“Building Leadership Capacity for Sustainability Education”

BLCSE Sponsors/Partners
Building Leadership Capacity for Sustainability Education is a project sponsored by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency to help schools develop strong stragtegic planning and related capacity for Sustainability Education.  The administrative agent of this project is Eastern Michigan University’s (EMU) Institute for the Study of Children, Families, and Communities (ISCFC) with support from EMU’s Department of Teacher Education.  Partners include Creative Change Educational Solutions (CCES). Participating districts are Amherst, NH; Scarsdale, NY; Somers, NY; and Proctor, MN.  The New York districts are supported by the Children's Environmental Literacy Foundation.  These distrcits were chosen for their efforts to reframe curriculum and instruction around sustainability.  See examples

BLCSE Project Summary and Goals
Over the past 3 years, EMU and CCES have built relationships with four public school districts in three states (Amherst, NH, Scarsdale, NY, Sommers, NY and Proctor,MN).  These district are each in the beginning stages of using sustainability education as an important reform approach.  The project, "Building Leadership for Sustainability Education" will strengthen the capacity of these districts to re-orient themselves around sustainability and become models for other schools.  Our goals are 1) to develop a network of effective school leaders that can demonstrate and advance sustainability education as a critical reform approach, and 2) to disseminate a model process for building this leadership capacity.

To accomplish this, four Leadership Teams (one from each district) first completed a ‘status report’ outlining the strengths, weaknesses, and needs in the areas of student achievement, opportunities for involving students in environmental stewardship, existing sustainability education reform efforts, and internal capacity.  EMU and CCES designed and held a 2-day retreat based on this data, providing strategic planning training, planning assistance, and sustainability education resources.    Each team will develop a strategic plan that outlines 1-, 3-, and 5-year goals and budgets for 1) implementing programming (such as curriculum reform) to meet identified needs, 2) involving students in environmental stewardship activities through school-community partnerships, 3) evaluating the impacts of their efforts on student achievement and environmental stewardship, 4) sustaining their work through internal and external funding, and 5) promoting their reform work—and sustainability education—to other K-12 educators in their regions.  To support teams, EMU and CCES will provide a rigorous strategic-planning framework, technical assistance, evaluation tools, and facilitate team-to-team support and networking.  An evaluation team from EMU will evaluate the strategic plans and the overall process.  Finally, EMU, CCES, and teams will disseminate the project’s model and outcomes through professional journals, networks, and conferences.