Leadership Institute San Diego – 2025

During Leadership Institute, state leaders reflect on their identity and its impact on GLEAM™ leadership. Leaders apply an “equity lens” to their mindset and practices by analyzing themselves and the educational policies and system leaders they oversee.

Leaders then:

• Examine how their beliefs fuel the existence or spread of unproductive policies and or instructional models within their state.
• Collaborate and seek input from their peers in other state leadership positions.
• Identify factors and specific trends in their roles that influence their decision-making.
• Come away with tools and guidelines to support decision-making, collaborative culture-building, and achieving state goals.

During Leadership Institute, district leaders reflect on their identity and its impact on GLEAM™ leadership. Leaders apply an “equity lens” to their mindset and practices by analyzing themselves and the educational policies and school operations they oversee.

Leaders then:

• Examine how their actions may unproductively affect instructional models throughout their district.
• Collaborate and seek input from their peers in other district leadership positions.
• Identify factors and specific trends in their roles that influence their decision-making.
• Come away with tools and guidelines to support decision-making, collaborative culture-building, and achieving district goals.

During the Leadership Institute, principals are guided to reflect on their roles as leaders in educational equity and operationalizing GLEAM™ instruction within a school system. Principals will apply an “equity lens” to their mindset and practices by analyzing themselves and the systems they lead.

Principals then:

• Examine unproductive mindsets to define a problem of practice that impacts their ability to model and foster the GLEAM leadership qualities and promote GLEAM instruction.
• Collaborate and seek input from other principals.
• Identify critical elements of systems and structures to refine their problem of practice with an enhanced understanding of the school leadership team’s collective function.
• Come away with an action plan to lead GLEAM instructional practices and scale the attributes of GLEAM leadership among their leadership team.

During the Leadership Institute, school-based leaders are guided to reflect on their identity and its impact on their leadership practices. School-based leaders apply an “equity lens” to their mindset and practices by considering whether those practices align with the attributes of GLEAM™ leadership.

Instructional Coaches, Academic Directors, and Lead Teachers then:

• Examine district policies and their impact on student outcomes to define a problem of practice to address productive shifts in policy and approach.
• Collaborate and seek input from other school-based leaders.
• Identify critical elements of systems and structures that unproductively impact student achievement.
• Come away with an action plan to incorporate GLEAM instructional practices and embody the attributes of GLEAM leadership.

This pathway is for Principals, Assistant Principals, Teachers, Literacy Coaches, Teacher Leaders, District Leaders.

The Elementary Reading Academy provides an overview of five critical topics of literacy: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Educators will deepen their knowledge of effective literacy practices to better identify what to look for in classroom instruction. Educators will also gain insight into incorporating culturally responsive pedagogy by centering grade-level, engaging, affirming, and meaningful — GLEAM™ — reading instruction.

Participant Outcomes

• Understand the science of reading and the five essential components of effective, evidence-based reading instruction.
• Learn how grade-level, engaging, affirming, and meaningful — GLEAM™ — can be incorporated into literacy instruction for all students.
• Leave with models for developing vocabulary and teaching literature and informational texts.
• Learn what to look for in classroom instruction.

This pathway is for Principals, Assistant Principals, Teachers, Literacy Coaches, Teacher Leaders, District Leaders.

The Adolescent Reading Academy equips educators with an overview of how the science of reading informs effective, standards-aligned instruction for middle and high school students who are fluent readers but still experience comprehension difficulties, as well as for students who have not yet mastered foundational reading skills. Educators will be equipped with the knowledge and skills to support instruction that accelerates reading proficiency in a differentiated manner with instruction that is grade-level, engaging, affirming, and meaningful. Educators will receive tools to identify what to look for in classroom instruction. The first two days focus on developing vocabulary knowledge and comprehension strategies for literary and informational texts. Day 3 focuses on decoding instruction and fluency development with the knowledge needed to make instructional decisions for students with reading difficulties.

Participant Outcomes

• Understand the Science of Reading related to adolescent literacy.
• Learn and practice evidence-based methods to directly teach important content vocabulary and teach students to decode unknown words.
• Understand validated research in comprehension instruction with instructional techniques that have broad application in both narrative and informational text.
• Learn how grade-level, engaging, affirming, and meaningful — GLEAM™ — can be incorporated into literacy instruction for all students.
• Learn what to look for in classroom instruction.