Leadership Development Seminar Series: A Comparison of Approaches and Outcomes

A Statewide Equity-Focused Leadership Initiative

Hazel M. Carter, City College of New York/CUNY
Catherine DiMartino, St. John’s University
Margaret Terry Orr, Fordham University (Retired)

November 2025

This work was supported by a grant from the New York State Education Department. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the New York State Education Department.

Introduction
About the Seminars
Recruitment
Enrollment and Attendance
Seminar Implementation
Comparison of Approaches
Team Building and Collaboration
Networking with Diverse Leaders
Participant Feedback and Evaluation
Lessons Learned
Recommendations for NYSED, Districts, & Programs
References

Introduction

As part of a statewide effort to strengthen and diversify local leadership pipelines in 2024, we offered assistant principals and teacher leaders and their schools’ leadership teams a no-cost opportunity to participate in an equity-focused leadership development seminar series.

Our theory of action was that diverse aspiring principals (assistant principals and teacher leaders) need opportunities to lead equity-focused improvement work, address equity challenges as new leaders, or develop community-based partnerships. This includes developing inquiry, team-building, and communication skills. As part of these seminars, our intent was that participants would learn to navigate potential diversity challenges in the problems they target or the relationship-building work they will do.

The seminar series was grounded in current theory about best practices for leadership development. According to recent research reviews (Daniels, 2023; Goldring, 2012; Wright & DaCosta, 2019), there are five best practices for effective leadership development:

Carefully designed and experiential
Contextual and experiential
Enable the transfer of knowledge and skills to practice (through projects, group work, and reflection)
Foster network and collegial collaboration
Be offered over time

We designed our seminar series with these best practices in mind.

These seminar series specifically targeted assistant principals and teacher leaders who aspired for leadership advancement and would benefit from one of the series as a means of leadership development and readiness. The seminars were designed for 20–25 assistant principals or teacher leaders. Our intent was that each participant would have principal support for their participation and work with a school-based team of three to five teachers and other staff for follow-up work. Priority was to be given to the recruitment of diverse assistant principals/ teachers and/or schools with diverse teams.

Each seminar series consisted of six virtual two-hour sessions, scheduled every three weeks from September 29, 2023, to January 5, 2024. Participants were engaged in direct learning, small-group work, and cross-school collaboration, working closely with a facilitator. Participants were eligible to earn CTLE credit based on attendance.

About the Seminars

We offered three leadership development seminar series, each of which were scheduled concurrently.

Leadership Development in Continuous Improvement

This seminar series offered aspiring principals an opportunity to engage in continuous improvement to examine a problem of practice and test a viable solution using equity-focused improvement science. As part of the seminar series, each participant was to work (as lead) with a small team of 3–5 teachers or other staff. The series combined a team-based learning approach (within each school) and a NIC-based learning approach among schools. School teams were organized into three NICs of 6–8 school teams (each with assigned facilitators) to tackle similar problems of practice or partnerships needed for their schools.

Leadership Development in Family and Community Partnership Planning

This seminar series offered participants the opportunity to deconstruct the effective elements of partnership while addressing the needs of a diverse school community. Participants developed a leadership platform grounded in the belief that all students can learn, reinforced by the “it takes a village to raise a child” approach. The series used a data-driven method that helped school teams become more familiar with their community, identify gaps in student learning, and design strategies for engaging stakeholders in school improvement.

Each seminar began with a Hot Topic Conversation, followed by whole-group and small-group discussions, individual reflective exercises, and concluding feedback activities. Time was also allocated for discussion of final projects presented in the last session. One team project (Indian River School District) and three individual projects were completed.

Leadership Development for Success: Learning How to Navigate and Thrive in Today’s Educational Landscape

Through this series, assistant principals and teacher leaders learned how to navigate the political environment in which they lead. Participants examined community values, district contexts, and organizational expectations to strengthen their professional and personal resilience. Career advancement topics included district climate, hiring practices, and administrative accountability.

Learning activities incorporated equity-focused inquiry tools such as environmental scans and racial equity audits conducted within and across schools. These tools helped participants identify problems of practice and understand how to strengthen school communities while advancing their readiness for leadership roles.

Recruitment

Participants were recruited in Summer 2023 through a coordinated campaign in which the three offerings were listed together. The recruitment materials were sent to various audiences statewide including superintendents, assistant superintendents, BOCES officials, and alumni from our institutions. Two team members presented the seminar offerings to the BOCES district superintendents at a statewide June meeting in Albany.

