, but also through the grades, meaning there is some coherence between a kindergarten classroom and a third grade classroom or a fifth grade classroom.” 

Berger explained that ILTs allow principals to delegate responsibilities while providing teachers with peers who assist in organizing curriculum, designing lessons, and offering coaching at various levels. Ultimately, “it ensures that students aren’t falling through the cracks. One of the things that the coach will be doing is organizing and analyzing our school data for the staff and the teachers, so that we know the numbers - for exemple what percent of students is reading, what percent is not- but the coach will be able to make the numbers more real, connecting them to real students and then connecting teacher’s practice to improving students’ education and learning.”

For Berger this implementation is important “because it ensures equitable distribution of resources. It’s a promise to each and every school and to each and every student.”