The Skillman Foundation

With funding from The Skillman Foundation, the inaugural Principal Wellness Professional Learning Community (PWPLC) launched on August 23, 2021.

The learning community, a component of the Foundation’s Wellness Works initiative, is a unique learning community because of its focus on creating a safe space for Black school leaders in Detroit to regularly convene and receive social-emotional wellness and leadership support.

Over the course of the 2021-22 school year, principals will engage in 11 learning sessions and individual coaching sessions centered on personal wellness and leadership. In partnership with the Foundation, educational experts and key facilitators Dr. Rema Reynolds Vassar of Eastern Michigan University and Dr. Curtis Lewis of Black Male Educators Alliance facilitated an application process that yielded 24 high-quality participants from Detroit charter schools and Detroit Public School Community District.

The learning community will provide principals with a new framework for sustainability and transformative practices that promote healing for themselves and the school communities they lead and love, which in turn will optimize student outcomes. It is the first of its kind in Detroit, designed in direct response to what we heard from principals over the past 18 months. Learnings and outcomes from this first year will inform future efforts to support school leaders.