Start with a shared goal.
A brief opening conversation with the sponsor and participating leader connects the development goal to a current school priority.
Coaching & development for school leaders
Own your practice.
Move the work forward.
Schools are complex. Your next leadership move can make a difference. Strengthen how you lead through a real challenge in your school—with focused coaching for principals and assistant principals.
Explore the Coaching →Founded by LaKiesha George · School leader since 2014
A real school priorityGround the development in work that matters.
A change in your practiceIdentify what you will do differently.
Evidence of progressObserve, reflect, and adjust your next move.
Why The Active Element
Your leadership is part of the equation.
Your decisions, presence, and follow-through shape the conditions for teaching and learning. Coaching creates space to examine that contribution and strengthen it.
The name draws on the idea of a catalyst: an active participant that helps a process move forward. Here, the work is developing your capacity to clarify, model, coach, and sustain meaningful practice.
Every scholar deserves conditions that support learning across the school. Leaders have an active role in creating them.
Individual professional development
Leadership Into Practice
A six-week coaching engagement built around one school priority and the leadership practice needed to move it forward.
Bring a challenge you keep revisiting: inconsistent teacher follow-through, feedback that is not changing instruction, delegated work that keeps returning to you, or an initiative that loses momentum.
We examine what is happening, identify your next leadership actions, and return to evidence as you apply them.
Discuss Your Coaching Goals →The coaching cycle
Notice. Act. Learn.
- Focus the work. Define the challenge, examine your current approach, and agree on a leadership goal and signs of progress.
- Apply and adjust. Review evidence, rehearse a leadership move or conversation, and refine the next action.
- Strengthen and sustain. Examine progress, address remaining barriers, and establish how you will continue the work.
You receive: a focused implementation plan, an action record, and a closing progress summary. One brief written check-in is included between sessions.
You apply the work between sessions. Session times, scope, and investment are agreed in writing before the engagement begins.
For superintendents, principal supervisors & school executives
Develop the leader.
Advance the priority.
Sponsor focused coaching for a principal or assistant principal who needs sustained support applying your organization’s priorities in their school.
Develop through the work.
The leader practices between coaching sessions, examines what happened, and strengthens how they lead adults and implementation.
Make progress visible.
A closing conversation reviews agreed evidence and next steps. Reporting boundaries and coaching confidentiality are established at the outset.
For a principal developing an AP
Build coaching around a responsibility the AP needs to own, such as teacher feedback, adult accountability, or schoolwide implementation.
For districts and networks
Discuss individual sponsorship or a small group of separately coached leaders. Each engagement has a defined scope, schedule, and proposal.
What meaningful progress can look like
A clearer move.
A stronger practice.
Schools have many moving parts. We define a manageable focus and look for evidence that the leader’s actions are helping the work advance.
A single session can also provide a starting point: a 75-minute working conversation to examine one challenge and identify practical next steps. Ongoing coaching provides the opportunity to apply, review, and adjust.
01
Clarity
The leader can describe the expected practice and who owns it.
The leader can describe the expected practice and who owns it.
02
Application
The leader models, rehearses, or implements a specific action.
The leader models, rehearses, or implements a specific action.
03
Follow-through
Feedback and subsequent observation connect to the same priority.
Feedback and subsequent observation connect to the same priority.
04
Growing ownership
Others become more prepared to carry their responsibilities.
Others become more prepared to carry their responsibilities.
Meet the founder
LaKiesha George
School leader. Builder. Coach.
LaKiesha brings more than two decades in education and school leadership experience dating to 2014. Her work spans founding a K–8 school, school improvement, instructional leadership, adult culture, and leadership development across Pennsylvania and New York.
Her approach comes from working alongside teams: setting a vision, making expectations clear, modeling practice, coaching implementation, recognizing progress, and developing others to carry the work forward.
In one arrival improvement effort, she modeled a shared approach, coached deans as they took the lead, and established clear adult responsibilities. Leaders continued taking attendance, coaching staff, and leading the cafeteria after she stepped back.
The leader leaves with something to do differently—and a way to examine whether it is helping.
Visible Breakdowns · From The Active Element
What the reminder missed
The reminder went out. The same problem happened again.
Several people can explain the expectation, monitor it, and send reminders. Ask who owns the follow-through, and the answers may become less consistent.
Read the reflection and try the leadership exercise
One person thinks the dean is handling it. The dean thinks the supervisor is addressing it. The supervisor assumes the reminder resolved it.
Meanwhile, the principal becomes the person who catches every miss.
Choose one expectation your team keeps repeating. Before discussing it, ask each leader to write down:
- Who owns making it happen each day?
- Who takes over when that person is unavailable?
- Who follows up when the expectation is missed?
Then compare the answers. Different answers give you a useful place to investigate. You may need to clarify ownership, establish a backup, or prepare someone to have the follow-up conversation.
In my own work, writing the process was only part of the job. I also had to model it, observe implementation, coach leaders, and check what continued when I stepped back.
What keeps working when you stop reminding?
— LaKiesha George
Visible Breakdowns examines the challenges school leaders face—and what we can do differently to move the work forward.
Start with a conversation
What keeps coming back to you?
Bring one recurring school challenge. In a free 15-minute introductory conversation, we’ll clarify the concern, identify a useful question to investigate, and discuss whether coaching fits.
For individual principals and assistant principals, and organizations sponsoring their development.