In our recruitment efforts, we asked leaders to share the offerings with aspiring leaders and assistant principals as a means of recruiting participants with district support. To recruit indigenous aspiring leaders, we worked with Clarissa Jacobs-Roraback, the Coordinator of Native American Education for the New York State Department of Education, who shared recruitment materials and seminar offerings with members of indigenous nations to encourage recruitment and representation.

Stony Brook University handled seminar registration.

Enrollment and Attendance

The aim of the seminar series was to strengthen the readiness of diverse aspiring leaders to advance to a school leadership position. As a statewide initiative, we wanted to make this opportunity available statewide. Our recruitment efforts yielded 103 interested applicants. The most popular seminar at registration was Leadership for Family and Community Engagement, with 45% of the applicants (see Table 1). Of those who applied, 45% were teacher leaders and 55% were assistant principals.

Despite our statewide outreach efforts, our fewest applicants were from Upstate New York. Most applicants were from NYC (36%) and Long Island (30%), reflecting the location of the seminar leaders’ institutions.

While we did not collect information on participants’ race/ethnicity or gender, we concluded from our observations that the majority were Black or Hispanic (including one participant who was a member of an Indigenous group) and most were female.

Table 1

Number of Participants who enrolled by role and location for each seminar series

	Continuous improvement	Family and community	Success	Total
Teacher Leaders	11	23	12	46
Assistant Principals	11	26	20	57
Total	22	49	32	103

Lower Hudson Valley	5	5	8	18
Long Island	3	9	19	31
NYC	13	20	4	37
Upstate NY	1	5	1	7

Table 2

Number of participants who attended at least one session and the number who attended most or all sessions and percentage retained

Seminar series	Attended at least one session	Attended 5–6 sessions	Percent
Continuous improvement	19	4	21%
Family and Community Engagement	29	6	21%
Leadership Development for Success	24	7	29%
Total	72	17	24%

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Seminar Implementation

Below is a brief description of how each seminar series was implemented.

Continuous Improvement Seminars

The six seminars, offered on Friday mornings from 9–11 am every three weeks, were implemented as planned. Enrolled participants were assigned to one of three groups based on their initially identified problem of practice in order to work closely with one of three facilitators. Two facilitators were experienced NYC building and district leaders.

Each seminar session was organized around one improvement science principle:

Identifying a problem of practice
Examining variation in the problem using qualitative and quantitative data
Analyzing the system that contributed to the problem
Selecting a high leverage area for change and designing a solution
Testing and evaluating the solution using PDSA cycle
Fostering a Networked Improvement Community

Each session included a discussion of one improvement science principle and related readings, using short articles and brief case examples, followed by small group work with the facilitator to discuss data gathering, analysis, and interpretation. The kinds of problems that the group addressed were divided into three areas related to academics, teacher practice, and student support.

Each session concluded with a field-based assignment (e.g., collecting quantitative data and conducting empathy interviews) to be completed before the next session. The facilitators followed up with participants between sessions to provide support for their inquiry work. We designed a workbook for each participant that included worksheets for each step of the improvement process. We also used Jam boards throughout the sessions for the groups to work collaboratively on questions posed.

We collected participant feedback at the end of each session to gauge what participants were learning, what more they wanted to know, and how they planned to apply what they were learning. From this session-based feedback, we learned that the first session was most impactful, as participants acknowledged that it shifted how they thought about a problem—recognizing that it can be big and comprehensive while improvement work should be narrowly focused and targeted. They also gained insight into how to foster change—by taking small steps and improving “through careful observation, reflection, and analyzing measurable data.” They gained a sense of efficacy, believing they could foster change in their school by identifying a problem of practice and focusing on the structures that maintain it.

By the second session, participants reported that they learned more about what data could be used to evaluate a problem and how to investigate variation in outcome. We helped them network with each other on data collection and analysis. As one participant planned: “I will be gathering data and use the questions and comments from my group to begin unpacking the data connected to my problem of practice; I will begin to document the problem.”

In the third session, participants learned the value of empathy interviews to gain insight about teachers and students and how to analyze the system that produces the problem. As one participant explained, “I used to think student's academic issue derived from their inability and teacher practice and now I think that there are so many factors that truly impact student's academic success.” Several planned to work with their building staff to refine their analysis: “Meeting with my school-based team to refine or verify the possible root causes.”

