Harvard Leadership Program
Applications closed
We will not be selecting a 2025 cohort. To stay up to date about future cohorts, join our email list.
Since 2008, the Charles Butt Foundation has sponsored over 1,600 principals and other educational leaders across the state to attend training at the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Principals’ Center. The center offers a variety of professional development programs designed to empower and inspire school leaders.
We will not be selecting a 2025 cohort. Applications for the 2026 cohort will open in late 2025 or early 2026. Please join our mailing list and follow us on social media to find out when applications for the 2026 cohort will open.
We recognize the critical role of human capital in building student achievement. Absent a higher salary structure for educators, the most powerful incentive to retain effective teachers is supportive leadership. Once principals return from their transformative summer at Cambridge, we work to continuously support and develop them professionally as part of our statewide network of school leaders.
Principal alumni join the Charles Butt Foundation Regional Leadership Collaborative, which connects alumni in regional groups, visit each other’s campuses, conduct instructional rounds, share best practices, and problem-solve on current issues in education. Through these connections, principals are empowered to work together to create change at the campus and district levels.
The Charles Butt Foundation covers all airfare, lodging, and tuition expenses, as well as a stipend for each cohort member. While at Cambridge, the Charles Butt Foundation supports principals in networking, setting goals, and developing action plans for when they return to their campuses. The director of leadership development attends the program with the school leaders. Upon returning, the program director conducts campus visits throughout the year to share resources and give feedback on the implementation of ideas and action plans from the Harvard institutes. The Charles Butt Foundation’s marketing team sends out periodic digital newsletters and also visits alumni on campus to capture personal stories about their week at Harvard. These leadership stories are told through the use of photos, videos, and other multimedia, and are published on our blog.
The immersive Havard learning experience, in tandem with the regional leadership collaborative, 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.
Director of Leadership Development
Check out our other statewide programs