History of Friends Council on Education’s INSTITUTE FOR ENGAGING LEADERSHIP IN FRIENDS SCHOOLS

Friends Council on Education created the Leadership Institute in 2002 as a learning community for Friends school leaders to work collaboratively on strengthening their capacity and skills. The Institute focuses on the unique role of Friends school leadership and the peculiar art of sustaining the Quaker ethos of a Friends school. Institute members conduct action research projects that benefit the network of Friends schools.

A Design Team consisting of several heads of Friends schools and Friends Council board members identified assumptions, goals, and objectives for participants in the Leadership Institute.

Background Assumptions

There is a current need to increase the pool of strong leaders, with special awareness of the current lack of women and people of color in Friends school headships.

Leadership development is a responsibility of the community of Friends schools and a collaborative leadership development model is very fitting for Friends schools.

Goals

To create a strategic network of Friends school leaders working together as a learning community focused on developing capacity and skills for transformational leadership in Friends schools.

To develop a pool of candidates for future Friends school headship and other leadership positions.

Participant Objectives

To examine the particular joys and challenges of leadership in a Friends school and explore how leadership is different in a Friends school than in non-Friends schools.

To learn and explore a systems-centered approach to school leadership and to practice tools and techniques for systems analysis and managing change.

To design and implement an action research project, engaging in observation and inquiry about Friends school culture, structure, and practice.

To explore the spiritual dimension of leadership by developing the capacity to discern leadings of the spirit and test these leadings through reflective group processes is grateful to be the host and facilitator of this thoughtful and inspired professional growth and development within the Friends school network.

To engage in structured opportunities to visit, observe and shadow respected leaders in Friends schools within the FCE network.

To engage in an ongoing cycle of deep learning in a collaborative, collegial cohort through critical reflection and feedback for the development of personal mastery.

A donation from a Quaker family foundation funded a pilot program, and then a major fundraising campaign funded an endowment that continues to make the leadership program sustainable while keeping participation in the Institute at no or low cost. Each two-year cohort now averages 20 members.

After 21 years, the Leadership Institute has 153 alumni; 24% have become heads of Friends schools and other independent schools. Others are serving as leaders in various positions in Friends, independent, and public schools. With the 2022-2024 graduating cohort, 20 more educators become Leadership Institute alumni.

The Institute for Engaging Leadership in Friends Schools is a proven success. The composition of leaders in today’s Friends schools is palpably different from a generation ago. There are more women who are heads as well as more heads of color. Moreover, there is a strong sense of shared responsibility of the community of Friends schools to claim the time and space for collaborative and reflective leadership.

WHAT IS ACTION RESEARCH?

Action research is a dynamic process for conducting research over time using action and reflective learning to pursue understanding and ultimately change.

The action research process is cyclic and spiral, alternating between action, critical reflection, and new action. It is an emergent process, continually evolving as understanding increases. It generally involves participation with those who actually inhabit the system in which the action research is conducted.

The true measure of success in action research is learning and change at the individual level and the systems level. An “unfinished” project may, in fact, stimulate ideas for others and be useful in different contexts.

The core action research is the reflective inquiry approach, in which every turn of spiritual influences a potential transformation of practice.

Through every cycle, a deeper understanding of the issue, the nature of change, and potential creative responses evolve from critically reflective learning.