School leadership matters. It matters for students, parents, school staff, and the communities these districts serve. In a report from the Wallace Foundation that summarized over two decades of research into the role of principals in schools, the authors share that “it is difficult to envision an investment in K–12 education with a higher ceiling on its potential return than improving school leadership.”
At the Barr Foundation, we share this belief and have been committed to supporting equity and excellence across Massachusetts through our Strengthening School Leadership initiative. Bolstered by lessons learned over the past five years since launching in 2019, we issued a request for proposals in June 2025 to extend the reach of this work to new districts in the Commonwealth.
We are pleased to announce the 2025 cohort of Strengthening School Leadership:
- Chicopee Public Schools
- Pittsfield Public Schools
- Randolph Public Schools
- Somerville Public Schools
- Whitman-Hanson Regional School District
These five Massachusetts districts will each receive a $200,000 grant over the next two years to plan and pilot efforts to strengthen school leadership in their context and drive meaningful instructional improvement over time. With additional support from Attuned Education Partners, all cohort members will engage in:
- Information Gathering and Analysis to deepen their understanding of opportunities and challenges
- Discovery of Potential Solutions and consider potential partners to bring into the work
- Planning for Pilot Implementation to learn by doing the work in order to plan for future impact
With an aim to improve outcomes for students, these new 2025 cohort members are committed to grounding themselves in a high-quality instructional vision for their districts and ensuring that their efforts fit coherently with their other district work. To gauge progress in real-time, Barr will partner with MDRC, a research firm that will support cohort members in efforts to codify learnings through pilot implementation, informing district decision-making, and elevating critical learnings for Barr and the field.
We look forward to learning alongside these districts and will be sure to share more with the field in the coming months and years.
