IMPACT Mentor Pathways
IMPACT offers three learning pathways for mentor teachers to expand their leadership capacity and expertise. These pathways place equity at the center of their learning. Each pathway is focused on providing mentors with continued opportunities to develop their leadership and mentor skills, improve teaching and learning, understand evidence and information and examine the way leaders interact with the communities they serve. Download the IMPACT Mentor Pathways Document.
Pathway 1: UCLA Teacher Leadership Certificate (default pathway)
For the UCLA Teacher Leadership Certificate, the curriculum will be created using problems of practice from the field. Mentor teachers will have the opportunity to select areas that are challenging in their leadership development and residency co-teaching model.
Mentors, in cohorts of six, will have opportunities to discuss problems of practice with mentor colleagues through synchronous, real-time online seminar groups that meet monthly facilitated by a seminar leader and/or one of the teacher leaders in the cohorts. Mentors will select from a range of topics emerging from their work with their co-teachers—apprentices—in the field.
Mentors will work with coaches at the school sites around issues of effective mentoring, culturally responsive pedagogy, and social justice leadership.
Each mentor will receive a $5000 stipend to participate in the 10-month series of seminars.
Pathway 2: UCLA’s Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) on campus program
The PLI program grants a Master of Education and the Preliminary Administrative Services Credential. Candidates complete 40 units of coursework and 12 units of fieldwork experiences to qualify for the Master of Education and recommendation for the credential. Through fieldwork in schools and communities, students grapple with critical questions facing social justice educators.
PLI’s graduates become leaders for justice who understand the conditions needed to promote rigorous, high quality learning. They become adult educators who support development of teachers and staff, and community leaders who have the knowledge and commitment to forge partnerships with parents, grassroots community groups, civic leaders, and organized labor.
- Five years of full-time teaching.
- Successful undergraduate performance (3.0 in the junior/senior undergraduate years and/or a successful graduate academic history, if applicable).
- Graduate Record Examination (GRE).
- Two personal essays.
- Strong recommendations (including one from a current supervisor).
- Ability to communicate well in group settings.
The program costs are approximately $16,000 for 14 months. The program begins each year in June and ends the following August. Classes meet on campus twice a week. Each IMPACT mentor will receive a $5000 mentor stipend and $5000 mentor scholarship. Mentors will also receive the UCLA Teacher Leadership Certificate at the conclusion of the program.
Pathway 3: UCLA Principal Leadership Institute Cohort for IMPACT Mentors only. This option will be offered if 10 or more IMPACT mentors wish to join PLI.
Pathway 3 is an alternative UCLA Principal Leadership Institute program designed specifically for IMPACT mentors. The time frame, requirements, costs and stipends are the same as in Pathway 1, however the majority of the courses will be held in the field, flipped, and/or online and focus on STEM/STEAM and mentoring issues through an equity lens. Fieldwork will take place at school sites as mentors take on teacher leadership roles and strengthen best practices in the development of the apprentice/mentor experiences in the areas of the new standards, assessment tools, feedback processes, restorative justice, democratic processes, parent empowerment and critical pedagogy.
