What would it take to activate the truly transformative power of education so all children achieve their unique potential and shape their own destinies? We think that learner-centered leadership is a huge part of the answer.
What Is Learner-Centered Leadership?
Reimaging and redesigning how to educate young people so that all children can thrive in and transform the world is a special kind of challenge that calls for a special kind of leadership. Learner-centered leadership is an approach to educational leadership that places learners (of all ages) at the center of systems.
Learner-centered leaders work to create extraordinary learning for all by shifting their systems from offering one-size-fits-all experiences that often leave young people disconnected, bored, or locked in place, to providing learning experiences that are relevant, rigorous, and affirming; provide equal opportunities to every student; and are responsive to the demands and opportunities of the 21st century.
What Is the Superintendent Fellowship?
The Superintendent Fellowship is a cohort program in the 2025-2026 school year (November-April) for visionary superintendents and system leaders who share a commitment to putting the needs of learners front and center.
Interest and Nomination Form
Are you interested in learning more about the Superintendent Fellowship or nominating someone?
The lab is a diverse, close-knit community alongside an ever-growing network of like-minded peers on similar journeys to lead transformational change. The Superintendent Fellowship gives leaders protected time and space to explore real-life problems that test who they are as a learner-centered leader and test how their system is moving in its transformation towards learner-centeredness.
During the lab experience, leaders develop the skills and mindsets to:
- Explore their own values, identity, and deepest motivations in order to lead in more authentic and learner-centered ways
- Guide their own leadership actions, especially when faced with dilemmas or in the ‘heat of the fire’
- Develop others around them to be stronger learner-centered leaders
- Cultivate the conditions for learner-centered transformation across their systems
- Create a roadmap to address a leadership challenge their currently grappling with in their system
What Do Participants Say About the Superintendent Fellowship?
Participants say the Superintendent Fellowship provides a space to reflect on core beliefs and values, which helps them stay grounded when facing challenges, to share the burden and embrace vulnerability with a group of like-minded leaders, and to prioritize learner-centeredness.
The [Superintendent Fellowship] has created a much needed but rare space for leaders to come together and really analyze and self-reflect on their leadership and how it truly impacts the human beings in their system. As systems leaders we don’t always have the opportunity to just sit quietly and reflect on the work that we do. This lab not only gave us that space, but it also linked us to a magnificent professional network that I am grateful to have become a part of.
Dr. Tamara Willis, Superintendent, Susquehanna Township School District
Case Study
Lindsay Unified School District Considers How to Support Learner-Centered Leaders
Lindsay Unified School District (LUSD) has long prioritized a learner-centered approach, which places learners (of all ages) at the center of systems. Today, LUSD’s radically learner-centered design serves as an exemplar for education leaders across the country.
Cohort 6: 2025-2026
Dr. Adrienne Battle
Superintendent
Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools
Dr. Errick Greene
Superintendent
Jackson Public Schools
Flavia Puello-Perdomo
Chief of Schools
Office of Community Supports and Wellness, NYC Department of Education
Kathy Skeals
Superintendent
North Colonie Central Schools
The Leadership Framework supports participants with their leadership evolution:
How they understand their core: values, motivations, identities, dispositions
How this is expressed in their concept: personal beliefs and assumptions of what it means to be a learner-centered leader
How this is enacted through their competencies: skills at taking the most important actions of learner-centered leadership
How all of this enables a leader to influence their system’s conditions
How this all fits into a leader’s greater context: historical realities, demographics, politics, local-level pressures, and more
The LCLL framework supports participants with their leadership evolution:
- How they understand their core: values, motivations, identities, dispositions
- How this is expressed in their concept: personal beliefs and assumptions of what it means to be a learner-centered leader
- How this is enacted through their competencies: skills at taking the most important actions of learner-centered leadership
- How all of this enables a leader to influence their system’s conditions
- How this all fits into a leader’s greater context: historical realities, demographics, politics, local-level pressures, and more
Note: In 2025, we changed the name of this program from the “Learner-Centered Leadership Lab” (LCLL) to the Transcend Superintendent Fellowship for simplicity and clarity.
