C!E utilizes an inclusive-design process that combines the efforts—and budget line items—of community engagement and strategic planning to authentically engage parents, students, educators, and the community. The process results in a strategic plan that energizes your community because it addresses real issues, sets meaningful goals around them, and plans and implements key strategies to make sure what gets planned gets done.
And just as importantly, it creates a foundation of durable leadership for you that can withstand rapid shifts in political opinions and uncertain policy.
DISTRICT LEADERSHIP WEBINAR SERIES
Public education leaders face unprecedented challenges in today’s political climate, with every decision under scrutiny and public trust in schools declining. This environment has led to high superintendent turnover, as politics tops the list of stressors for educators. To address these issues, the Center for Innovation in Education (C!E) and Getting Smart have partnered to offer a webinar series, “Leading With Community, Planning for Impact,” designed to equip district leaders with practical strategies to navigate political volatility, build trust, and foster a durable leadership legacy through an inclusive co-designed community visioning and strategic planning process. This series is rooted in C!E’s community-centered strategic work with districts and is a strong example of addressing the Why (Community Vision) and What Next (Strategy) components of the Getting Smart Innovation Framework.
Make politics Work for You (1/3)
This session offers practical tools to help district leaders strengthen their credibility, build trust across divided communities, and lead with integrity under pressure. You’ll explore how to use political dynamics to increase your legitimacy—not just survive the moment, but shape the future. Walk away with strategies grounded in real-world district experience, not theory.
Strategic Planning for Legitimacy, Impact, and Survival (2/3)
This session highlights how district leaders in Burlington, Vt., Bellevue, Wash., and Vicksburg, Miss. co-created strategic plans that didn’t just comply with state mandates—they galvanized progress. You’ll learn the steps these leaders took to set bold visions, redefine accountability, and build political capital through authentic community engagement. This is planning not for planning’s sake, but for survival, legitimacy, and lasting impact.
Your Strategic Plan is Done. Now What? (3/3)
Learn how two districts brought their plans to life by engaging students, families, and educators not just as stakeholders, but as co-implementers. You’ll see how this approach defused resistance, built shared ownership, and led to meaningful progress. We’ll explore how aligning follow-through with learner-centered values creates a culture of agency—one where every part of the system models inclusive, dynamic learning.
What Sets the C!E Process Apart?
C!E believes that systems transformation requires leaders and stakeholders to practice new habits of working together. We model these habits in our processes, and support district leadership in adoption of them as well.
A Clear Path from Planning to Results
Our four-stage inclusive design process involves:
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Investing in diverse community leadership and collaboration.
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Building a Shared Vision with tangible outcomes like Portraits of Graduates that define critical knowledge, skills, and character attributes.
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Conducting Empathy Interviews for deep understanding and identification of community priorities.
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Establishing Reciprocity through shared metrics and observable benchmarks, fostering ongoing dialogue and collaboration.
Plans That Energize
C!E’s inclusive design process authentically engages parents, students, educators, and community members to create strategic plans that inspire your entire community.
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Solve real issues identified directly by your stakeholders
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Set ambitious, meaningful goals around identified challenges important to your community
Real Accountability
Deeper accountability requires transparency and trust. Our inclusive strategic planning approach ensures:
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Continuous engagement with your community to build lasting, meaningful alliances and shared responsibilities
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Honest, transparent reporting and progress monitoring that everyone trusts and understands
Durable Leadership
Sustainable leadership withstands political shifts and crises. C!E’s strategic process emphasizes developing leadership habits to:
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Ensure stability through community-generated problem statements, coalitions, planning, and ongoing engagement
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Equip your leaders with tools and frameworks that are guided by strategic clarity to navigate crises effectively
On average, our strategic planning process takes six months, engages 40 community members, and interviews more than 200 stakeholders, ensuring wide-ranging community input and buy-in.
Meet Your Advisors
Gretchen Morgan
Managing Partner
Gretchen has served as the associate commissioner of innovation at the Colo. Dept. of Education where she led strategic initiatives including design of an assessment pilot and competency-based learning, as well as overseeing the state's charter, postsecondary, and student re-engagement work. Morgan has also worked as a principal, curriculum and program developer, instructional and leadership coach, and an elementary school teacher.
Rita Harvey
Partner, Systems Transformation
Rita led the Assessment for Learning Project, an initiative that supports teachers, school and system leaders in transforming assessment policies and infrastructure, and has supported a number of inclusive design projects with large districts across the country. She holds a Ph.D. in Education, Culture and Society from University of Pennsylvania.
Paul Leather
Partner, Policy and Local
& State Partnerships
Among his roles, Paul has served as the deputy commissioner of the Dept. of Education in New Hampshire, as well as the N.H. state dir. of the Division of Career Technology and Adult Learning, overseeing numerous statewide initiatives and programs. He led the development of a first-in-the-nation next generation educational assessment and accountability model, “Performance Assessment of Competency Education,” PACE, first approved as a pilot program by the U.S. Dept. of Education in Mar. 2015. Later this effort formed the foundation of NH’s Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority approval.
Doannie Tran
Partner, Liberatory Co-Creation
Prior to joining CIE, Doannie led the Innovative Programs Division at Fulton County Schools and the Academics and Professional Learning Department in Boston Public Schools. His primary work currently focuses on community-driven assessment and accountability redesign in Kentucky and the scaling of deeper learning in Georgia. Doannie received his doctorate in Education Leadership from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.