Lead from Within
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"For the first time in a decade, it felt like I could prioritize me and share stories that I've buried for years. This is incredibly rare in education and now that I've experienced it, I know how important it is to find and create spaces like this if I want to remain in my role. "
Cohort 3 Leader
2 Year
Fellowship
4 In-Person
Convenings
Monthly
Virtual Support
Sara Striegel, the program director for the Fellowship, is always eager to connect and share more about how we support leaders and school communities.
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Curious? Want to learn more?
Being a leader in education is one of the
loneliest roles in a community.
Education leaders often feel as though they are on an island – solely responsible for taking care of the needs of an entire community of students, staff, and families. The sheer complexity of leading a community of such diverse stakeholders requires tremendous social, emotional, and relational energy and prowess, as well as a strong sense of identity and purpose. In education, we sometimes approach that kind of complexity by breaking issues apart, then applying technical solutions.
Compass is different.
We believe that leaders already have the capacity and skill within themselves to move through the challenges they face in their role. Because of that, they don’t need technical solutions to isolated problems – instead, they must turn inward, investigating their beliefs about themselves and their potential, then learning to shed what no longer serves them in favor of new skills that align with their leadership goals.
"The most impactful leader development I've received.”
In a community of like-minded leaders, Cohort participants re-connect and access their innate power and capacity by deep-diving into contemplative practice, narrative theory, and adaptive skills. This belief in themselves, we have found, is transformative, as leaders return to their critical place in a school’s ecosystem to build school cultures of vulnerability and growth, sustainable for years to come.
Registration Deadline: June 13, 2025
Our Leadership Framework
Find your Leadership Center, helping you remain present and balanced in the most critical moments.
With our support, you will develop a personal contemplative practice to keep you anchored during the inevitable storms of leadership.
Lean into your Leadership Edge, learning to welcome the next frontier of your own development.
With our support, you will develop and explore several maps of your inner world and that will help you see the limits of your own worldview and ways you might liberate yourself more fully.
Write your Leadership Story, strengthening your preferred storylines and re-negotiating your limiting storylines.
With our support, you will use a narrative meaning-making framework to story the events of your life and leadership in strength-based ways that align with your deepest values.
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Find your Leadership Purpose, naming the way you will offer your unique gifts to the world.
With our support, you will find and name your deepest calling and learn to align your self-story and actions to this vision.
Who is eligible for the Fellowship?
We have Fellowship cohorts for senior leaders, principals, and rising school leaders*.
*Senior Leader cohorts are open to CEOs, superintendents, and other network- or district-level leaders.
*Rising Leader cohorts are open to Assistant Principals, Deans, School-Level Directors, and others who may hold responsibilities that include managing others, managing systems, or are likely candidates for principalship.
*We typically launch 1 Principal cohort and 1 Rising Leaders cohort each Fall. Senior Leader cohorts typically launch every 2 years. Senior leaders should inquire if we are launching a cohort this Fall.
What are the time commitments required from participants?
The Fellowship requires 4 in-person convenings - each year we gather once in the Fall semester and once in the Spring semester. In addition, we meet once a month virtually. Each virtual meeting lasts one hour and requires no specific pre-work. These meetings are a continuation of the work we do together during our in-person gatherings.
When are the in-person convenings?
Each cohort of Fellows meets 4 times over the course of 2 years. Below are the dates for our open cohorts. We do not yet know which of these will be a Principal cohort or a Rising Leaders cohort - we do our best to accommodate leaders' availability when placing them in a cohort.
[Cohort 10]
November 5-7, 2025 | April 8-10, 2026 | Sept 9-11, 2026 | May 5-7, 2027
[Cohort 11]
November 12-14, 2025 | April 15-17, 2026 | Oct 21-23, 2026 | May 12-14, 2027
How much does the Fellowship cost?
Total cost for the 2-year Fellowship is $16,000.
We require a $1,600 deposit at the time of registration, with the remaining balance due July 31 prior to the first convening.
$16,000 is outside my budget. What are my options?
Fellows can divide tuition into two annual payments (due July 31 of each year), which is often more feasible when it comes to accessing professional development funds.
In addition, many of our fellows have successfully found philanthropy funds to cover the cost of tuition, in addition to getting travel costs covered. If you would like support in navigating the search for grants and philanthropy funds, just let us know!
What are the tangible deliverables that I’ll take with me after two years?
We pride ourselves on giving participants who fully engage with our work both adaptive and technical skills to articulate and tap into their identities, regulate their nervous systems, cope with stress, identify and generate solutions for social-emotional problems, build their teams with vulnerability and trust, and ultimately positively impact their environment from the topdown. In the final capstone convening, we approach systemic problems of practice through the Compass Leadership Framework. This final systems approach offers a tangible and direct way to impact community-wide problem-solving, engaging large-scale stuckpoints through a relationship-based and compassionate systemic lens.
This sounds like therapy. Is it?
No, but it is much more inward-focused than most existing professional development opportunities. We don’t believe in applying technical solutions to isolated problems – we believe in caring for the people who run our schools, giving them the skills, ability, and wisdom to reflect, change, and grow.
How many people are in a cohort , and who will they be?
Our cohorts are capped at 15 participants to create a strong sense of community and allow for direct support and coaching from our team. Cohorts are role-specific to allow participants to engage with peers working closely in their field. We divide cohorts into senior leaders (superintendents, CEOs, etc.), principals, and mid-level leaders. We also work hard to create a diverse group of participants for each cohort.