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On the forefront of teacher leadership

A Truist Leadership Institute partnership in North Carolina helps teachers become leaders in their schools without having to leave the classroom for an administrative role.

By Margaret Moffett 

K–12 teachers will tell you: They’re more than just instructors. Each day includes many other roles: from crossing guard and floor sweeper to bulletin board artist and computer technician.

But leader? That one rarely makes the list. Most teachers will deny that they are leaders compared to the principals and superintendents they work with.

Increasingly, however, school administrators across the country are embracing the notion of K–12 teacher leadership — building the skills and influence of extraordinary instructors and asking them to share their knowledge and innovative strategies with colleagues while remaining full-time classroom teachers.

“When you’ve got a really awesome teacher who is ready to grow in their career, you don’t want them to see leaving the classroom as the only option,” said Rosalind Guerrie, Truist Leadership Institute senior vice president and educational leadership programs manager. “It’s important to find some way to allow them to stay in the classroom with the kids, while also being a leader at the school and in the district.”

Truist Leadership Institute is helping support a generation of teacher-leaders through a partnership with the N.C. Center for the Advancement of Teaching (NCCAT), which provides professional development to teachers working in North Carolina’s 115 public school districts.

Truist has donated to NCCAT since 2014. In 2015, TLI began in-kind gifts: leadership training in workshops by consultants like Guerrie to veteran and beginning teachers. 

“Our work with NCCAT helps teachers become mentors to others while they’re also continuing to demonstrate their instructional talent,” Guerrie explained.

About NCCAT

Founded in 1985, NCCAT receives the majority of its funding from the state of North Carolina. It focuses on professional teaching standards, literacy standards, content area standards, and best practices for instructional delivery. Its main campus is near Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, N.C., with a second facility on Ocracoke Island on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. 

Because COVID-19 raises safety concerns with travel and in-person meetings, NCCAT has expanded its online offerings. It now offers 28 self-paced courses, which served educators in 110 school districts last spring, according to Dr. Karen Sumner, NCCAT’s chief academic officer.

The Leadership Institute’s contributions are directed at NCCAT’s Teacher of the Year and Beginning Teacher of the Year programs. NCCAT selects honorees from each district, then brings them together for separate weeklong workshops on its campuses. 

Bringing Leadership Institute instruction to teachers

Guerrie is an instructor in both of the workshops, spending a half-day helping the teachers explore how to lead change from where they are — as leaders in their classrooms, schools, and communities. During her sessions, Guerrie shows participants how to:

  • measure their current ability to lead change
  • understand effective behaviors for change leadership
  • develop skills in change leadership
  • learn how to generate support for change efforts
  • improve their ability to lead change initiatives

The goal is to help them gain self-awareness and insight into how their beliefs drive their behaviors and how those behaviors impact the results they achieve.

Truist Leadership Institute also helps cover the cost of substitutes in the classroom so teachers can attend NCCAT workshops when they overlap with the academic year.

Sumner said that during the Leadership Institute portion of the NCCAT workshops, Guerrie zeroes in on the skills teachers need to become leaders within their schools and districts — including “how you learn to make change happen with one hand tied behind your back and blindfolded.”

“What [Guerrie] really does well is promote that sense of self-awareness, that there are areas of strengths and areas for growth in each of us, particularly in terms of how we lead,” said Sumner.

Turning instructors into teacher-leaders

Darcy Grimes, NCCAT’s senior STEM innovator and director of the Beginning Teacher of the Year program, enjoyed being a “fly on the wall” during Guerrie’s portion of the weeklong workshop.

“To see the impact that it makes on all of the teachers — and their facial expressions and their thoughtful conversations — is just very inspiring,” said Grimes, the statewide teacher of the year during the 2012–13 school year.

Both Grimes and Sumner said Guerrie’s portion was hands-down the crowd favorite, something that was borne out by course evaluations:

“There is so much that I took away from this week,” one participant wrote, “but I feel that the most valuable portion for me was from [Truist Leadership Institute] understanding the emotional response to change. Coming from a school with many economically disadvantaged students, I survive in an atmosphere of constant change. I feel that if I help my administration understand this principle, we can better make positive change and help with staff buy-in on new initiatives.”

“The [TLI] section was exceptional in a lot of ways,” another wrote. “[Guerrie’s] materials were well developed, practical, and applicable. I was able to use them to self-assess and saw how I could use them with others for their own self-assessment.”

At the end of Guerrie’s session, participants leave ready to add “teacher-leader” to the list of roles they fill, Sumner said.

“It sounds like an exaggeration to describe it as life changing, but it really is,” she said. “[The teachers] go back to their schools and work on this empowered feeling of — I can make a difference. I can make change happen. I can make my community better.” 

What [Guerrie] really does well is promote that sense of self-awareness, that there are areas of strengths and areas for growth in each of us, particularly in terms of how we lead. —Dr. Karen Sumner, Chief Academic Officer, NCCAT

Supporting NCCAT fits the mission of Truist Leadership Institute to support public school leaders

Work with organizations like NCCAT enables Truist Leadership Institute to further its commitment to support communities’ futures. For more information about such initiatives, please contact Senior Vice President and Educational Leadership Programs Manager Rosalind Guerrie at Rosalind.Guerrie@truist.com or call (336) 665-3300.