By the fourth session, they learned how to develop a plan for change that includes measurable outcomes, rather than simply jumping into action. In the fifth session, they reflected on what they learned in completing their first PDSA cycle and brainstormed how to follow up with a second cycle. In the final session, they presented their results with each other and brainstormed next steps and how to continue engaging in improvement work.

The primary challenge for the seminar series was that participants struggled with completing the fieldwork assignments and attending regularly, and thus were often unprepared for the group work during each session. Attendance dwindled, and the seminar session time was split to support those who were up to date and those who were catching up. Nonetheless, by the final session, several participants presented completed projects for group feedback and further planning.

Family and Community Seminar Series

This series, like the others, was organized around a coherent sequence of six sessions that engaged participants in exploring the need and means of broadening family and community engagement and developing an engagement plan. The sessions were as follows:

Session 1: Overview of issues facing educators
Session 2: Building a partnership team
Session 3: Creating structures for community involvement
Session 4: Using external funding to develop school–community partnerships
Session 5: The collaborative leader: professional development and portfolio building
Session 6: Collaborative project presentations

Each session included a “hot topic” discussion drawn from the current news (such as the migrant crisis or school dress code controversy). For each session, participants were to collect and share information pertaining to family and community engagement in small group work sessions:

Create a School Needs Assessment profile drawn from available data and personal experience
Complete a walking tour of the school’s community, documented with photographs, focusing on local community resources and conditions
Create a vision for family and community engagement
Create a community resource guide
Plan a hypothetical grant project to improve family and community engagement

The sessions were co-led with two field-based leaders and one IHE faculty member, providing networking opportunities for participants. For each session, participants were asked to read brief topical articles and/or relevant academic articles or text. Individual and small group reflection was threaded through each session.

Leadership Development for Success: Learning How to Navigate and Thrive in Today’s Educational Landscape

The series took place from September 2023 through January 2024 in six structured sessions, each building on the last. Like the other series, sessions met on Fridays and lasted two hours. Throughout the series, participants worked in large and small facilitated groups to analyze educational cases, practice using data collection tools such as equity audits and landscape scans, and discuss their own district or school-level data.

Session Overview

Session 1 – Orientation Session
Session 2 – Exploring Career Advancement Factors for Leaders of Color
Session 3 – Inquiry Models to Assess Racial Equity in Your District
Session 4 – Data Analysis Workshops
Session 5 – Sharing and Communicating Data
Session 6 – The Art of Retention: Get the Job, Do the Job, Keep the Job

Before each session, students were sent a link to the class presentation. In this presentation, we embedded all resources—readings, case studies, videos, and activities (such as links to equity audits). We aimed to create a classroom resource for participants to enhance their professional practice and guide their professional development sessions in their school communities.

A key feature of this series was to have “voices from the field,” which consisted of current and retired school leaders sharing best practices and advice from their lived experiences as superintendents, assistant superintendents, and principals. The speakers specialized in crisis management, community relations, faculty hiring, and retention.

Comparison of Approaches

The seminar series was designed to test out the veracity of a leadership development structure while organized around different objectives and foci. Each seminar series used a similar structure: six sessions over 3–4 weeks; two-hour long sessions; online; and the opportunity to earn CTLE credit. All sessions were guided with PPT slides (which were shared) and two or more facilitators. But the three series used somewhat different approaches to content, activities, and related learning experiences, as is summarized below. What we learned from these comparisons are several strategies that can be replicated for the future.

Seminar content. Participants in all three series were provided relevant readings to prepare for their sessions:

Continuous Improvement seminar series used a short reading to overview improvement science and readings of case study examples.
Family and Community Engagement seminar series used a variety of short readings and reports on related topics as well as resources from the community, such as “hot topics” from news like the migrant crises and how it impacted schools.
Success seminar series used a variety of resources, including case studies, policy reports on the state of educational leadership, chapters from seminal texts such as Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership (Bolman & Deal), and peer-reviewed articles.

The amount and nature of assigned readings seemed to have little effect on participation and engagement. Some participants came to the seminars well prepared to discuss the readings and others did not, without discernible difference by series. The series also included content provided through videos and guest speakers (from the field), most often with the Success seminar series to expose participants to leaders in the field and facilitate networking. Participants responded very positively to these networking opportunities.

Learning facilitation. To facilitate learning, facilitators organized participants into a variety of group structures, including think-pair-share, facilitated or unfacilitated small groups using guided discussion protocols, and Jam boards. Reflective practice was built into each seminar session to facilitate discussions of the readings, problems of practice, data collected, and proposed solutions.

