Georgia Leadership Institute for School Improvement

RETAIN partners are seeing significant improvement in teacher retention through investment in leader capacity.

RETAIN, a bright spot of Learn4Life, school leadership teams create the working conditions that keep great teachers. In each RETAIN cohort since launch, we are seeing a year-over-year reduction in unwanted teacher departures of 50% or more.

What’s changing? Teachers are reporting a more robust sense of belonging. They are receiving consistent one-on-one time with their leaders. They said they felt genuinely cared about for the first time in a while. One RETAIN participant put it plainly: "Working conditions for teachers have changed; they now feel more comfortable speaking up about things that aren't working well. The team is more cohesive and solution-minded."

RETAIN wasn't built on quick fixes. No "jeans days." No surface-level wellness perks. It was built on the belief that leaders who learn to cultivate trust, reflect honestly on their own practice, and attend to the real conditions around them, change what it feels like to work in a school.

That kind of change takes time. And it's worth it.

Learn more about RETAIN from a recent alumn featured with Leslie, Jennie, and GAEL on UnscriptED. The episode is available here:

GAEL UnscriptED S2:E17 | Teacher Retention Starts With Leaders - GAEL Teacher retention is often treated like a staffing puzzle, but we keep coming back to a tougher truth: educators stay or leave based on the daily experience of working in a school. That experience is shaped, minute by minute, by leadership. We sit down with Jennie Welch and Leslie Hazel Bussey from....

What is your leadership team making possible for those you serve?

That guiding question helped frame a learning day for School Governance Council members from Fulton County this spring. Council members from across the county came together with principals to surface aspirations for the learning experiences students experience in school.

Council members who once saw their role as reviewers of budgets and plans and school leaders who saw them the same way reimagined how they could more effectively shape their agendas and connection points to create more knowledge exchange between principals leading schools and community members who have their finger on the pulse of young people’s needs, community assets, and community-connected learning opportunities.

What do these public leaders want to make possible?

1. Access to meaningful, memorable learning experiences for students that build their knowledge and skills.
2. Schools where students and adults alike are energized to be there and connected to one another.
3. Increasing community and workforce connected learning opportunities to equip students for life after high school.
4. Ensuring greater access to the resources and community assets required to make 1-3 possible.

We are proud to support Fulton County Schools in the work of hosting shared space for educators and community members to come together to learn and grow.

588 leaders. One summer. One shared belief.

Last summer, 588 school leaders deepened their practice through Base Camp Leadership Summit and customized leadership retreats. They came as individuals representing different schools, districts, and communities. They left as teams, with shared language, renewed relationships, and a more honest sense of the work ahead.

We don't measure that impact in training hours or satisfaction scores alone. We measure it in the conversations that happened two months later when a principal handled a hard situation differently. In the team that finally named the thing they'd been avoiding. In the superintendent who realized their own leadership patterns were getting in the way.

Strong leaders transform lives. That starts with investing in the humans doing the leading.

There’s a big reason why teams go to Base Camp Leadership Summit (BCLS) together.

There's a version of professional development that treats leaders as isolated individuals who need to go be sharpened and then return to be more effective in their roles. And there's a version that recognizes the real unit of system change is teams, and that what happens between people matters as much as an individual team member’s capacity.

BCLS brings intact leadership teams together for a multi-day residential experience. Not a conference. Not a workshop. A sustained immersive environment where teams can think, reconnect, and do the kind of work that the pace of the school year makes nearly impossible.

This summer's June cohort is sold out, but November and January still have space. If your team has been putting this off, or if it's been five or more years since you last came, the 73rd cohort is a good moment to come back.

Learn more and save your team’s spot here: https://glisi.org/base-camp-and-leadership-summit-2/

One of the highlights of our spring is hosting leader exhibitions with our aspiring leaders across Georgia.

We recognized the completion of the 3rd cohort of aspiring leaders in , who shared the specific ways their leader practice improved over the course of their cohort experience.

A specific example of how their growth is already having an impact includes demonstrating that effective co-teaching in inclusive classrooms has a measurable influence on student success.

Graduation is the milestone. Growth and learning are years in the making.

Behind every student crossing a graduation stage this month is thousands of hours of educator time and effort to nurture and grow young people, and hundreds of small decisions that shaped the learning environments for our soon-to-be graduates.

The trust a kindergarten teacher built on day one. The principal who made it safe to struggle. The counselor who noticed something was off before the student could name it. The budget fight no student ever saw, but benefited from anyway.

None of those moments feel like graduation. Most feel unremarkable in the moment — another conversation, another decision, another day. But they accumulate. They become the conditions that carry a student to the finish line and, more importantly, prepare them for what comes after.

To every adult who poured something of themselves into that invisible work, we want to thank you. Graduation celebrations are for our graduates. But the conditions to grow and learn along the way were shaped by you.

Leaders who create psychological safety. Teams that learn together and then carry that learning into how they shape climate, culture, and performance. Asking the question "Are kids learning and how do we know?" instead of "Are kids scoring great?"

Leslie Hazle Bussey and Jennie Welch of GLISI and Dr. Brian Keefer of Fulton County Schools joined GAEL UnscriptED to dig deeper into how GLISI designs professional learning built for transformation, not compliance, and the net benefit of that design approach for leaders, students, and outcomes.

Part 2 of 3 was just released last week. Listen to the second part now:

GAEL UnscriptED S2:E16 | How GLISI Builds Trust Based Leadership - GAEL The fastest way to stall school improvement is to treat leadership like a set of tips you can download. Real change asks something harder: adults have to be willing to learn, unlearn, and look in the mirror. We sit down with Leslie Hazel Bussey (CEO and Executive Director of GLISI), Jennie Welch (Ch...

Educators are Hidden Heroes.

This week, communities around the country pause to recognize the people doing some of the most demanding and meaningful work in public life.

Join us today in thanking a teacher or educator who has made a difference in your life. And if you need a pick-me-up, check out the incredible stories of impact we gathered through our 2025 Hidden Heroes campaign earlier this school year– each and every nominated hero is shaping their community in a positive way.

See the full gallery here: https://hiddenheroes.glisi.org/2025/gallery

A question worth sitting with: when did you last examine your own blind spots as a leader?

Self-reflection is one of those things school leaders universally believe in — and rarely have time for.

But research is clear: leaders who examine themselves objectively, who understand how they're perceived by others, and who build habits of mindful presence lead more effectively and sustain themselves far longer in demanding roles.

That's why we created the Actionable Self-Reflection section of our free SEL Toolkit. It's a curated set of resources organized around three questions leaders can return to again and again:

→ How can I see my own blind spots?→ How can I respond more productively to everyday stress?→ How can I define the kind of leader I want to be?

No login. No cost. Just good thinking, for the people doing hard work.

Explore it at glisi.org/sel-toolkit/actionable-self-reflection

To every leader doing this work in hard conditions — thank you.

Spring is a season that school leaders know well. The calendar is full, the decisions are heavy, and the finish line still feels far.

And yet, every day, principals walk into buildings and choose to show up for their teachers. Superintendents navigate impossible budget conversations and still fight for their students. Teachers hold their classrooms together with creativity, patience, and heart.

We don't take lightly the privilege of walking alongside people doing this work.

To the school leaders, educators, and community partners across Georgia who inspire what we do — this season, and always, thank you.