The Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) trains and supports a diverse group of individuals committed to the principles of academic excellence, equity, and integrity as a way to maximize achievement and opportunity for students in urban schools. The Principal Leadership Institute at UCLA has designed a rigorous 15 month program aligned with the California Administrative Professional Expectations (CAPEs) that will prepare the next generation of urban school leaders. The program grants a Master’s degree and completion of the courses required for the California Tier 1 Administrative Credential. The program is designed to attract outstanding educators who have administrative interests and recognized potential. The PLI utilizes the Reciprocal Learning Partnership Equity Framework.
We are social justice leaders.
We are committed to a Beloved Community built on justice, equity, and unconditional love.
We understand that connection requires recognition of names and faces— that’s when it becomes personal.
We nurture the capacities of individuals and we leverage the assets of communities.
We are social justice leaders.
We recognize that learning is social.
We value student voice and celebrate the whole student
We challenge “deficit ideology” and “labeling” systems put into place by the dominant culture.
We are social justice leaders.
We approach our communities with unconditional love.
We see the assets and “funds of knowledge” in the various cultures and backgrounds of the families we serve.
We position the school as a social center, committed to democratic education and the common good of the community.
We are social justice leaders.
We understand that the fight against racial oppression is enduring and long lasting and that “every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle.”
We will provide a space of radical resistance for those from the margins.
We will identify and confront inequities that exist within the school system and community to bring about equitable change.
We are social justice leaders.
We believe in education for liberation.
For me, PLI represented a space in which leadership was discussed in its broadest sense as a manner in which to effect change in education, regardless of ‘position.’ I truly wanted to explore the actualization of social justice as it relates to teachers, students, parents and the community at large.
Leyda W. Garcia
Principal, UCLA Community School
PLI has been the ultimate transformational experience for my development as a social justice leader. The theoretical frameworks and discussions around equity and access provided me with resources that I could use immediately. The mentoring and encouragement have been so valuable; I owe my success as an administrator to PLI. I tell every aspiring administrator that there is no other place to do this work, UCLA PLI and nothing else!
Kenya Williams
Assistant Principal, Augustus Hawkins High School