Building Community Partnerships in Education: Lessons from the Indigenous Education Leadership Collective

Presented by Debbie Michael and Heather Pennie

This presentation is ideal for education administrators and system-level leaders who want to build more community-responsive strategies and partnerships into their existing leadership practice.

The Indigenous Education Leadership Collective (the Collective) is a national peer network connecting First Nations school leadership teams — principals, vice-principals, lead teachers, and directors — through a structured, two-year professional learning experience that includes coaching, monthly virtual sessions, and in-person gatherings.

Built on the Martin Family Initiative’s 15 years of partnership with First Nations schools, the Collective is grounded in distributed leadership and community-driven improvement. Leaders learn with and from one another while keeping each school’s work locally defined, guided by community priorities and ways of knowing.

The Collective responds to the deep knowledge that First Nations school leaders hold about their communities and students, and benefit from the same coordinated peer infrastructure that provincial systems build in as standard — networked mentorship, shared inquiry, and structured peer learning. The Collective provides that infrastructure while keeping leadership and decision-making with the communities themselves.

This session introduces the Indigenous Education Leadership Collective model and equips attendees with community engagement planning tools – examples of the resources available to participants in the Collective. An Engagement Strategy Template, Sample Engagement Strategy Plan, and Engagement to Pedagogy Mapping Template will be shared with attendees to help them with[HP3.1] school improvement project planning (e.g. literacy, numeracy, culture and land-based learning), identifying who to connect with, how to engage meaningfully, and ensure that strategies reflect the values and priorities of the communities they serve.

• About the Indigenous Education Leadership Collective: https://themfi.ca/en/program/indigenous-education-leadership-collective-ielc
• TREES Network: https://treesnetwork.themfi.ca/