Educator-Led Staff Structure
What is educator-led?
Laura Jeffrey Academy uses an educator-led model of leadership. Instead of one principal or director, the school is run by a leadership team of 4-7 individuals with equal power. The leadership team includes active teachers as well as administrative staff members. In addition, all full-time staff members serve on committees that support the coordination of many aspects of the school. These committees are the Curriculum & Instruction Committee, the Family & Community Relations Committee, Development Committee, and the School Culture Committee. This structure ensures that all staff members have voice in the school community and that the people most affected by any big decisions and those working closest with the students are also the people contributing to the decision-making process.
Teacher-led schools are gaining popularity across the country as a way to bring the power of school decision-making to those most affected by the decisions--the teachers. Laura Jeffrey Academy follows in these footsteps but uses the more inclusive term of educator-led. All staff members are part of educating the students and running the school, not just those with teaching licenses.
Listed on the Teacher-Powered Inventory of Schools, LJA is one of over 150 teacher-powered schools across that nation that give autonomy to teachers to run schools. To find out more about this national movement, visit www.teacherpowered.org.
Why educator-led?
The staff at LJA have a need to be active participants in the decision-making processes of running the school. When their voices are heard, they are more invested in their curricula, their students, and the success of the school. For a school the size of LJA, it is critically important to have staff who are invested. Because all staff are members of committees that plan events and school-wide initiatives, everyone is aware of needs and steps up to accomplish tasks.
In a traditional school leadership model, top-down administrators get paid high salaries to make decisions about the school. In an educator-led model, any salary benefits for taking on the leadership role stay with the people who are working with students daily. This model is more cost-effective because it prevents excessive spending on administrative overhead. Because LJA has active teachers on the leadership team that makes budgetary decisions, this keeps the focus of the budget on the needs of teachers and students, which creates a better alignment between the school’s finances and its values.
One of the greatest advantages of the educator-led model at LJA is the addition of the staff committees. Being part of a committee helps every full-time staff member feel invested in the LJA community and connect with peers in ways that help the school move forward. Committees provide a clear and equitable avenue for staff voice in decision-making and have brought forth many positive changes, such as teacher-led PLCs, increased awareness of school-wide events and curriculum, and investment in enrollment and recruitment goals.
An educator-led system gives everyone more equal footing than a traditional model. Because of this, the staff at LJA, including the leadership team members themselves, have the freedom to take risks, even if they sometimes fail. They know that they are not expected to be perfect, and that the rest of the staff will support them in reflecting on mistakes and making changes for the future. This is how our culture of innovation is sustained - through many attempts at new ideas and the growth that stems from those outcomes.
Who are the leaders of the school?
Our current leadership team is comprised of the following individuals:
Lizzie Forshee, STEM Teacher
Anna Robinson, LASS Teacher
Terrence Thigpen, Dean of Students
Eileen Lindstrom, 6/7/8 Math Teacher
Lyssa Cook, Office Administrator
The team can be contacted by email at leadershipteam@laurajeffreyacademy.org.
Staff Committees
All full-time staff members participate in one of our four staff committees. Our current committee chairs are the following individuals:
Anna Marie Rutz & Lizbeth Rosas Real, co-chairs of the Curriculum & Instruction Committee
Emma Welter, chair of the Family & Community Relations Committee
Rory Fields & Julie Silvers, co-chairs of the School Culture Committee
Lizzie Forshee, chair of the Development and Marketing Committee