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El Paso ISD details Holdsworth partnership; district highlights leadership pipeline and 'Empower' fellowship
Summary
District leaders described progress in a multi-year partnership with the Holdsworth Center to build leadership capacity across El Paso ISD, including a principal profile, a fellowship for assistant principals and vacancy forecasting to create an internal pipeline for campus leadership.
El Paso Independent School District leaders reported progress on a four‑year partnership with the Holdsworth Center aimed at developing district leadership and creating sustainable talent systems.
“Effective leadership at the school level plays a critical role in student achievement,” Liza Rodriguez, chief communications officer, said as she introduced the Holdsworth update. The partnership, district staff said, focuses on defining leadership values, building a principal profile and creating a principal pipeline through cohort learning and experiential “stretch” assignments.
District officials outlined four intended outcomes of the partnership: create and implement a leadership definition and values; increase the number of “high quality seats” by developing aligned leaders; reach a 2:1 ratio of internally prepared staff ready for principal roles; and build internal capacity to support district talent systems.
Key elements described to trustees included a principal and assistant principal profile aligned to nine leadership competencies, a vacancy planning cycle (forecasting likely openings), a two‑year campus leadership cohort and the Empower fellowship for assistant principals. The Empower fellowship assigns a stretch project while fellows remain on campus, pairs fellows with mentors and follows a 70/20/10 learning model (70% experiential, 20% coaching, 10% formal learning).
Trustees heard that three participants who were Empower fellows have since become principals: Melissa Estrada, Don Balnet and Claudia Moreno. Principals and fellows who attended the board meeting described how the Holdsworth work pushed them to conduct deep data dives and to design targeted solutions for groups of students; one principal said the process required “going slow to move fast” to build sustainable change.
Carla Gonzales, chief of schools, and Berta Martinez, executive principal for school transformation, described work with 12 underperforming campuses using grant funds (Effective School Framework and LASSO grants) to support redesign, staffing stipends, summer onboarding and community engagement.
Trustees praised the partnership and thanked staff for the progress reports. Board members asked staff to continue monitoring outcomes and to bring updates as cohorts graduate and new leaders are placed in campus positions.
