Leadership and Action Network (LAN)

The Leadership in Action Network (LAN) was funded by the Jessie Ball DuPont Fund and coordinated through the Truman Pierce Institute at Auburn University. LAN focused on individual and school-level capacity building to improve instructional and student leadership. The long-term goal for the program was increasing student retention and performance through instructional improvement, action research, and cross-district networking.

The target population included eight impoverished school districts in rural Alabama with a total student population of 26,867. These districts (Bullock, Dallas, Fayette, Hale, Lee, Macon, Sumter, and Tallapoosa County Schools) were chosen for three reasons:

Existence of an already established working relationship between Truman Pierce Institute leadership and the administration in each district; thus helping to guarantee successful programming;
High poverty levels as shown by percentages of students on free/reduced lunch (75.2%) and the number of students living below the poverty level (36%); and
A history of struggling to meet school improvement goals for student achievement.

The Leadership in Action Network was developed based on lessons learned from previous work with initiatives such as the West Alabama Learning Coalition, and leadership academies such as the Instructional Improvement Institute and Sustaining School Success programs. Based upon data from needs assessments conducted in each of the eight school districts, participants requested more networking opportunities, leadership and grant writing training, student leadership development, on-going professional development, opportunities to collaborate and have visitations with other school districts, and engagement of local coordinators in communications within their districts. These requests were built into programming and, specifically, the goals of the Leadership in Action Network:

To create a sustainable leadership capacity building and action research network aimed at improving instructional leadership through professional development and action research;
To increase the leadership capacity of traditional and non-traditional student leaders in grades 5-12;
To increase grant-writing skills to ensure LAN and other programmatic sustainability;
To increase the college going rates of LAN students; and
To create a Critical Friends network to promote improvement and collaboration among the school districts.

To ensure the success of LAN programming, strategies for accomplishing the goals included:

Developing the capacity of local districts to identify and effectively network with local resources and to form mutually beneficial partnerships with stakeholders;
Identifying non-traditional student leaders, those young people with potential who have not made wise choices and/or have not performed to their potential, as well as traditional student leaders in grades 5-12 to participate in leadership capacity building training so they may serve as active participants in the action research networks. Student involvement helps to develop greater self-efficacy, resulting in improved student success.
Engaging students and teachers in working collaboratively with administrators to identify and resolve educational concerns, allowing all parties to become empowered, gain new insights about long-standing issues, take responsibility for issue resolution and educational reforms, and achieve a greater sense of buy-in for changes; and
Using these approaches to create a system for fostering innovation and success through collective reflection, dialogue, and research-based action.

Over 240 student leaders and 70 teacher leaders participated in focused school improvement efforts through LAN over the course of the three years. Highlights of the program for participants were their involvement in 2-3 day conferences/retreats, involvement in professional development and grant writing opportunities, and seeing the outcomes from their action research efforts.

Last Updated: May 24, 2012