Field-based activities. All three series asked participants to complete a set of field-based activities, and for two of the series, these activities centered around one culminating project.

Continuous Improvement seminar series asked participants to collect quantitative data on a problem of practice, conduct empathy interviews with a few students, and design and test a solution to the problem using a specially designed workbook. All fieldwork was documented in the workbook using improvement science worksheets.
Family and Community Engagement seminar series asked participants to conduct a community walk to become familiar with local agencies and resources and to develop a grant proposal to address a pressing problem.
The Leadership for Success seminar series asked participants to identify an equity and access-related problem of practice in their district or school, conduct an equity audit or landscape scan, and share results with peers in a workshop format.

Teaming. The three series differed on their intent for participants to work with school-based teams.

Forming and engaging a small group of teachers was essential for the Continuous Improvement seminar series, as it developed team-building skills and supported continuous improvement work.
Family and Community Engagement seminar encouraged participants to work on a collaborative project in preparation for a grant proposal.
The Leadership for Success seminar encouraged school-based teams to apply to promote collaborative inquiry. Only one team enrolled, with sporadic attendance, so the series pivoted to individualized experiences and relied on the cohort as an informal support network.

Team Building and Collaboration

Originally, our goal was to recruit teams of teachers and/or leaders from the same district to participate in the professional development series in the hopes that they would collaborate on their data inquiry projects and create a supportive network of colleagues within and among their districts. How we recruited turned out to be a key challenge to creating these district teams. Rather than building relationships with superintendents and forming partnerships around the PD series, we had to race to launch the series within a specific timeframe, resulting in more email and social media recruitment.

Nonetheless, we took steps to foster collaboration among participants, particularly in grouping them for small group work (such as around problems of practice for the Continuous Improvement seminar series focusing on attendance, instruction, and academics). Inconsistent attendance made such team building difficult.

Finally, two seminar series encouraged participants to work with staff in their schools (by forming small work groups or inquiry teams) to develop their collaborative problem-solving skills. Despite intensive guidance from facilitators, few participants from the Continuous Improvement Seminar series were able to do so.

Networking with Diverse Leaders

To foster networking opportunities with diverse leaders, the three seminar series were led or co-led by experienced school and district leaders who were Black or Hispanic and invited guest speakers who were experienced leaders with diverse backgrounds. These leaders served as resources during and after the seminar series and modeled their own leadership pursuits.

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Participant Feedback and Evaluation

Throughout the seminar series, we collected participant feedback on what they had learned from each session, how it shifted their assumptions, and what they planned to use in their program. Generally, following each session, the feedback on what they learned mirrored the substance of each session, showing us what stood out for them. More significant was how the seminar series shifted their thinking, which was often significant, showing that the seminars were thought provoking and impactful.

From the Leadership for Success seminars, participants reflected:

“I used to think my district was unique in that there is a limitation on teachers/leaders of color but I know now that is true statewide.”
“I used to think that having antiracist conversations were difficult to have in schools, however, I now think based on today's discussions and what I learned from the case study that they are important and needed.”
“I think today reinforced to me the importance of communication and the importance of not working in isolation. Buildings within a district need to communicate efforts and progress and share ideas more.”

From the Family and Community Engagement seminars, participants reflected:

“I now understand the value of equity in education and often ruminate thinking about how my experience may have been different if there were more equitable practices during my childhood.”
“Community school includes all stakeholders, parents, organizations, business leaders, student voices, community members.”
“I loved hearing from other educators around NY state, and I’m so glad that we’re thinking about difficult situations together.”

We solicited participant feedback at the end of the seminar series and in a follow-up survey (to only those who were most frequent participants) six months later. While their feedback was positive about the value and importance of what they learned in their respective seminar series, the response rates were too low to report.

Lessons Learned

We compared experiences in designing and delivering the three-seminar series and drew some conclusions about the lessons we learned as summarized below.

Recruitment

At the outset, our aim was to recruit participants through their superintendents’ collaboration with the project’s aim of diversifying the leadership pipeline through leadership development of diverse aspiring leaders. Our extensive outreach to school districts through the statewide BOCES network and email outreach to superintendents yielded modest results, most of which were concentrated in the greater NYC area. It appears that the superintendents simply passed along the seminar series opportunities to their staff, without making a connection within their system or the project’s aim.

We concluded that our approach was correct, that we needed district buy-in and explicit support, but that our strategy was insufficient. We needed to solicit district commitment to the project’s aim first and formally agree to nominate and support an aspiring leader’s participation in one of the three seminar series.

