Better Together: Inside Our Principal Learning Network
In the 2024 - 2025 school year, in partnership with the Archdiocese of Louisville, we established a Principal Learning Network between four of our partner schools. The purpose of the network was to deepen the collective work of continuous improvement within and across the schools, positively impacting teaching and learning through research-based practices for sharing strategies and reflecting on practice.
Agendas for monthly three-hour meetings are developed by the principals and create opportunities for reflective conversations centered on instructional leadership, system effectiveness, and building a culture of collaboration in their schools. A common purpose creates a safe space for dialogue that's hard to carve out in the day-to-day of running a building. Through site visits and learning walks, principals step into one another's buildings to calibrate instructional approaches and observe student engagement firsthand, seeing, not just hearing about, what's working elsewhere.
What ties all of this together is a shared belief that principals shouldn't have to solve instructional leadership challenges alone. When a principal is wrestling with a tricky staffing dynamic or trying to strengthen their school leadership team, there's real value in being able to turn to three other leaders who understand the context and have likely faced something similar.
The impact of this work extends beyond any single meeting. Over time, the network is designed to increase systems coherence across the entire system. Building clearer, more consistent learning pathways for students from Early Childhood through 8th grade, regardless of which school they attend. It builds principals' capacity as instructional leaders and strengthens the work happening inside School Leadership Teams and PLCs back in each building. And ultimately, it's in service of the outcome that matters most: engaging students in their learning in ways that measurably grow their achievement.
Three years in, what started as four schools coming together monthly has expanded to seven. The network has become a model for what collaboration between leaders can look like when it's structured, intentional, and focused on what matters most: Students.
Reflection
What is one challenge in your building right now that you have been trying to solve alone?
If you could sit in on one meeting with three other leaders facing the same challenges, what would you want to walk away with?
