Ongoing Initiatives

Building a Rhode Island Cohesive Leadership System

Over the last two years, The Rhode Island Center for School Leadership (RICSL) in partnership with the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) have focused together on the goal of building a Rhode Island Cohesive Leadership System.

As a result:

    • The partnership brought together education leaders which included leader constituencies and teacher unions throughout the state. These education leaders developed a set of leadership standards for Rhode Island. The Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education adopted these Standards for Educational Leaders in Rhode Island in December 2008.
    • A statewide Commissioner’s Forum was held on January 22, 2009 for education leaders to introduce the standards and to provide an initial opportunity for leaders to become involved with the work relative to the development of a cohesive system. The conference brought together education leaders which included representatives of the Board of Regents, the Board of Governors, RIDE, Higher Education, School Committees, Superintendents, Assistant Superintendents, Central Office Administrators, Principals and School Administrators, Special Education, Unions and teacher leaders, and State Professional Organizations and Regional Collaboratives.
    • Standards Awareness Workshops were held throughout February, 2009 to provide a more in-depth look and comprehensive understanding of the newly adopted leadership standards.
    • The Rhode Island Leadership Café was held on March 27, 2009. This leadership café was designed to engage education leaders throughout the state to explore four major areas of leadership development: Recruitment, Preparation, Training, and Evaluation.
    • Education leaders throughout the state and representative of all leader roles gathered for the Rhode Island Leadership Summit on May 20, 2009. The purpose of the Summit was to provide leaders an opportunity to be introduced to and to review the newly developed Rhode Island Cohesive Leadership System –Framework for Action, to provide input to the Framework from a practitioner’s perspective, to be introduced to high leverage policy development tools and to recommend high leverage leadership policies that are aligned with the Leadership System-Framework for Action.
    • The work of multiple educators mentioned previously produced the final document, “Building a R.I. Cohesive Leadership System, Framework for Action: Environmental Scan"that highlights the cornerstones as well as the gaps in our present leadership system.
    • Education leaders convened throughout the year to develop a companion document, “Articulation of the Standards for Educational Leadership in Rhode Island” to provide clarity regarding what the standards “look like in practice”.


This year, RICSL has been awarded another grant from the Rhode Island Foundation to advance the leadership agenda further. The intent is to:

  • Continue to strategically plan and remain focused on the key areas of: Recruitment, Preparation, Training, and Evaluation.
  • Enhance the system of supports to leadership by developing a coherence between preparation and training
  • Continue to disseminate leadership information and tools as appropriate in order to prepare districts for the upcoming leadership requirements


The RICSL Advisory Board members will collaborate to ensure the advancement of this agenda, build leadership capacity between and among their respective members, and align their work with leadership system priorities as well as Commissioner’s Gist’s strategic priorities, “Transforming Education in Rhode Island”.