Amanda Graham
ST. PAULS — A local elementary school principal has been selected to participate in the Leverage Leadership Institute Fellowship program which provides high-performing principals with opportunities to sharpen their skills and become even more effective instructional leaders.
St. Pauls Elementary Principal Amanda Graham has been selected to join the 2023-2024 cohort of the Leverage Leadership Institute Fellowship.
“The LLI Fellowship is a selective opportunity for great leaders to become extraordinary by joining a diverse community of principals and principal supervisors to drive impact in schools of all types across the country and the world,” said Kathleen Sullivan, Leverage Leadership Institute Senior Partner.
The fellowship program, which targets “high-performing principals and principal managers,” will span one year, according to the Relay Graduate School of Education’s website.
Graham is very excited about the opportunity to grow as a leader and continue to make a positive impact on the education of local schoolchildren.
“I believe my work in the Relay National Principal Supervisors Academy program has strengthened me as the instructional leader within my own school and as the principal supervisor for the schools I coach directly,” Graham said.
“I am looking forward to growing towards mastery as a principal supervisor. The work that LLI (Leverage Leadership Institute) will provide me with is just what I need to strengthen my leadership skills in education. I am beyond blessed to have received this opportunity in my career,” she added.
Graham said her work in the Relay NPSA through Leverage Leadership has made a real difference. The principal said she can see a positive change since the implementation of Leverage Leadership within the district as a turnaround model for school improvement.
“The work initially began with the rollout of schoolwide systems centered around student and staff culture on every school campus in the district. From there, we began the creation of instructional leadership teams on every school campus. Lastly, we narrowed our focus on the observation and feedback monitoring and coaching cycle to be used districtwide,” she said.
“The achievement my students displayed last year during my first year of implementing the work in Leverage Leadership is a true testament to the work of Relay,” Graham said.
She also added that operations have changed within the schools she supervises.
Those schools are using real-time feedback during classroom walkthroughs to support educators and maximize instruction, she said. Instructional leadership team members at those schools also receive coaching about trends seen in the schools. School leaders are also creating, identifying and providing some professional development opportunities at the school level to support teachers.
The LLI Fellowship is a very selective program, according to Relay GSE’s website.
“[W]e look for leaders who are in the top 10% of schools in their local district or state and have led student outcomes to double-digit gains,” according to the website.
“This program will provide passionate, effective leaders with the tools to achieve even larger-scale impact for children and schools around the world,” the website states.
Graham looks forward to her work in the LLI Fellowship and continues to press forward with the mindset that the Leverage Leadership model will continue its track record to better schools, educators, administrators, and education as a whole within PSRC.
“If someone would have told me how my work in the Leverage Leadership program through Relay would have changed and grown me as the instructional leader I am today, I probably wouldn’t have believed them,” she said. “However, today I am a stronger coach and leader than I have ever been during my twenty-plus years in education.”
PSRC Superintendent Dr. Freddie Williamson commended Graham for her selection to participate in the LLI Fellowship.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for Amanda to hone her skills as an effective leader and to add more tools to her toolbox to make a difference in our schools,” Williamson said.
“We are proud of the work she is doing and her passion for providing our students with the best educational opportunities possible. We know she will continue to do great things and this fellowship is another vehicle in which she will use to carry out her work,” he said.