ABSTRACT
This case study of the Sanger Unified School District shows how a struggling school district in California facing state takeover embraced a distributed leadership model to improve academic outcomes, close equity gaps, improve teacher morale, and increase property values. The model developed relied heavily on Professional Leaning Communities and teacher collaboration, along with a Multi-Tiered System of Support to push decision making closer to students and teachers—those who were most impacted by the decisions being made. Structural changes, such as partnerships between the district’s administration and the local teacher’s union to find dedicated collaboration time during the school week without reducing the number of student learning time are shared.
