How should a school leader best incorporate identified effective teachers into a plan for improving teaching across the campus?

• A. Allow the teachers to identify areas in which they would like to grow and provide resources and support
• B. Assign them to mentor only during lunch
• C. Have them lead all professional development without support
• D. Place them in noninstructional roles for a year

Answer: (A)

Letting identified effective teachers guide their own growth areas and receive targeted resources and structured support is the most effective way to raise teaching quality campus-wide. When leaders empower these teachers to name where they and their colleagues need to improve, the development plan is grounded in real classroom practice and student learning goals. This approach embodies distributed leadership: it leverages proven expertise, distributes responsibility, and creates a ripple effect as skilled teachers model strategies, coach peers, and help implement campus-wide improvements.

Providing dedicated time, coaching, collaborative planning, and access to materials makes the growth plan actionable rather than hypothetical. It helps ensure new practices are tried, refined, and scaled, increasing the likelihood that improvements endure beyond one-off workshops. In contrast, strategies that limit mentors to brief, informal moments, remove instructional focus, or rely on a single leader to run all PD tend to be unsustainable and detached from day-to-day teaching realities. By aligning growth targets with concrete resources and ongoing support, the campus moves toward meaningful, lasting improvement in instruction.