Leadership Standards

Welcome to Leadership Standards

Overview

Leadership standards establish and communicate expectations for the professional practice of school leaders. They create a shared language about school leadership and serve as the foundation for all principal preparation and school leadership development efforts.

In Utah, the Board has established expectations for effective leadership standards and district responsibilities for leadership standards. 

In addition, current research on leadership standards both supports and extends the expectations established by the Board.

Indicators of quality implementation of leadership standards from current research include:

  • Districts have adopted leadership standards.
  • District leadership standards include competencies that help identify the specific actions that effective school leaders engage in every day.
  • Districts use their leadership standards to inform district policies and practices across all principal pipeline domains.
  • Districts regularly review their standards and competencies as part of a process of continuous improvement.
  • Districts engage key stakeholders in the adoption, use, and review of their leadership standards and competencies.

Educational Leadership Standards

The Utah State Standards for Educational Leadership Standards (UELS) were updated in 2018. The goal behind the revised standards was to better articulate the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that Utah educators need to develop as they prepare for and serve as principals. The standards are intended to be used as a tool to guide the ongoing and continuous professional development of principals. They are also a required component of a principal evaluation system.

 Utah State Standards for Educational Leadership

In addition, the Utah Leading through Effective, Actionable, and Dynamic (ULEAD) Education has created a series of Leadership Toolkits to support the implementation of Utah Educational Leadership Standards (UELS). There is one toolkit for each of the seven strands within the UELS. 

Strand 1:Visionary Leadership

Strand 2:Teaching and Learning

Strand 3:Management for Learning

Strand 4:Community Engagement

Strand 5:Ethical Leadership

Strand 6:School Improvement

Strand 7:Equity and Cultural Responsiveness

Research

Wallace Foundation

A series of reports on an effort to help school districts develop effective school leadership district wide. Leadership standards are highlighted throughout.

There’s no one recipe for improving state policy on school leadership, but a set of considerations about matters including potential policy levers can help policymakers. Leadership standards are one of the policy levers explored.

The impact of an effective principal is stronger and broader than previously thought, making it difficult to envision a higher return on investment in K-12 education than the cultivation of high-quality school leadership, according to this research synthesis. This report includes the identification of three skills and four behaviors of principals that are linked to benefits for students and schools.

This guide is designed to help school districts take stock of and improve their policies, processes and structures related to school leadership​.

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