Since 2008, the Charles Butt Foundation has proudly sponsored over 1600 school leaders through our Raising School Leaders program. This summer marks a significant milestone of 16 years of investment in the professional growth of Texas education leaders. This substantial commitment, amounting to over $10 million, has bolstered these leaders individually and contributed to enriching their schools and communities across the state.
The Raising School Leaders program includes a week-long institute at The Principals’ Center at Harvard Graduate School of Education and yearlong participation in a community of practice focused on campus improvement and individual leadership development. Yet, the investment and support are much greater. All participants become part of an alumni network and receive ongoing professional development, shared learning, and connection for years to come.
The immersive Havard learning experience, in tandem with the community of practice, has been described as transformative by both new and seasoned leaders, propelling positive change in their schools. This cumulative impact extends to hundreds of thousands of Texas students.
We asked alums from across the years to share what being part of this program has meant to them personally, professionally, and to the school communities they lead. These are their powerful insights.
Dr. Lucila Gutierrez: I had the opportunity to attend the Harvard Institute in 2012.
Jorge Mendez: We were actually in the same cohort in 2015.
Robert Webb: 2009. I went to the Harvard Leadership [Program] back in 2009.
Liz Hilcher: We were fortunately chosen to attend Harvard last summer with the School Turnaround Leadership Training.
Wendy McMullen: 2009 for the Art of Leadership Program: Improving Schools.
Dr. Cheryl Henry: The 2011-12 school year.
Michael Semmler: 2014.
Paul Covey: 2008.
Nakita Brewer: The 2022 Institute at Harvard. And it was a spectacular experience.
Michele Sparkman: It was outstanding. That’s a once-in-a-lifetime, I think, opportunity.
Text on screen: We asked program alumni to share key insights from this professional learning experience.
Dr. Kris Mitzner: At the time, I was a principal of an elementary school in the middle of transition to Title 1. And so it was perfect timing to build an alliance of other people and learn lots of things about structures and strategies, and implementing systemic change. And then how you cultivate that over time.
Dr. Sanée Bell: I was transitioning from an elementary principalship to a middle school principalship so the timing was perfect. It really set me up with how to best engage with my community, especially adolescent students, which sometimes can be a little bit difficult, because they want their parents nowhere near their school and their parents want so much to be part of the school. And learning how to do that through the Family Engagement Institute was very beneficial and really helped with the transition.
Michael Thomas: One of the biggest ones was on family engagement by Dr. Mapp, hands down my favorite – probably my favorite professors speaking ever. And just thinking about how we give parents a seat at the table versus just having them participate in activities that we do.
Dr. Monica Salas-Truhill: The problem of practice for me was focusing on our culture, and creating that sense of urgency. And so everything that we listened to had some sort of connection to what I wanted to come back and do.
Robert (Bobby) Truhill: I was [at] a new school. We had only finished our second year when I got to have this opportunity of going and learning at Harvard and so I wanted to impact my culture, but also instruction, and impact with kids, and professional learning amongst the teachers. But then we had so much great learning at Harvard, I already know what I want to focus on for next year, like my next big rock. So being able to take that [learning] over multiple years is really great.
Marie Vinson: Just by sending us to Harvard and being able to help us see the realization that we make more than just an impact on the students. We’re helping one community at a time. It’s one student at a time, one community at a time. And it will keep going and it’s going to eventually to evolve into something bigger.
Sarah Venegas: It’s been a life-changing experience to have someone care enough about what I do in little old El Paso, Texas, at Eastwood Middle School, to invest in me to be able to impact the families of my students, my students directly, my teachers, but also me personally. Because everything that I learned at Harvard, there’s a thread through my entire personal life about it. He [Charles Butt] changed my life.
Juan Guzman: Yeah, completely.
Text on screen: Over 1600 school leaders sponsored.
10 leadership initiatives and programs
20 regions of Texas represented
16 years of alumni connections
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