Chicago Principals Fellowship

The Fund is thrilled to partner with Northwestern University and Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to provide the Chicago Principals Fellowship, an opportunity designed to keep Chicago’s strongest principals in our schools.

This Fellowship, generously funded by Salesforce.org and the Finnegan Family Foundation, is an executive leadership program designed to give the city’s top principals an opportunity to hone their management skills, craft district policy and develop a support network of peers from across the city.

In 2020-21, the program evolved from a one-year to a two-year model. Over the course of their fellowship, Fellows:

• Identify a policy project, connect with district offices and departments to influence and improve policy, and present a recommendation to CPS leadership. Since the program’s inception in 2014, principals have shaped district policy on topics such as special education funding and new principal mentorships.
• Spend six days at Northwestern learning with faculty from the Kellogg School of Management and the School of Education and Social Policy. During these academic sessions, Fellows learn how to build their own leadership capacity, as well as create systems and processes to sustain school health.
• Complete a comprehensive leadership assessment and create personal goals to focus their development throughout the Fellowship.

By recognizing the innovative ideas of our city’s principals, the Chicago Principals Fellowship ensures that our school leaders feel engaged, challenged and supported in their valuable work.

Fellows are seasoned principal leaders who have strong systems in place in their schools. There are 16 principals participating in the Chicago Principals Fellowship during the 2020-21 school year, and the next cohort of fellows will meet from January 2021 to May 2022.