What a great start to the 2015-2016 school year! While our students are coming to school ready to learn and our dedicated teachers are well into lessons, our building leaders have been adding some conceptual tools to their leadership toolbox.

In conjunction with Compass to 2020, the Teaching & Learning Framework and our division’s core values, the Department of School Leadership has created common leadership language for the division. Similar to your Allen wrench, your measuring tape and your multi-tool, consider these handy-dandy terms to be the mainstays of your leadership toolbox:

• Empower– make a contagious and unmistakable impact on everyone in your building every day
• Trust – through crystal clear goals and expectations show through action your belief in everyone on your team, rain or shine
• Verify – commit to high-level visibility and monitoring to ensure the commitments of the team and total school program, inspect what you expect

Leaders are learners, supporters, framers, cheerleaders, pacesetters, masons, risk takers, clarifiers and transformers. As such, leadership extends beyond the principal’s office. Teachers use these tools daily to teach, check for understanding and plan. All employees break out this toolbox to better their colleagues, better themselves and, of course, set our VBCPS students up for success.

So, really, why should we all Empower, Trust, and Verify?

Simple: leadership matters.

Onward to becoming premier!

Rashard Wright serves as the Chief Schools Officer in the Department of School Leadership. Wright pens the monthly Leadership Matters column for Kaleidoscope, which you can find posted on the 15th of each month. For more leadership insight, follow Wright on Twitter @VAeducatorRJW or find the hashtag #LeadershipMatters.