Attendance

Attendance proved to be a challenge for all three-seminar series. Over the course of the six seminars, attendance dropped off, with less than 30% of the participants attending five or more sessions (see Table 2). In some cases, participants would show up intermittently, depending upon the session topic and the between-session work required. For example, in the Success Seminar series, students enjoyed discussions regarding case studies and loved the “voices from the field” – these were our best-attended sessions. However, attendance dropped for sessions that required the submission of data and commonly gave two reasons. First, students shared that confidentiality concerns made them uncomfortable sharing their district and school-level data with the group. Second, several shared that they did not have time to complete projects between sessions, either professionally or personally.

For all three seminar series, seminar leaders and facilitators engaged in extensive outreach to encourage continued participation. Typically, participants pointed to competing work demands that hindered or interrupted their attendance, rather than a lack of interest in the seminars and related activities. Thus, we concluded that their participation was not an approved priority for their building principals, making sustained participation challenging.

Timing

We scheduled the seminar series to be no more than two hours, on Friday mornings, and to be spaced every three weeks. In past experience, we had learned that without compensation we could not secure participant attendance at after-school sessions; assistant principals often have after-school responsibilities, and Friday mornings are generally the least hectic for professional learning.

We also purposefully scheduled the seminars at three-week intervals, assuming that participants needed time for field-related activities (such as meeting with staff on a problem of practice or completing an equity audit), but more often than monthly to maintain momentum. Given the overall attendance problems, however, we cannot determine whether the timing (two-hour sessions every three weeks) was problematic.

Active Learning

We purposefully designed the seminar series to incorporate an active learning approach. This meant requiring participants to complete field-based activities between sessions that became the substance of subsequent sessions. Each session was built around active reflection (individual, in pairs, and in small groups) and collaborative exploration of data, cases, or problems.

We learned that some participants were surprised by this approach, seemingly expecting a more direct learning experience based on speakers and mini-lectures. This assumption was reflected in a few comments, the lack of preparedness for sessions (despite facilitator follow-up), and the drop-off in attendance.

We concluded that we needed to explain the active learning approach more fully in advertising and initiating the seminar series. Moreover, we needed to spend time unpacking assumptions about leadership development to develop participant buy-in and help them shift to become active learners in their own development.

Recommendations for New York State, Districts, and Programs

Based on the seminar series' findings, several recommendations emerge for the New York State Department of Education, school districts, and educational leadership programs.

First, the State Education Department should build on this pilot by institutionalizing equity-focused leadership development as a statewide priority.

Second, given what we have learned from these seminar experiences, we recommend that such leadership development opportunities be undertaken through formal partnerships between universities, BOCES, and districts.

Future initiatives should require district-level commitments—such as nominating and supporting participants, granting release time, and recognizing participation in evaluation or promotion decisions—to ensure that attendance and follow-through are not hindered by competing work demands.
Establishing formal memoranda of understanding with districts would increase accountability and help translate individual leadership learning into system-wide improvement efforts.
Ideally, these partnerships would exist on a regional level to foster long-term sustainability.

Third, for leadership preparation programs and district leadership teams, the results underscore the importance of integrating active, field-based learning into professional development. Programs should clearly communicate expectations for inquiry-based, participatory learning and scaffold participants’ ability to manage real-world projects within busy school contexts.

Finally, leadership preparation programs should embed family and community engagement, racial equity inquiry, and improvement science into their core curricula, ensuring that aspiring principals not only understand equity challenges theoretically but also apply solutions within their local contexts. These steps would strengthen the leadership pipeline and advance New York State’s goal of more diverse, equity-driven school leadership.

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Leadership Development Seminar Series: A Comparison of Approaches and Outcomes

A Statewide Equity-Focused Leadership Initiative

Table of Contents

Introduction

About the Seminars

Leadership Development in Continuous Improvement

Leadership Development in Family and Community Partnership Planning

Leadership Development for Success: Learning How to Navigate and Thrive in Today’s Educational Landscape

Recruitment

Enrollment and Attendance

Table 1

Table 2

Seminar Implementation

Continuous Improvement Seminars

Family and Community Seminar Series

Leadership Development for Success: Learning How to Navigate and Thrive in Today’s Educational Landscape

Comparison of Approaches

Team Building and Collaboration

Networking with Diverse Leaders

Participant Feedback and Evaluation

Lessons Learned

Recruitment

Attendance

Timing

Active Learning

Recommendations for New York State, Districts, and Programs

References