Implementation Structure

The Eugene Leadership Initiative has grown out of a multi-faceted school change effort with the overall goal of ensuring all students achieve academic success. It brings together many resources across the nation, state, and district to support this effort.

• The Wallace Foundation
  This grant foundation is focused on using knowledge and ideas to create enduring change in strengthening education leadership to improve student achievement. It supports the development and testing of useful ideas in innovation sites (such as states, school districts, and cities as well as non-profit organizations), gathers credible, objective evidence on what is most effective and why, and then shares that knowledge with the individuals and institutions.
• Harvard Change Leadership Group
  The Havard CLG engages in multi-year, ongoing collaborations with select district leadership teams to support their specific improvement efforts. The aim of these collaborations is to help district leadership teams work in new ways to significantly improve all students’ learning. In this specific, it will be working with the Eugene Leadership Initiative in regard to the implementation of the Deliverables Work Plan for 2007-08.
  
• Educational Development Center
  The Center for Leadership and Learning Communities (CLLC), part of the Educational Development Center (EDC), is in its second round of funding from The Wallace Foundation for Project LEAD. A major priority for this new project is to expand the technical assistance it provides to The Wallace Foundation and its funded network of states and districts as part of its national initiative to transform education leadership in urban school districts. Expansion efforts focus on four primary areas: (1) Development, refinement, and implementation of research-based metrics and tools for use by states and districts in assessing the quality of their leadership development systems and programs; (2) Direct technical assistance to districts and states in assessing their education leadership development initiatives and implementing system and program improvement strategies; (3) Facilitation and resource support to six national Leadership Issue Groups for the purpose of building a dynamic community of practice; (4) Continued design, development, maintenance, and management of the Education Leadership Action Network (ELAN) Web site as a key resource for policymakers and practitioners working to develop, support, and sustain education leaders.
• Oregon Leadership Network
  In 2004, through a competitive grant process, a selection committee identified six school districts across the state to serve as "Demonstration Districts" for what was then known as the "State Action for Education Leadership" (SAELP) . Since then, participating districts have grown to 10 and comprise what is, as of July 2007, known as the Oregon Leadership Network (OLN) . OLN is serving the three largest school districts in the state, 31% of Oregon Administrators, and impacting over 200,000 Oregon students.
  
• Target Schools
  4J neighborhood schools determined to have high risk factors which negatively impact student achievement have been targeted as a special focus of educational change efforts. Professional development and strategy implementation are closely monitored, as are effects on student achievement.
• LEAD Team
  The LEAD Team is made up of representatives from each of the four regions and school grade groupings in the 4J School District, in addition to district level leaders and a representative from the Education Department of the University of Oregon. This group is in charge of local guidance of the grant project, determining professional development needs, and reporting progress. In addition, they are the heart of the learning communities in each region, providing reciprocal communication between levels.
• Principal Mentorships
  All new administrators in the Eugene 4J School District will receive mentoring within the district and have access to new administrator institutes, with the aim of developing and retaining diverse, culturally competent, and effective instructional leaders. Selected exemplary retired principals meet weekly with newly appointed principals their first year in the district. They are available 24/7 for consultation on the phone. In the second year of their principal positions, principals meet twice monthly with their same mentor.
• Aspiring Administrators
  Teachers leaders will be encouraged to develop administrative leadership skills through the provision of field experiences.