Empowering School Leaders to Meet Today's Challenges

09 Mar 2021

Empowering School Leaders to Meet Today's Challenges

HBS and HGSE collaborate to offer innovative professional development program

Re: Monique Burns Thompson (Senior Lecturer of Business Administration); By: Jennifer Gillespie

Topics: Education-Training Leadership-Leading Change Management-Management Practices and Processes

Aubree Mills with students at the Ira A. Murphy Elementary School in Peoria, Arizona. Courtesy Aubree Mills

Elementary school principal Aubree Mills had two dilemmas she needed to address: One was recruiting and retaining good teachers at the Ira A. Murphy Elementary School in Peoria, Arizona. The other was elevating her students’ achievement scores. To move the needle on both, she took Leading Change, Leading Schools, and Leading People, three of four online courses included in the Certificate of School Management and Leadership (CSML) program, a joint offering that draws on the cross-disciplinary expertise of the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), Harvard Business School, and Harvard Business School Online. “With these courses, you’re examining ‘How can I shift the way people think?’” explains Mills. “I came away with research-based strategies I could immediately use.”

As Mills considers the complexities of a school administrator’s job, she says it’s not enough to be just a great manager or instructional leader. “You have to be able to marry the two because you can’t have one without the other and truly effect change in a school.” She chose to participate in CSML because of the belief that strong leaders with the right training can have an impact on those around them.

“We want to build a high-quality, professional learning opportunity that’s accessible and compelling …”

—MONIQUE BURNS THOMPSON

School-based Case Studies
HBS Senior Lecturer Monique Burns Thompson (MBA 1993) and HGSE Senior Lecturer Mary Grassa O’Neill are CSML faculty codirectors. Faculty from both schools teach the courses, each of which includes case studies featuring leaders from a diverse cross section of schools and businesses spanning the country. The case studies profile school leaders confronting a variety of challenges in urban, suburban, and rural public schools, as well as private, faith-based, and charter schools.

The asynchronous courses mirror the HBS classroom experience and use HBS Online’s platform, giving the participants flexibility to fit the weekly coursework into their schedules. Those who take all four courses will earn a certificate of completion from HBS/HGSE.

“We have three goals for the program,” explains Burns Thompson. “We want to build a high-quality, professional learning opportunity that’s accessible and compelling, and enable school leaders to be more effective, efficient, and accomplished at leading learning communities.”

Mills, in her role as an elementary-school principal, says that she has used the insights she has gained from the CSML program to help navigate issues wrought by the pandemic: “With the increased demands of leading a campus through the ever-changing landscape of COVID-19, the ability to triage needs, inspire hope, and develop robust response plans have become routine expectations for school administrators. While the coursework through the CSML program provided the structure and rationale for highly effective leadership, the access to a cadre of exceptional leaders from across the world was equally beneficial as we continue to connect and navigate these challenges together.”

BRIDGING THE GAP

BRIDGING THE GAP

Access to Professional Development

CSML has had more than 10,000 enrollments of K–12 principals and assistant principals since its 2018 launch, with a remarkable 97 percent participant completion rate. Leading Change and Leading Schools were the first courses offered; Leading People debuted in July 2020, and Leading Learning will launch in July 2021. The program was inspired by findings from an HBS alumni survey indicating that alumni care deeply about public education. The survey inspired HBS senior administrators and faculty members to explore the issues and, in the process, they learned that of the more than 230,000 K–12 school leaders in the United States, half had no access to quality professional development, either because programs weren’t offered nearby or were cost prohibitive. To change this dynamic and address the need, HBS and HGSE developed the program using HBS’s distinctive online platform to enable accessibility in an affordable way (each course costs less than $500).

“One of the things that we know about the most effective school leaders and business leaders is that they share the ability to set a clear vision for their organization, so that everybody feels like they have a role in making that vision come true. They also set up the systems and infrastructure for people to be effective within that organization, to collaborate and solve problems together and continually improve whatever organization they’re a part of,” says Burns Thompson. “What we aim to do in the CSML program is to strengthen these capabilities. The job of a school leader is very different from the job of a teacher, and knowing how to do both of those jobs is critical to being a successful school leader.”

