Reset, Renew, and Refocus Instructional Leadership

Richard Ramos • Cahn Fellow 2022

In a rapidly changing educational landscape, the Northridge Knights embarked on a transformative journey. A journey that transitioned from focusing on operational safety to a commitment to instructional leadership in a post-pandemic era. This narrative chronicles the steps to reset, renew, and refocus instructional leadership while highlighting its empowering impact on the Northridge Knights' educational community.

This journey, however, was not without challenges. With the influx of new initiatives from our District’s newly appointed Superintendent and operational tasks continuing to demand a majority of our time and attention, the struggle to effectively allocate time to improve instruction persisted. Despite these challenges, our focus on instructional leadership remained unwavering and yielded notable results. 

At the end of the 2022-2023 academic school year, data from District-wide assessments, Renaissance and iReady, underscored the significance of prioritizing instructional leadership. The purposeful shifting to instructional leadership resulted in Northridge Knights' Renaissance and iReady data trending higher than most of the Superintendent's 100 focus schools, placing Northridge among this cohort's top five percent of secondary schools. This achievement reflects the positive correlation between an increased focus on instructional leadership and improved student outcomes and academic excellence.