Components

Learning - Planning - Doing - Assessing Improvement Cycle

SLN’s Program Model includes Network learning experiences that are guided by principles of action research and adult learning theory.  SLN principals explore together key leadership practices shown in principal leadership research to influence student achievement.

SLN Network principals improve teacher learning, increase teacher efficacy through supervision and focused professional development, and develop school systems that are highly responsive to closing student achievement gaps. 

In each SLN Network, school leaders collectively plan actions and commit to hold each other responsible to apply what they learn in their Networks at their schools. The Network explores and analyzes the resulting outcomes from principal actions with teachers and students from meeting to meeting.

The Network assesses, troubleshoots, and collectively determines best practices within its community of practitioners. SLN Facilitators simultaneously develop the conditions for learning within the Network while propelling principals toward increasingly impactful leadership practices. This cycle serves to support and refine leadership actions that positively impact school culture and student achievement.

Embedded in the SLN Program Model are rubrics for SLN Facilitators to assess principal skills and developing Network culture. Facilitators use these rubrics to assess group readiness, determine when principals reach learning goals, and target the ongoing developmental needs of Network principals.

To track the effectiveness of SLN principals, SLN analyzes student achievement data for SLN-led schools comparing year over year gains for these schools, measuring the impact of multi-year participation in SLN Networks as well comparisons of student outcomes for SLN-led schools to non-SLN schools.