(1)There is created in the department of education the school leadership program to
provide embedded, experiential professional development to improve the quality of
school principals and empower them to exercise distributive and collaborative
leadership that supports collaboration among the professional educators in the
school building. The purpose of the program is to increase educator retention,
improve school climate and culture, and improve student academic outcomes by
improving the quality of leadership in public schools. The program must include
identification of high-quality school principals and the opportunity for other school
principals from school districts throughout the state to observe and interact with
the identified high-quality school principals and to receive
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(1)
There is created in the department of education the school leadership program to
provide embedded, experiential professional development to improve the quality of
school principals and empower them to exercise distributive and collaborative
leadership that supports collaboration among the professional educators in the
school building. The purpose of the program is to increase educator retention,
improve school climate and culture, and improve student academic outcomes by
improving the quality of leadership in public schools. The program must include
identification of high-quality school principals and the opportunity for other school
principals from school districts throughout the state to observe and interact with
the identified high-quality school principals and to receive professional
development in leadership skills to learn the critical practices of the high-quality
school principals in successful public schools.
(2) The department shall design the program during the 2019-20 budget
year and begin implementation of the program no later than July 2020. The
department may contract with an entity with demonstrated, successful experience
in providing training to school principals in distributive and collaborative leadership
in Colorado or in other states to assist in designing and implementing the program.
In selecting an entity, the department shall first consider entities that provide
successful school leadership programs in Colorado that are similar to the program
described in this section. The department shall ensure that the program design
includes:
(a) The method for identifying high-quality school principals and selecting a
cohort of school principals from public elementary, middle, and high schools across
the state who apply to participate in the professional development provided by the
program;
(b) The learning objectives and goals of the program, which must at a
minimum include improving and enhancing positive school climate and culture and
implementing distributive and collaborative leadership among the professional
educators within a school;
(c) The methods for achieving the learning objectives and goals, which must
include direct observation of and interaction with identified high-quality school
principals and experiential professional development in implementing distributive
and collaborative leadership, developing collaboration among the professionals
within the entire school building, and other leadership skills; and
(d) The method for evaluating the success of the program in meeting the
learning objectives and goals and in meeting the purpose described in subsection
(1) of this section, including increasing educator retention, improving the school
climate and culture, and improving student academic outcomes. The department
may take into account information received through the teaching and learning
conditions survey administered pursuant to section 22-2-503 in evaluating the
success of the program; except that the department shall take the information into
account in a year in which the response rate on the survey is at least sixty percent.
(3) A school principal who seeks to receive training through the program
must submit an application to the department in accordance with the time frames
and procedures adopted by rule of the state board. The state board by rule shall
specify the required contents of the application, which at a minimum must include
evidence that the school principal's employer and building staff support the school
principal's participation in the program.
(4) The department, or the entity with which the department contracts, if
any, shall select the school principals to receive professional development through
the program for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 budget years, based on applications
received pursuant to subsection (3) of this section. In selecting school principals to
receive professional development through the program, the department and the
entity, at a minimum, shall consider the level of performance, as determined
pursuant to section 22-11-210, achieved by the public school at which the applying
school principal is employed and any evidence that indicates the likelihood that a
program of distributive and collaborative leadership would be successful in
improving educator retention, school climate and culture, and student academic
outcomes at the public school at which the applying school principal is employed. In
selecting participants for the program, the department or the entity, to the extent
practicable, shall select school principals employed in public elementary, middle,
and high schools located in rural, suburban, and urban school districts throughout
the state who are representative of the racial and gender demographics across the
state. The department or the entity may select two or more school principals from a
single school district.
(5) Repealed.
(6) The general assembly shall annually appropriate up to two hundred fifty
thousand dollars to the department for the implementation of this part 2, including
money to pay the costs of designing and implementing the program, which may
include the cost of contracting with an entity as authorized in subsection (2) of this
section.