Many district-level leaders find it difficult to give their experienced & novice leaders relevant and compelling professional learning. One way to address this issue is for a leadership director, assistant superintendent, or superintendent to facilitate one School Sim at the end of monthly admin meetings to help their leaders develop leadership capacity. At each choice point, SchoolSims provides natural pauses, which are good chances for experienced leaders to discuss how their past experiences have shaped their current decisions or how their implicit biases played a role during a decision point. Facilitators could point out opportunities for novice leaders to reach out to an experienced leader to ask for advice on how to lead in that situation. For each month, here is a list of recommended simulations:

• September – Difficult Conversations – Race
• October – Equity: Exploring Beneath the Surface
• November – Navigating the Politics of Equity-Based Budgeting
• December – Stakeholder Management
• January – Managing Diversity in a Growing Community
• February – Emerging Challenges of Distributed Leadership
• March – Cultural Competency
• April – Difficult Conversations – Race
• May – Administrator: First Week on the Job

Each simulation is developed in partnership with a school district, college/university, or school support entity. We ensure that the topics covered by the SchoolSims’ Simulation Library relate to many of the issues facing the schools of your enrolled students. We add 5-7 new simulations each year and also refresh existing simulations so that they stay current. By incorporating simulations into your existing curriculum – either facilitated in groups or deployed asynchronously – participants gain practice and begin to develop the essential muscle memory to make the best decisions in real life.

SchoolSims are designed to align with PSEL (Professional Standards for Educational) standards. Because simulations immerse participants in school-based scenarios like those that occur in real-life, they provide an opportunity to practice evaluating context and applying the appropriate standards in a risk-free environment.

Learn more here or click on the images.

SchoolSims will help you select the appropriate titles for each course or topic. You can then utilize the simulations synchronously, asynchronously, or in a blended fashion. 

See our best practices here.

SchoolSims simulations are an excellent resource for current leaders’ monthly professional development sessions.

SchoolSims will provide training on our simulation library, how and when to use the simulations, and a one-hour session on how to facilitate simulations with Dr. David De Jong, the Chair of Educational Leadership at the University of South Dakota.

SchoolSims pricing is based on the number of participants in the cohort that will utilize the simulations.