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Kelley (Kell) Cusmano and Sarah Giddings are twins and both Michigan teachers. Kell was recently named 2024-2025 Michigan Teacher of the Year. Sarah is now the director at her school, as well as a longtime TPS ambassador and an integral part of the TPS team.
Many schools identified as being teacher-powered have the autonomy to center students, families, and community, but one of the most essential flexes for a teacher-powered school is how to empower and transform the educator profession. A school that listens and is responsive to how educators want to be led and “lead without leaving” can help transform the educational experience on so many levels.
In an article published in 2022 by the RAND Corporation, they found that 85 percent of principals are experiencing job-related stress, along with 73 percent of teachers. In addition, when these educators leave school buildings for other jobs or careers, most of them cite wanting increased flexibility and autonomy.
My twin sister and I both have had the experience of transformative leadership experiences inside and outside of our school—and it is through these experiences that we have realized that educators and school administrators need to advocate for hybrid leadership roles and leadership opportunities that can provide increased opportunities and flexibility for educators.
We’d love to share with you some of the transformational aspects of our careers (so far!) in order to demonstrate how we have been empowered by this profession.
Sarah
I was incredibly lucky to have started my professional career at a teacher-powered Chicago public school, where we collectively made decisions about policies and procedures. I was given the autonomy and flexibility to design a social studies elective that used geographic information systems to try and understand complex urban issues in the city.
I felt fulfilled by this work, but when I moved back to Michigan (our home state), I was worried that I would never be able to find a school that had that level of empowerment.
I stumbled upon a job posting for an alternative countywide school that was just starting up as a solution to the high number of dropouts in the region. The director at the time fully encouraged hybrid leadership roles and flexibility and, as a staff, we were able to co-create a school environment and curriculum that allowed personalization and flexibility.
When I felt like I needed a new challenge, due to the flexibility in my schedule and an encouraging school leader, I sought out educational advocacy fellowships in order to show that traditional school roles and the typical education staffing models do not have to be the only model for education.
Kell
When it comes to my own career, I can honestly say that it is specifically because of additional leadership opportunities that I have stayed in the classroom for the last twenty years.
My teacher leadership journey started in 2015 when Sarah was invited to a Teach to Lead conference in Boston that was sponsored by the US Department of Education. At that point, I had been teaching for 10 years. I loved working with high school students, in particular the student leadership class I helped develop. However, sometimes I felt like an imposter because I was spending my time talking to students about becoming a leader, without really developing into one myself. So I eagerly accepted the invitation from Sarah and headed to Boston.
Teach to Lead was a conference that allowed teachers to bring a team of collaborators to work on a system-change. While I was at the conference, I was able to meet and network with education leaders from across the country and learn about the national education system, as well as how to attempt to solve a system-wide issue. At that moment I was empowered to advocate on issues in education that went beyond my classroom door and I learned how to advocate for improvements in both teachers’ and students’ lives.
Following that experience, I knew that I wanted to advocate for teachers and students, but I did not want to become an assistant principal (typically a first step in school leadership in traditional schools) or leave my classroom. Eventually, I helped to implement a curriculum consultant role which allows me to work on issues of curriculum and leadership in the district while remaining in the classroom.
We know that schools and systems that prioritize leadership advancement in classroom teachers have demonstrated success in retaining teachers and increasing overall job satisfaction.
Both research and our personal experiences can be a lesson to education leaders—that through creative scheduling and teacher-centered thinking, any school can create leadership roles for their teachers that can provide opportunities for growth and advocacy in the profession.
We hope to challenge others to think about their own pathway to leadership and to realize that leadership can be found in many different places without even having to leave the classroom.