Creating a Supportive Organization for Learning

The new flexible modular (“flex mod”) schedule at Legacy High School is an example of an innovative organizational support for learning and teaching. So too is Brooklyn Lab’s implementation of a new learning management system and complementary PLC structures. In Domain 4 of their Unified Model of Effective Leader Practices, Hitt and Tucker note that one of the key responsibilities of effective school leaders is to create a supportive organization for learning. School leaders do this by acquiring and allocating resources that are strategically aligned with the school’s mission and vision. This chapter provides examples of what the leadership behaviors and support structures looked like in many of the schools that the authors visited. Most of the schools that the authors visited were highly collaborative. That spirit of cooperation, delegation, and honoring others’ voices often extended beyond the adults in the community to the students as well. While One Stone may be an outlier example of a student-directed school.