CSML PARTICIPANTS: LESSONS LEARNED

RABBI MOSHE SCHWARTZ

AUBREE MILLS

RABBI MOSHE SCHWARTZ

AUBREE MILLS

Rabbi Moshe Schwartz, head of the private K–8 Krieger Schechter Day School in Baltimore, Maryland, and Aubree Mills, principal of the Ira A. Murphy Elementary School in Peoria, Arizona, are two of the 10,000-plus school leaders who have participated in the Certificate for School Management Leadership (CSML) program since its launch in 2018. Developed in collaboration by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, HBS, and HBS Online, the online professional learning opportunity helps prepare pre-K–12 school leaders at all stages of their careers drive change and lead high-performing schools.

Both Schwartz and Mills have taken Leading Change, Leading Schools, and Leading People, three of the four online courses offered in the CSML program. While the courses have prepared them to navigate a range of dilemmas, neither educator could have foreseen that the insights and problem-solving strategies they would gain would soon help them deal with the profound challenges posed by the pandemic.

“The timing of the Leading People course I took in October 2019 was particularly helpful because having that knowledge base gave me my strength, my energy, to apply what I had learned to develop and implement a strategic plan for our school,” notes Schwartz. He says that what attracted him to the CSML program originally was the opportunity to interact with his counterparts from diverse educational environments.

Continuity of Learning Plan
Krieger Schechter closed on March 12, then went to remote learning the following week. Schwartz says the speed at which he and his fellow school administrators were able to pivot benefited from advance warning about the severity of the crisis shared by a parent, a noted doctor at Johns Hopkins, who advised them in early February to devise a continuity of learning plan.

After the summer break and discussions with medical and health care professionals, teachers, and parents, as well as other educators—including those in his CSML network—Schwartz put protocols in place and opened Krieger Schechter in September for in-person classes for the school’s 300-plus Jewish students. In addition, members of the school community signed an “ethical covenant” committing that their behavior outside of the school building wouldn’t compromise the “bubble of safety” that had been established.

Schwartz credits the feedback and buy-in he got from parents, teachers, administrators, and students with making the continuity of learning plan work. “In Leading People, there was a module about focusing on your message. It taught me strategies for influencing people and striving for excellence,” says Schwartz, who looks forward to taking the new course, Leading Learning, this year. “Because of the CSML program, I’m much humbler and listening more. If I hadn’t listened to the doctor and other advisors, I wouldn’t have known the best way to prepare. Now our school can pivot again to take all that we’ve learned and figure out which innovations will be with the school forever.”

Navigating Complexities
As principal of the Ira A. Murphy Elementary School, a K–8 public school in suburban Phoenix with the highest poverty level in its district, Mills, like Schwartz, says that Leading People gave her the strategies to manage issues specific to her school as well as the many pandemic-related challenges that have arisen. Quelling the fears of teachers and parents in a state with one of the highest COVID-19 infection rates is among them. “An issue we’re facing in Arizona, especially in a district that has chosen to bring students back to the classroom this fall and winter, is that many of our teachers and parents are scared of the unknown variables. Leading People helps you navigate the complexity of how they’re feeling and determine what to do proactively and reactively as a result of that,” Mills explains.

Her school transitioned to virtual learning after spring break in March 2020, and after a brief remote-learning stint in August, resumed in-person classes in September. Since then, the schools in the district have been about 80 percent in person.

Mills appreciates how the CSML program has given her new ways to lead through a crisis and the ability to tap into a network of peers when she needs advice and support. She plans to take the last course later this year. “As you look at COVID-19 and how we respond to it as school leaders, there are facets within every one of those courses that enable you to approach these challenges more formulaically, with a sound, proven rationale and strategy behind your decision-making process,” she explains. “That’s been critically important as we work to find that balance between high expectations for students who still have to learn and grow, and the realities of the pandemic.”