Greater Twin Cities United Way SPPS

Project Description

Engine engages talented professionals as participants to address the challenges and opportunities of important nonprofits that serve the community.

Contact Jim Delaney at Engine for more information: Jdelaney@poweredbyengine.com St. Paul Public School District (SPPS) Office of Leadership Development SPPS is the second largest school district in the state of Minnesota, supporting almost 39,000 students from early childhood education and kindergarten through elementary and high school. The district operates 64 schools and another 30 special education, learning centers and administrative facilities, employing almost 6,000 teachers, principals and support staff. The district serves a diverse student population. Students hail from countries throughout the world, speak more than 70 languages and dialects, and come to school with an array of educational experiences and skills. This diversity of perspectives and skills enhances the classroom and learning opportunities for students but also presents challenges for school leadership. Successful schools need not only exceptional teachers but also strong, capable principals and administrative leaders. The Office of Leadership Development oversees these efforts within SPPS. Their vision is for System-wide structures to identify, develop, retain and improve diverse and effective leaders for the district. At each career stage, every leader will have the supports needed to enable the achievement of specific, individualized adult and student learning objectives. Recognizing the well-documented link between effective school leadership and student achievement, the Office of Leadership Development works to create an emerging infrastructure and research-based model for leadership support so that SPPS administrators will have the efficacy, the skills, and the community of learners necessary for success. The Opportunity for United Way to Support SPPS Office of Leadership Development Greater Twin Cities United Way invests over $20M annually in education and sees an opportunity to further their impact in St. Paul by working with the Office of Leadership Development at SPPS on their efforts to develop effective school leaders. The Office of Leadership Development at SPPS has recently created and begun to roll out coaching, mentoring and networking programs to support and develop current principals and administrators in the district. Next, they are looking to build a structure and process for recruiting high-potential candidates for leadership positions and providing them with a series of selfassessment, career planning and developmental experiences as they progress along their path.

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The creation of this professional development program will allow the Office of Leadership Development at SPPS to not only support principals and administrative leaders once they are in those positions, but also cultivate and prepare individuals for these roles in the early stages of their career. The Project This project is designed to help the Office of Leadership Development at SPPS build a professional development program to identify and prepare high-potential candidates for leadership positions. The project team will make recommendations on how to: 1. Develop a recruitment process for high-potential candidates, including: - Creating clear job descriptions for leadership roles - Communicating opportunities to the right people and in the right way - Developing an intake process to assess candidates 2. Create a program and process to support candidates with career planning and charting a professional path 3. Develop a series of professional development experiences for candidates (individually and/or as a cohort) to appropriately cultivate and prepare them for future leadership roles

Timeframe This project will launch in late July, 2011 and wrap-up in February, 2012.

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