For close to 30 summers now, ACSA has held a unique and transformational leadership experience for school site leaders: the Principals’ Summer Institute.

The residential, weeklong leadership development program is held on the campus of UCLA. Attendees are grouped into small teams who eat, learn and sleep on the campus, forming tight bonds with their fellow principals along the way. One of the highlights of the institute has been the ropes course, which offers a powerful lesson in trust, goal-setting and teamwork.

A group of ACSA members created the Principals’ Summer Institute back in 1992, modeling it on a similar institute at Harvard. Laserik Saunders was one of those members.

“A pebble drops into a pond and the ripples go on seeming endless. As ‘the pebble,’ I feel that my influence and participation as a founding father of ACSA’s Principals’ Summer Institute at UCLA goes on immeasurably,” he said recently.

Saunders called the years spent planning and serving participants as a team leader in the program one of the premier professional experiences in his life.

“It gives me joy and a profound sense of achievement to know that I’ve had an impact on the professional lives of California school administrators and they have gone forward to influence the lives of fellow administrators and their students,” he said.

Jeanie Cash was an attendee at the very first institute in 1992. She credits the experience with her ability to radically improve academic achievement at her school, which went from the lowest performing school in the district to being a California Distinguished School. By the next summer, she was a team leader.

“It has had a dramatic impact on education in California,” Cash said.

Whenever Cash works in districts training leadership coaches, she is bound to run into one of the thousands of alumni who have completed the institute. More than 4,000 people have participated since 1999 alone, according to ACSA registrar records.

“Immediately, people will come up to me and say, ‘Oh, I remember, UCLA,’” Cash said. “And you know what? They’re the all-star leaders in their own districts, too, so it has had a profound effect.”

The memories are many. Cash still travels with friends made at the institute and her garage is full of team-building props — “you know, hula hoops and things like that.” “It has been an immeasurable blessing,” she said. “There is no way to describe the depth of gratitude that I have for having had the opportunity to make a difference. The difference that it made to me and my leadership, and to be able to turn around and provide that same mentoring and that same support to new and aspiring leaders — there’s nothing more rewarding.”

Registration is open for this year’s Summer Leadership Institute at bit.ly/summerinstitute2022. Keep watching for ACSA at 50 features in EdCal each week and find out how you can contribute at acsa.org/acsa50.

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