Georgia Leadership Institute for School Improvement

09/01/2026

A month into the school year, the early routines are set. The schedules are running. The systems are, mostly, working.

But culture is still being built every single day, in every hallway conversation, every staff meeting, every moment a leader chooses how to respond when something goes wrong.

It's easy to assume culture is something you establish once, at the start of the year, and then move on from. In our experience, it's closer to something you tend continuously, the way you'd tend anything worth keeping alive.

08/28/2026

Beware of “Do these three easy leadership moves” clickbait out there.

Leadership development that actually changes anything rarely looks like a checklist. It looks more like a relationship, built slowly, through trust, context, and a genuine willingness to listen to the people and communities you serve.

That kind of work is messier than a framework. It doesn't fit neatly into a slide deck. But it's also the only kind of leadership development we've seen actually stick.

If you’re looking for a new way to approach leadership development in your district, we're ready to start the conversation: https://glisi.org/contact/

08/25/2026

When things get tense, the impulse is often to try to control.

It's tempting to respond to complexity with more structure, more process, more of the same playbook that's always been used. Sometimes that's exactly right. Often, it isn't.

The better question might be: are we solving problems the way we've always solved them, or are we willing to adapt to what our teams and communities actually need right now, even if that means changing course mid-stream?

Leadership that listens first tends to last longer than leadership that just prescribes. Adaptive leadership isn't a buzzword; for today's school leaders, it's closer to a survival skill, and one that can be developed.

08/21/2026

There's still time to bring your leadership team to this fall's Base Camp and Leadership Summit.

Whether you're a first-time partner curious about what this experience actually looks like, or you're coming back after a few years away, we'd love to have you at the table.

Teams tell us the value isn't just the content; it's the time. Uninterrupted, focused time to think together about the problems that actually matter, without a phone buzzing or a meeting waiting on the other side of the door.

If your team is ready to experience BCLS firsthand, register your team’s spots now for our next cohort in November: https://glisi.org/base-camp-and-leadership-summit-2/

08/18/2026

Most of our work with districts is NOT a five-day retreat.

Some of our most meaningful work happens in smaller, ongoing ways: a coach embedded alongside a leadership team for a year, a facilitated planning session to keep momentum in a big initiative, a set of eyes and ears helping a superintendent think through a tough decision before it's made.

This school year, we're continuing that kind of work with districts across the region, walking alongside leadership teams not as outside experts handing down advice, but as partners who show up consistently, ask good questions, and help teams see what's actually in their way.

If your team is heading into this year knowing something needs to shift, but isn't sure what kind of support would help, that's exactly the conversation we'd love to have.

Here’s a tool we are likely to use to help distill where to focus: https://itk.mitre.org/toolkit-tools/problem-framing/

Want to dive in? https://glisi.org/contact/

08/14/2026

Are you already in the slog?

School just started. Are teachers (and you?!) already starting the countdown? “How many days to fall break? What do I have to do to just get through this?”

What might it take to break out of the just-get-it-done mindset and find your joy in spending time with young people, in the deeply human, sometimes unpredictable, experience of learning? Are you approaching school like a carpenter?

Or might you explore becoming a gardener - creating healthy soil conditions and cultivating what grows? For inspiration, consider Alison Gopnik’s work summarized here. Creating a joyful learning-rich environment for others starts with 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 joy and 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 learning.

In May, Shankar Vedantam of NPR’s Hidden Brain interviewed Dr. Alison Gopnik, a professor at UC Berkeley, about her book “The Gardener and The Carpenter” and her studies of children’s development. We’ve summarized the interview for you below, and if you want more, you can read or listen to...

08/11/2026

Leadership teams rarely get uninterrupted time together.

The daily demands of running a school system, or a single school, leave little room for the deep conversations that actually move things forward.
That's a big part of why Base Camp and Leadership Summit (BCLS) exists, and registration for our fall cohort is now open.

BCLS brings intact leadership teams together for a multi-day experience built around one idea: the quality of a team's culture and cohesion shapes everything else it tries to do. Time away from the day-to-day to think, reconnect, and build the kind of alignment that makes real school improvement possible.

This isn't another one-off training people forget by October. It's a chance to build shared language, shared commitments, and a team that actually trusts each other under pressure.

Secure your team’s spot today for our next cohort in November: https://glisi.org/base-camp-and-leadership-summit-2/

08/04/2026

Here's to a new school year, and to a summer that reminded us why we love this work.

This summer took us to a leadership retreat in Richmond, to GAEL's summer conference alongside Leslie, and to another round of Basecamp and Leadership Summit cohorts filled with teams doing the hard, good work of getting better together.

Every one of those rooms was full of the same thing: leaders willing to show up, ask hard questions, and invest in their teams before the school year even started.

As classrooms open back up across the region, we're looking ahead too, to new districts, new partnerships, and new places where we're kicking off service for the first time this year.

If you’re looking for a new partnership for the 2026/2027 school year, contact GLISI to start the conversation: https://glisi.org/contact/

07/30/2026

"Imagine a football coach announcing the team won't practice this season because they're trying to save money."

No one would accept that logic in athletics. So why do we sometimes apply it to leadership?

Robert Brown, a 12-year superintendent, writes about the budget cuts that look easy on paper but cost districts the most in the long run and why leadership development compounds over years, not budget cycles.

Read the full post here:

By Robert Brown I've been through enough budget cycles to know that the questions eventually become familiar. What can we cut? What can we postpone? What can we do without, at least for another year? Every superintendent eventually faces those conversations. In seasons of declining enrollment, fisca...

07/24/2026

A question worth sitting with before August.

Not: what programs are you launching this year?

Not: what's your professional development calendar?

This one: what does the human fabric of your school actually need right now?

The trust between your teachers and their leaders. The norms that shape how adults talk to each other when things get tense. The quality of the relationships that will either carry your team through a hard year or fracture under the weight of one. The degree to which people in your building feel like they belong, and believe the work they're doing matters.

Programs don't fix those things. Leaders do. And it starts with naming honestly where you are.

What does your school community most need from its leadership heading into the new year?