Principal Impact Collaborative: Insight into four years of supporting public school leaders

Written by Catherine Worth, Program Manager

In honor of PIC Principals and school leaders everywhere, we are excited to officially launch our PIC Blog - a dedicated platform for recognizing and sharing the stories of our own PIC principals, as well as contributing insights from our own research and learnings on how best to support and empower school leaders in their roles.

As the new school year settles into place, the Principal Impact Collaborative (PIC) is embarking on its fourth year working to sustain and support our region’s most critical education-players: public school leaders. Founded on the premise that a campus leader, like the leader of any organization, is the foundation of school success, we believe that the best way to improve outcomes for students is to invest in, empower, and sustain the school leaders that serve them.

Over the last three years, the Principal Impact Collaborative is proud to have extended its reach to 48 leaders from across six DFW-area districts, creating a powerful network of participants and alumnae dedicated to transforming outcomes for schools and students. Collectively, PIC principals and alumnae have served over 37,000 DFW-area students, roughly 80% of whom are considered to be economically disadvantaged, and over 2,300 area teachers.
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Because we know that when students’ outcomes improve when they have access to educators who look like them, we have also committed to recruiting talented school leaders of color into our cohorts.  As a result, almost 75% of current participants and alumnae to date identify as people of color.

While we are proud of the critical role our program plays in strengthening and empowering our public school leaders, we are even more so humbled to work alongside many of the region’s elite principals.
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PIC principals are comprised of many first-generation college students and several first-generation Americans, each of whom work tirelessly to leverage their experiences to inspire students and families to push beyond the status-quo.  Some have served as founding principals, designing their schools from the ground up and opening up new opportunities within their communities; and many have transformed campuses into beacons of hope within neighborhoods, setting the tone for what is possible for students and families.

Though each leader has led their own unique journey and earned their own unique success as principals leading up to their time in PIC, they are each drawn to the program out of an innate desire to push past the limits of their own leadership in service of those around them.

These principals deserve to be invested in.  They deserve to be celebrated, and they deserve to have the profound impact they are making in their communities recognized.  Similarly, principals everywhere deserve to be championed, and to have their profession honored and supported.

To honor our PIC principals and the role of school leadership, we are excited to launch our PIC Blog —a dedicated platform for sharing the stories and recognizing the work of our own PIC principals, as well as for contributing insights from our own research and learnings on how best to support and empower school leaders. 

It is our hope that by sharing these stories and insights moving forward, more principals will feel inspired to lead boldly and innovatively on their campuses. Further, we hope to serve as a resource for our many partners in this work, such that they may be supported in their efforts to make informed decisions when determining how to build and sustain more strong school leaders across the region. 

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On behalf of our team, please join us in recognizing the great leaders that make up our PIC community!