Presenters: Dr. Will Chavis, Dr. Patrice Faison, Kim Grant District: Wake County Public School System Lonely. Isolated. Solitary. The role of the principal is difficult. Principals are expected to make critical decisions that impact their school community on a daily basis. In order to appear confident, decisions are sometimes made in isolation without the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues or key stakeholders. The practice of collective efficacy enables school leaders to combine efforts to create impactful change. Wake County Public School System sees the value in providing collaborative partners for school leaders and recently established new leadership positions for the specific role of coaching. Executive Leadership Coaches (ELCs) have the goal of assisting the school leader in establishing a culture that fosters collective efficacy and provides principals with a collaborative thought partner. Having a non-evaluative, critical thought partner, who has experience in school leadership, helps to identify opportunities for a leader to align their being (belief system) with their doing (actions). Coaches serve as a mediator of thinking, allowing the principal to further explore the needs of the school and their professional practice while developing deliberate school goals that promote collective efficacy. Knowing that collective efficacy is the most effective and impactful, high-yield instructional strategy with an effect size of 1.57 (Hattie, 2018), ELCs created a framework that strategically focuses on aligning continuous improvement goals to the collective work of the school community. Let the ELCs take you through our efforts to launch this work as we participated in on-boarding, professional and framework development, school identification process, and initial steps. ELCs will also discuss the structure of coaching collaboration with school leaders and prioritized areas of focus. Join us to explore how the principal role transforms into a collaborative and shared decision-making process to effectively impact student learning and performance.