The Lead by Learning Certificate Program

The Lead by Learning Certificate Program is available for educators who participate in our District, Education Service Agency, and School partnerships. Some partnerships may choose to pre-pay for their educators in advance others allow their individual teachers or leaders to enroll in the program individually.

Current Lead by Learning Partners: Register Here

Lead by Learning is committed to developing and retaining leaders of color in education. One way we do this is by offering fully funded fellowships to leaders of color who would like to participate in the Lead by Learning Certificate program.  Register Here

The program guides learners through three modules plus a Module 0, which launches educators’ learning journeys with a single journal prompt designed to deepen self-awareness.

  • Module 0: Reflecting on Self
  • Module 1: Clarifying Purpose
  • Module 2: Refining Practices
  • Module 3: Understanding Impact

Each module includes a framing overview video and includes one 1-hour Connects. Connects are learning spaces where participants can access thought partnership across the Lead by Learning network. Modules are published throughout the year with completion deadlines. Participants access learning experiences and content through our online learning management system and use this system to turn in the program’s required reflections. The program also includes an asynchronous discussion space where learners can start and respond to discussion topics.

  • Values multiple perspectives and seeks thought partnerships
  • Deeply listens with empathy and care, looking first for assets/connections
  • Builds relationships that cultivate a culture of professional respect, trust, agency, and distributed leadership
  • Supports rigorous learning steeped in SEL
  • Publicly models a learning stance (curiosity, vulnerability, trust, flexibility, adaptability)
  • Uses data to make adult and student learning visible
  • Adapts and improves by deepening self-awareness
  • Leads collaborative learning by experiencing and reflecting on conditions that supported their own learning
  • Puts students at the center of learning by identifying and returning to high leverage goals that target students’ needs
  • Communicates purpose and progress in humanizing, authentic ways to build awareness and support continuous improvement
  • Creates space to move beyond transactional compliance to curiosity and collective efficacy
  • Is driven by a moral imperative
A recent certificate graduate, Carol Lewis, composed the poem below as her final reflection.

What I Found

What I found this year, when doing this work, is that

loosening the grip of one’s own identify-bound perspective leads

to valuing multiple perspectives that add to the vision of a high quality program for our students

asking “What else do I need to know; what have I not thought about?” leads
to more power behind our continuous quality improvement process and better outcomes

deeply listening with empathy and caring leads

to identifying assets in others that I don’t possess and finding that the people I lead have wisdom that this moment needs

cultivating a culture of professional respect, trust, agency and distributed leadership leads

to building a program that is more responsive to the needs of our students that isn’t based just on my vision for the program, but the strengths of the people I lead who implement it

engaging in rigorous learning and braving uncomfortable conversations leads

to change, of how we think and act to improve the program and improve the outcomes for the students we serve
Carol Lewis
District Coordinator, Expanded Learning
Vallejo City Unified School District