§ 22-13-201 — Legislative declaration

Colorado § 22-13-201

• Jurisdiction: Colorado
• Title 22: Education
• Art.: School Leadership

Text

(1) The general assembly finds that:

(a) Effective school leadership is second only to teaching with regard to the
in-school components identified as having the greatest effect on student learning
and outcomes;

(b) A recent report by the department of education and the department of
higher education concerning teacher shortages in Colorado states that, in
identifying reasons for leaving a school, teachers cite poor or ineffective school
leadership. To address the teacher shortage, the report recommends providing
improved educational leadership preparation and professional development to
assist principals in creating positive school climate and culture.

(c) School principals are expected to fill many roles that move far beyond
administrative tasks, including setting a school-wide vision for student learning and
outcomes, creating a school-wide climate that is hospitable to learning, providing
instructional leadership with educators, nurturing a professional learning
community with the educators in the school, and cultivating leadership in others so
that the school operates on a distributive and collaborative leadership model;

(d) There are examples of excellent principals in public schools in Colorado
who successfully practice distributive and collaborative leadership and have built
and maintained a strong collaborative learning community in their schools that
results in positive student outcomes. School principals in Colorado should have the
opportunity to observe and learn from these excellent principals to be able to
replicate best practices in their own schools.

(e) Creating a cohort of public school principals throughout the state who
have the opportunity to observe and learn from excellent principals and together
develop their leadership skills and learn to implement best practices in leading a
public school community is likely to result in school improvement throughout the
state and better student academic outcomes; and

(f) Improving school leadership through a program that empowers public
school principals to build their leadership skills and teaches them to effectively
implement distributive and collaborative leadership is likely to result in
improvements in the climate and culture of public schools, decreased educator
turnover, and a reduction in the teacher shortage experienced by many public
schools.

(2) The general assembly finds, therefore, that it is necessary for the benefit
of public education in Colorado to direct the department of education to design and
implement a program to provide embedded, experiential training for a cohort of
public school principals to enable them to provide distributive and collaborative
leadership within their public schools that supports increased educator retention,
improved school climate and culture, and improved student academic outcomes.

Legislative History

Source: L. 2019: Entire part added, (HB 19-1002), ch. 405, p. 3579, � 1, effective May 31.