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Post Type: page • Date: October 21, 2025
Empowering Excellence | A Professional Learning Series for the School Leader Paradigm
Covering a range of topics from setting foundations for the school year to assessing and connecting your leadership impact, the Empowering Excellence series breaks down the complexity of leadership into customizable sessions that bring to life all aspects of the paradigm in a collaborative environment.
Why This Training?
Investing in leaders is an investment in your entire district. Being cognizant of the interplay between becoming while doing is crucial for school and district leaders throughout their careers. This results in positive outcomes for them, their organizations, their teachers, and ultimately their students.
Who Should Participate?
This series is designed for all school and district leaders: principals, assistant principals, vice principals, superintendents, instructional leadership directors, and other central office staff.
The Learning
Session 1: Context and the Domains of the Learning Organization
Session 1 is designed to set the foundation for the year and establish the language of leadership for the entire district. Participants will walk away understanding who they are as leaders and how their strengths will carry them forward. Ideal timing: Fall kick-off in August or September.
Session 2: The Learning Leader in the Learning Organization
Session 2 takes a deep dive into the soft skills of leadership. What are the strengths and blindspots of our personalities that impact our effectiveness? How do those personal attributes interplay with creating culture, building systems, and leading learning? Ideal timing: September or October.
Session 3: The School Leader Paradigm Inquiry Process
The School Leader Paradigm is the language of leadership that captures the ongoing journey of addressing a school-wide problem of practice and subequent theory of action developed to shift the culture in a school or district. This session is designed to help the leaders narrow their focus and widen their impact for the year. Ideal timing: October or November.
Session 4: Maximizing the Power of Relationships
Relationships, relationships, relationships. Successful leaders keep a finger on the pulse of relationships, but also differentiate their leadership moves to continue growing and fostering positive relationships throughout the school or district. This session takes leaders on a reflective journey that results in relationship-building action steps. Ideal timing: December or January.
Session 5: Creating Hope Through Student-Centered Systems
During the dark days of the winter season, leaders must focus on maintaining hope for students and adults. This session helps reestablish the core values of the school or district during one of the most challenging times in the calendar and brings leaders back together with hope as the foundation. Ideal time: January or February.
Session 6: Fostering a Culture of Reflection and Growth
School and district leaders are expected to serve as both the building manager and the instructional leader. They carry the responsibility of helping all adults have a larger impact on the students they serve. This session takes leaders on a reflective journey to identify the diverse needs of the adults in the school and then differentiate to impact school culture. Ideal timing: February or March.
Session 7: Assessing the Evidence of Your Leadership Impact
According to the Wallace Foundation, the impact of effective leadership is far and wide across the entire school or district. At this point in the year, how do you capture the impact of effective leadership? How do you know? This session helps leaders reflect on their impact and be able to share their leadership story. Ideal timing: March or April.
Session 8: Connecting your Impact to the Final Evaluation
The final evaluation shouldn’t be through the rearview mirrors and end in a rushed signature. It should be a reflection and celebration of impact and springboard into the next year. This session will help leaders reflect on their own personal and professional growth as they develop goals and desired outcomes for the coming year. Ideal timing: April or May.
“AWSP’s intentional work with our district has equipped our leaders to turn challenges into opportunities as they develop as leaders of change.”
– Mary Beth Tack, Superintendent, Kelso School District
“The work with AWSP has been the most meaningful PD we have done in a really, really long time. It has created a space for administrators to have honest conversations with each other around job-specific topics. This is what PD should look, feel, and sound like.”
– Travis Drake, Director of Instructional Leadership, Battleground Public Schools
“The tailored professional development that AWSP has provided to Vancouver Public Schools, and me, has elevated my leadership skills. As a school principal with over 20 years of experience, this series has inspired me to embrace innovation, refreshed my perspective on leadership, and focused my energy on improving culture, systems, and learning.”
– Woody Howard, Principal, Ben Franklin Elementary, Vancouver Public Schools
Ready for Training
Designed for districts to train all their principals and assistant principals, the Empowering Excellence series focuses on the School Leader Paradigm. It helps leaders maximize their potential and grow as leaders while they lead culture, systems, and learning.
