The Leadership Institute of Riverside County (LIRC) is dedicated to advancing the mission of the Riverside County Office of Education, which is “to ensure the success of all students through extraordinary service, support and partnerships.” To accomplish this, we are committed to sustaining and expanding an extraordinary continuum of leadership development services, both to external clients and internal staff.

External support and services provided through the LIRC are designed to meet the pressing needs and challenges facing Riverside County’s public education system today in recruiting, developing and retaining high quality leaders. To maintain a meaningful, relevant continuum of leadership development services, we regularly convene focus groups from County school districts to determine what offerings are needed. The staples of our continuum of services include School Leadership Teams, the Aspiring Administrators Academy, and customized, on-site work with school and district leaders at all levels. Our goal is to assist our clients with selecting and developing leaders from within their own ranks. We believe that the internal development of leadership, including succession planning, is vital to sustain the effective student achievement improvement initiatives currently underway throughout the county.

Leadership Institute staff members are certified in award-winning leadership training programs such as Speed of Trust, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Crucial Conversations and Influencer. We also offer excellent programs such as Great Leaders Great Teams Great Results, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, and The Leadership Challenge. All of these workshops are available to school districts and RCOE staff. We also offer these trainings to our private sector business partners as they are applicable to leaders in any organization.

This year, the LIRC is proud to introduce a groundbreaking leadership development program for teacher leaders called the Teacher Leader Certification Academy. Based on the recently released, national Teacher Leader Model Standards from Educational Testing Services, the Academy will help teacher leaders learn the art of leadership through influence with students, colleagues, parents, and administration.

Within RCOE, the LIRC offers as one of our primary internal initiatives, the RCOE Leadership Academy, a customized training for classified and certificated managers on the RCOE Management Leadership Team. The curriculum for this Academy includes the most cutting-edge leadership knowledge available to ensure high quality leadership across our organization. We also offer a menu of workshops open to all classified and certificated employees across the county called 360° Leadership Workshops. The focus of these workshops is to encourage employees to use their influence to lead up, across, and down for the benefit of the organization, regardless of position or job title. In addition, the LIRC offers support to all divisions of RCOE in fulfilling the organizational Mission, Vision, Values and Commitments through consultation, workshop development, and assistance with systems of accountability and recognition.

John Maxwell has stated, “Leadership doesn’t make a difference, it makes the difference.” Extraordinary leadership results in extraordinary service, support and partnerships in order to ensure the success for all. We are committed to the development of extraordinary leaders across Riverside County.