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District study: a ‘community of practice’ helped principals deepen understanding of instructional leadership
Summary
Dr. Ryan Hubbard reported on a yearlong project creating a community of practice for school leaders focused on deeper learning; participants reported greater familiarity with deeper‑learning practices for leadership, teachers and students.
Dr. Ryan Hubbard presented results of a yearlong strategic project to the school committee on April 15, describing a district‑led community of practice for principals and assistant principals focused on deeper learning and collaborative leadership.
Hubbard said the community of practice was designed as a bottom‑up professional learning model in which participating principals shaped the work and brought real problems of practice to the group. He told the committee 22 principals and assistant principals signed up and that the cohort met five half‑day sessions as a whole community and also in smaller practice groups that met between full sessions.
Hubbard said organizers tracked leaders’ self‑reported familiarity with deeper learning and reported gains from a fall baseline to a midyear follow‑up; the largest gains were in leaders’ understanding of deeper learning’s implications for their own leadership. In the presentation Hubbard cited research that a highly effective principal can add nearly three months of learning in reading and math districtwide, and he framed the community of practice as a way to scale stronger instructional leadership across schools.
The project also examined relaunching the Revere Educational Leadership Board (RELB) — a district‑level staff participation structure that previously produced programs such as a cooperating teacher program and an exemplary educator profile. Hubbard said focus‑group feedback showed broad interest in rebooting a scaled, adaptive leadership board and that formal recommendations will be presented to district leadership in May.
Superintendent Dr. Kelly and committee members thanked Hubbard for the work and echoed support for sustaining peer networks for school leaders. Hubbard said he will not continue to facilitate but helped design a plan for district staff to sustain the community of practice going forward.
No formal action was taken; the presentation was framed as a wrap‑up of Dr. Hubbard’s strategic project and as recommendations for district leadership.
