California Professional Standards for Education Leaders · 6A–5
Work with local leaders to assess, analyze and anticipate emerging trends and initiatives and their impact on education.
Anticipating change is disciplined horizon scanning: notice early signals, test assumptions with others, and prepare proportionate options before urgency removes choice.
What this looks like in practice
Leaders should scan multiple domains—demographics, legislation, labor, technology, climate, public health, housing, transportation, workforce, and community trust. A trend is not automatically a priority; assess likelihood, timing, affected groups, educational significance, and local capacity.
Scenario thinking is more useful than prediction. Develop a few plausible conditions, identify indicators that would distinguish them, and choose no-regret preparations that improve readiness across several futures.
Developing the practice
Gather diverse signals
Establish a recurring exchange with local agencies, community organizations, students, researchers, and operational staff.
Test the implications
Examine who may benefit or be harmed, which systems are affected, what capacity is missing, and how soon a response could be needed.
Prepare options
Define indicators, low-cost early actions, decision points, and owners instead of committing prematurely to one forecast.
Useful connections
District systems survey
SDLA’s survey of district systems can provide one signal about technology patterns and organizational capacity across school systems.
Questions for reflection and mentoring
- Which emerging issue are we treating as certain, and which are we ignoring because evidence is incomplete?
- Who sees early signals that senior leaders may miss?
- What low-cost preparation would be useful across several plausible futures?