Celebrating Three Lead by Learning Partner Schools Named 2026 California Distinguished Schools
We are thrilled to congratulate three long-time Lead by Learning partner schools, Alameda High School in Alameda Unified School District, Luther Burbank Middle School in Los Angeles Unified School District, and Willard Middle School in Berkeley Unified School District, on being named 2026 California Distinguished Schools by State Superintendent Tony Thurmond.
They are among just 408 middle and high schools across the state to earn this prestigious recognition for exemplary student outcomes.
This honor reflects years of dedicated work by educators, leaders, and school communities, and we are proud to have been part of their journey to ensure educators thrive and students succeed.
Alameda High School is part of our broader partnership with Alameda Unified School District that began in 2022. In addition to our district-wide work supporting school leaders and PLC leaders, over the past two years, we have provided 1:1 monthly principal coaching and support for the instructional leadership team to embed a culture of teacher learning into professional collaboration. This recognition is a testament to the commitment of Alameda High’s educators, leaders, and school community to the power of educator learning to transform outcomes for students.
Luther Burbank Middle School in Los Angeles partnered with Lead by Learning from 2022 to 2025. We worked alongside their Instructional Leadership Team to strengthen teacher leaders’ agency and capacity to lead meaningful learning and collaboration during department time all in service of reaching their student equity goals. Department chairs Anna Wohl and Gustavo Lopez wrote about how this work transformed their cross-department collaboration, describing how repeated structures for Public Learning and shared practices began funneling their work toward a common direction, like rivers merging into a watershed to move the conversation from content-specific curriculum to teaching and student learning.
Willard Middle School in Berkeley partnered with us from 2019 through 2024. Over the years, we supported staff learning, developed their instructional leadership team to lead inquiry-based professional learning, and provided coaching for their principal. The deep inquiry work at Willard is captured in blogs by teachers like Eric Huang, who used “street data” to understand students’ math identities and redesign his classroom around engagement, confidence, and joy, and Andrea Prichett, who created space for focal student partnerships that transformed how she assessed and connected with her students.
At Lead by Learning, we believe that when educators and leaders are supported to lead their own learning — through inquiry, collaboration, and reflection — students thrive. These three schools exemplify what’s possible when school communities commit to that vision over time and build the conditions, capacity, and collective will to create the schools students need.
Congratulations to the educators, leaders, students, and families at Alameda High School, Luther Burbank Middle School, and Willard Middle School. This recognition is well deserved, and it has been an honor to be your partner.
