The Power of Teacher Leadership: Growing Excellence at Every Level

By Jessica Ockman, NIET Fellow and Master Teacher, Ascension Public Schools, Louisiana

Jessica Ockman holds 20 years of teaching experience, all in Ascension Parish at three schools, with 9 of those years serving as a TAP instructional leader. As a current master teacher at Donaldsonville Primary School, she provides support to 25 teachers. Ockman considers herself a lead learner and is always looking for opportunities to grow her capacity as a school leader while continuing to provide coaching and support at some of the highest-need schools in Ascension Parish. Read more about her selection as an NIET Fellow here.

I couldn't help but think of the first time I was in her shoes.

As I sat in front of Lauren Leonard, Mentor Teacher at Donaldsonville Primary, for our first mentor meeting, I asked the simple question. “What do you want from this experience?” Lauren responded enthusiastically, “I want to learn it all! I want to learn everything I can so that I can be a great Master Teacher and impact teachers and students!” I couldn’t help but think of the first time I was in her shoes.

My first experience with NIET was in 2015. Before Duplessis Primary School in Ascension Parish became a TAP school - NIET's system for professional learning, career advancement, and growth, I proudly served as a career teacher there for 11 years. I was fortunate to be selected to serve as a TAP Mentor Teacher during their first year of TAP implementation. I can pinpoint that moment as when I began unleashing my teacher leadership. It changed everything for me. Before then, I had no idea how much growth awaited me as a teacher, leader, and colleague. By serving as a Mentor Teacher and a Master Teacher at Duplessis Primary School and G.W. Carver Primary School, I learned that through effective teacher support, the teacher’s implementation of the high-quality curriculum becomes more impactful, learning becomes more intentional, equitable experiences are provided for all students, and achievement gaps are closed. Because of these learning experiences, I felt ready and excited for this new opportunity to support teachers and students on a new campus. Along with my confidence in my preparation, there was still a lot I knew I had to learn - from building relationships with my new peers, determining the needs of the teachers and students, and acclimating to the culture of the school. I knew that I had to give myself the same grace and patience that I was prepared to give my peers.

Looking at Lauren’s excitement, I could not wait to begin. It was the first year for both of us at Donaldsonville Primary School. We both understood that to bring about the kind of positive change we hoped for, we would have to create commitment with the teachers and students. Without NIET’s structures and frameworks, this challenge may have looked entirely different and overwhelming. It’s not always easy for teacher leaders to move to new schools, and it takes time to reconstruct their relationships. With NIET’s roadmap to real and actionable impact, beginning with focusing on trust, knowledge, and credibility, Lauren and I were ready to hit the ground running. It’s this flexible but clear and data-driven scaffolding that helps teachers make a great impact everywhere, including across Donaldsonville and Louisiana. Teacher leadership is so powerful because when implemented effectively, those skills can translate across roles, classrooms, and schools, scaling out excellence.

And so we began our work together to build trust and demonstrate our knowledge so we could have credibility.

Through effective teacher support, the teacher's implementation of the high-quality curriculum becomes more impactful, learning becomes more intentional, equitable experiences are provided for all students, and achievement gaps are closed.

Knowledge

The trio of these factors that form a strong foundation for educators is most effective when they are each strengthened in tandem with one another. Building effective content knowledge as a teacher leader extends beyond my expertise and calls for me to build an understanding of how to apply effective instructional practices and model that for others, but before we could teach effectively, Lauren and I both had to evaluate student needs. Donaldsonville Primary is a small school on the west side of Ascension, serving grades Pre-K through 2nd. There are approximately 385 students, 85 percent of whom are from economically disadvantaged households. At Donaldsonville Primary, we were facing the call to raise scores in reading and math, so our students and teachers could experience the same level of success that many other schools in our district were experiencing. After we assessed the needs of the students, the work began.

Lauren and I reflected on her content knowledge of the high-quality instructional materials that we would be using to build our students' foundational literacy. Because she was new to the high-quality instructional materials (HQIM), we recognized that we needed to build her content knowledge quickly so that she could demonstrate her knowledge to her team. She already had best practices, but she needed to develop how to embed them utilizing her HQIM. Together, we engaged in a student work analysis cycle. We would co-plan a lesson together. Then I would model the lesson in her classroom. After, we would analyze the student work to determine the impact and create next steps. Soon, the support shifted to observation and feedback. With her deeper understanding of the high-quality instructional materials and the strong best practices that she already had, we began to see a consistent impact on her student achievement. In her first year as a Mentor Teacher at Donaldsonville Primary, she increased the percentage of her students performing at mastery or above on our 2nd Grade ELA Benchmark Comprehension Assessment from 25% in quarter one to 75% in quarter four. 

