By: April McKoy Robinson

In 2022, Springpoint, in partnership with the Barr Foundation, launched Transformative Leaders of Massachusetts, a fellowship designed to prepare emerging education leaders to meet the challenge of building the innovative high schools that students so desperately need. We were seeking to partner with educators who were ready to build and flex their leadership muscles in service of school transformation. The work would center equity, agency, belonging, and creating transformative learning experiences for all students. We sought educators who had a vision for transformative education and who could be champions for reimagining high school. 

We believed we could find a group of excellent, diverse leaders if we built a comprehensive process that paid careful attention to both rigor and equity, but we also had other goals in mind. We wanted to use the selection process to embody the values and practices we cherish as educators – collaborative learning, actionable feedback, prioritizing relationships. We sensed that we could build an effective hiring and leader selection process using these tools, rather than defaulting to a model that emphasized identifying winners and losers. Moreover, at a time when teacher morale and satisfaction are troublingly low, we saw it as our mission to honor and excite educators, value their time and commitment, and make sure that all applicants – whether selected or not – gained something from the process and felt energized to continue the hard work of building great effective schools. 

We challenged ourselves to lead a robust candidate selection process and eschew a fraught and competitive experience for our applicants and our staff. We decided to reimagine the process as a way to get to know our candidates and to bring a wide range of perceptual frames to evaluating them. Rather than building a process to intentionally exclude some and lift up others, we sought to engage with our candidates in a way that allowed each one to shine brightly. We also set out to explicitly create a space where BIPOC candidates would feel welcome. By embedding community, learning, and collaborative problem solving into the selection process, we felt that we could transform a high-stakes selection process into something that felt akin to a high-quality professional development experience. We were hopeful that the process we created could help us identify top-notch talent who would deliver on the promise of the fellowship to become dynamic education leaders for innovative high schools. At the same time, we hoped to provide all of our educator applicants with a valuable opportunity to be inspired and hone their skills in a supportive learning community with like-minded peers. 

Here’s what we did:

1. We prioritized equity, accessibility, and authenticity. We carefully normed our review criteria to eliminate bias in our evaluation of written materials and engaged external reviewers to ensure that we could create diverse matches for our candidates. We encouraged applicants to submit existing artifacts rather than create barriers by asking for new work, and offered choice in terms of preferred modality. Our comprehensive evaluation rubric built in checks for fidelity, and we embedded opportunities to be intentionally mindful about surfacing bias.  
2. We named our intention to create a selection process that could best set BIPOC candidates up for success by ensuring they felt seen and centered. We balanced groupings around identity markers and minimized bias by ensuring that each candidate had at least ten different and diverse staff participating in their evaluation.
3. We designed for authenticity, not anxiety. We crafted a full-day evaluation for our finalists, but we leaned into collaboration and belonging as the context for assessing candidates rather than promoting competition and rivalry. We invested in framing the day around belonging and gratitude through activities that focused on creating conditions for self-awareness and learning, not competition. “No right way” was our mantra. This made room for candidates to lead with their individual strengths and show up as their best selves.
4. We embedded the final selection process in community. Our finalists rotated through four rigorous group activities in small groups. Applicants got to work alongside each other and focus on shared problem-solving. Many components focused on co-design and we were transparent that our criteria for success included competencies around relationship-building and connection. 
5. Every component of the process was built as an opportunity for feedback and collaborative learning. We made sure that applicants received productive input and peer feedback throughout the day, along with time to synthesize and reflect on what they had heard. 
6. We were thoughtful about rejection. Recognizing its power to wound rather than uplift, we tried to flip the script. At every step of the evaluation process, we applauded our applicants’ efforts, emphasized how much they had accomplished in the process, and were sensitive to their investment of time and heart. We took care to communicate first round rejections in a timely and clear fashion. For those rejected after the full-day assessment, we took great care to make these communications deeply personal and respectful, giving authentic praise and feedback on their journey with us.

The results of this process have been incredible. We are proud to say that the candidates we selected through this process have been uniformly excellent. They are thriving in the fellowship and we are learning so much with and from them. We are equally proud that the process we developed delivered positive outcomes to everyone involved. We lead a successful and rigorous hiring process in community with our applicants, leading with compassion and centering the values of teaching and learning, and our candidates felt the difference. As one said, “I’m leaving this day feeling inspired and hopeful, regardless of candidacy outcomes.” another said, “Everyone had a voice today. I appreciate how thoughtful each session was designed. I am so grateful for all of the space for reflection, and growth. You created a safe space for learning.”

These are exactly the sentiments that we hoped we would inspire, and we think the results of this process can be an inspiration to others as well. At a time when our education system is struggling to draw in talent, it is critical that our on-ramps be positive experiences for candidates. The processes we create to select educators and education leaders can reflect the pride, excitement and commitment to learning that made us first turn to the field. We can deploy our strengths as facilitators of growth and learning so that every step of an applicant’s journey feels uplifting, builds community and deepens their commitment to education.