Commitment of Leadership Teams: A District-Wide Initiative Driven by Teacher Leaders

Professional learning communities allow groups of colleagues to unite by their interest in common topics about their school operations, functions, and practice. Recently, traditional top-down management styles have been overshadowed by shared leadership models, such as professional learning communities, which stress collaboration through the distribution of leadership. This autoethnographic study uses personal narratives to chronicle one district’s journey toward full implementation of a teacher-led, district-wide initiative. Through the use of professional learning communities as a standard practice for engaging school professionals in problem-solving, all teachers are vested in collaboration and joint problem solving using a shared knowledge base about students, teaching, and learning. From the perspective of teacher leaders immersed in the effort, the authors trace the school reform process from its inception sharing the challenges, successes, obstacles, and joys that emerged. Based on their work, the authors also provide suggestions for future practice and research. School reform efforts have inundated the United States ’ educational system for more than a quarter of a century. Sparked by the National Commission on Excellence in Education’s A Nation at Ris