1. Dr. Eddie R. Johnson Deputy State Superintendent of Education
K-12 Partnerships: What’s New in Leadership Development and Forging Better Mutual Relationships
Dr. Eddie R. Johnson
Deputy State Superintendent of Education

2. University/K12 Partnerships
What is New in University Relationships to Support Leadership Development
Thank you for asking me to come today to speak about the importance of university LEA partnership in the preparation of our future instructional leaders.
Few things are more important than having strong leaders for our schools. I am going to speak a little about how we arrived at the importance of these partnerships and then where we are and where we are going.

3. The new instructional leaders program designed by the Governor’s Congress on School Leadership.
The Congress developed standards in eight domains:
Standard 1: Planning for Continuous Improvement
Standard 2: Teaching and Learning
Standard 3: Human Resources Development
Standard 4: Diversity
Standard 5: Community and Stakeholder Relationships
Standard 6: Technology
Standard 7: Management of the Learning Organization
Standard 8: Ethics
These standards were adopted by the State Board of Education and are now included in the Alabama Administrative Code

4. The Abilities for Standard 5
Address Student and family conditions affecting learning.
Identify community leaders and their relationships to school goals and programs.
Communicate the school’s vision, mission, and priorities to the community.
Share leadership and decision-making with others by gathering input.
Seek resources of families, business, and community members in support of the school’s goals.
Develop partnerships, coalitions, and networks to impact student achievement.
Actively engage the community to share responsibility for student and school success.
Involve family and community in appropriate policy implementation, program planning, and assessment efforts.

5. Importance of the Partnership
Universities and K12 must work together to prepare tomorrow’s leaders
It is not a secret that today’s and tomorrow’s school leaders must be able to successful accomplish a multitude of tasks. Management is still very important, but instructional leadership is key to ensuring that all students learn. Preparation for these tasks requires that universities and LEAs work together to prepare new leaders to meet these challenges

6. Better mutual relationships can evolve by adopting and adhering to principles of partnerships such as:
Partners have agreed upon the mission, values, goals, and measurable outcomes partnership.
The relationship between partners is characterized by mutual trust, respect, genuineness of commitment.
The partnership balances power among partners and enables resources among partnerships to be shared.
There is clear, open, and accessible communication between partners.

7. The New Way of Preparing School Leaders
University/LEA Partners Create Means of Inducting Potential Leaders
Candidates are selected jointly
Universities and LEAS have joint admission committees
Universities and LEAS work together on every aspect of preparation including planning of courses, syllabi, teaching, and implementation of field-based experiences
Thirteen IHEs have implemented the redesign principal preparation program which promotes strong partnership
LEAs and universities should develop means of indentifying candidates and helping them decide to become leaders because of their potential to be leaders
Candidates should be selected jointly through partnerships between the university and K12
Admissions policies require that universities and LEAs decided together who will enter preparation programs
Universities and LEAS work together on every aspect of preparation
As a superintendent, you should be working with a university to help prepare your future leaders. Don’t wait for someone to tell you they want to be a leader, you should be active in helping identify those people in your systems who will be strong leaders and work with them and the university to prepare them to do the work in your system that you need doing. It is time to work to tailor your leaders to solve the problems you face. Prepare future leaders like business does to tackle the problems because you and the university worked together to prepare them.

8. Current Status of Partnership
There are some strong University/LEA partnerships
There need to be many more
Every LEA should be partnering with one or more universities to prepare future leaders
Every superintendent should know how their future leaders are being prepared
There are currently many strong partnerships between universities and LEAs because of the redesign of the 13 principal preparation programs in Alabama. Universities have developed strong partnerships to work with future leaders as they finish their course work and as they work in the school systems to accomplish field experiences, internships and residencies. There are LEAs however who are not partnering with a university to prepare future leaders. There maybe LEAs (especially new superintendents) who do not know that they should have a partnership with a university to prepare leaders. We are going to work in the next few months to help everyone know about and develop strong university/LEA partnerships.

9. The Future of University/K12 Partnerships
Financial Challenges
Time for Partnerships
Must Marshal Resources Wherever Available
The SDE is Dedicated to Helping Whenever and However Possible
We know that while collaborative university/K12 leader preparation is important, these are also challenging financial times. It is difficult to find the time to support these partnerships. However, research indicates that other than a successful teacher, nothing is more important than an instructional leader to improving student achievement. We must spend whatever resources we have on ensuring that we are working together to prepare tomorrow’s school leaders. The SDE will help whenever and wherever resources are available to assist universities and LEAs continue to build these important relationships

10. Future Planning Sessions
Leadership and Evaluation Sounding Posts Meetings
Online Support
Reading and understanding current status and challenges
The Leadership and Evaluation unit at the SDE will be sponsoring sounding posts soon concerning the university/LEA partnerships. These sounding posts will be both face-to-face as resources permit and online through WebEx and Illuminate sessions. The purpose of these sounding posts will be for superintendents, university deans, professors, and others to dialogue concerning the current strengths and weaknesses of these partnerships. Listen for upcoming information about these sounding posts and join in the conversations.

11. Read The SREB Report on School Leadership
SREB White Paper
Read the Report to understand how we got here
I brought with me today the report from the Southern Regional Education Board which is the result of a year-long study of leadership reforms in Alabama. Please read it carefully so that you will understand the history of leadership reform, more about the partnerships and other important information.