Building Leadership Capacity to Transform Learning

VaLIN 5.0 built on the leadership-development model established in Cohort 4 while reconnecting that growth directly to the transformation of learning. The cohort included 119 participants from 19 school divisions, with a shared vision of developing leaders who could create the conditions for transformed learning communities and help students develop the durable skills reflected in Virginia’s 5Cs.

For the first time, participants followed two distinct pathways. Pathway A: Cross-Divisional Communities of Practice brought teams together around shared challenges such as activating learner profiles and durable skills, improving professional learning, strengthening balanced assessment systems, and engaging families and communities. Pathway B: Empowered Educational Leadership Development supported individual leaders in building leadership capacity through NELP-aligned goals, personalized learning plans, coaching, and reflection.

Across both pathways, participants used a problem of practice to ground their work, while coaching, in-person convenings, virtual learning, peer collaboration, and ongoing reflection helped move ideas toward implementation. Participants reported growth in their understanding of and intention to apply their learning, reinforcing VaLIN’s evolving model of developing individual leaders while simultaneously strengthening the systems they lead.