Knowledge does more than stand alone - it also serves to build trust and credibility between Lauren and her team and students, but also between Lauren and me. When teacher leaders are able to drive instructional decisions using data and context to bring results, they begin to build trust among their peers and students with the strategies and methods that they present, building instructional momentum for success. Working with NIET for 10 years has helped me build a foundation of understanding in how to collaborate with other teacher leaders and navigate struggles, so that bringing these practices to a new environment is as effective as it can be. 

When teacher leaders are able to drive instructional decisions using data and context to bring results, they begin to build trust among their peers and students with the strategies and methods that they present, building instructional momentum for success.

Trust

One of the most challenging - and important - things about being a teacher leader is building trust, especially for Lauren and me as the two new teacher leaders at Donaldsonville Primary. This is leveraged by being aware of school happenings, how educators already collaborate and support each other, and the needs of the school. Along with building your level of knowledge in your work, you can begin to deepen that level of trust with your peers, and one of the best ways I’ve learned to do that is by simply listening.  

When listening, I ask clarifying questions to ensure that both of us have a clear understanding as I guide the conversation to a positive outcome. As a teacher leader, I know it’s important to model this for others. If we expect the teachers and students on our campus to engage in meaningful, productive conversations, we must ensure that we are doing it as well. Lauren and I would recount conversations in our weekly mentor meetings, tagging specific actions, reflecting on conversations as they naturally came up in a PLC, Cluster meeting, or the hallway.  “When I said this… it helped the teacher to….”  The trust we built helped us to serve as a bridge between the work we were doing as a leadership team and the teachers and students we were supporting. 

Because we had also built trust, teachers felt comfortable reflecting as they engaged in the new learning. This helped us to determine the best support for them to ensure the transfer to their students.

Credibility

Lauren and I ensured that we had credibility by grounding our work in the standards. We would  “go first” in the classroom and implement evidence-based strategies and best practices, and present them to our leadership team before presenting them in a Cluster meeting. After bringing a new strategy into a classroom, we would reflect in my individual growth plan (IGP), note the critical attributes, and use the data from the lesson to determine when and how we would bring them through Cluster. Once we were able to see the teacher and student data trend up, we knew it was ready to bring it to the teachers and students. As the teachers and students engaged in this new learning, we used teacher evaluation data, Cluster follow-up, and student data to evaluate the impact that the new learning had on our teachers and students. Because we had also built trust, teachers felt comfortable reflecting as they engaged in the new learning. This helped us to determine the best support for them to ensure the transfer to their students. The impact that it had on our teachers and students was phenomenal. Donaldsonville Primary School earned a letter grade of “C” for the first time in history. We’ve also seen the percentage of our students performing at or above Benchmark according to the DIBELS 8 Literacy skills screener increase from 34% in 2022 to 61% in 2025. By engaging Lauren in the work, she not only gained credibility with me, but she also felt prepared to become a Master Teacher.

With her deeper understanding of the high-quality instructional materials and the strong best practices that she already had, we began to see a consistent impact on her student achievement.

Scaling out excellence

Today, I get to support Lauren from afar as she serves as a Master Teacher at another school in our district, G.W. Carver Primary. By focusing on trust, knowledge, and credibility, we know that we will be able to continue to transfer the skills we built together, ensuring that other teachers and teacher leaders we support are growing in their knowledge, skills, and practices so they can provide equitable opportunities for all of their students.

As I reflect on this full-circle moment, I am filled with gratitude for the many things I have learned with NIET and the vast opportunities that it has provided for me and the future teacher leaders that I get to support. The strong pipeline we have built will continue to grow as we both work with our leadership teams to support the Mentor Teachers, career teachers, and students on our respective campuses. My experiences as a teacher leader and NIET Fellow have continued to provide ongoing development that allows me to grow alongside future teacher leaders as we accelerate teacher effectiveness. The work we do together will allow us to continue to bring about a positive change as we meet the individual needs of each student in Ascension Public Schools.

Teacher leadership is so powerful because when implemented effectively, those skills can translate across roles, classrooms and schools, scaling out excellence.