Cultivating Communities of Practice for Educational Leaders
About
The School Administrators of Iowa (SAI) is a professional membership association supporting roughly 2,200 school leaders across the state, including superintendents, principals, and central office administrators. Affiliated with national groups like AASA, NAESP, and NASSP, SAI focuses on giving educational leaders the tools, advocacy, and peer connections they need to manage their districts.
Association leaders Dana Schon and Laine Buck wanted a secure way to host specialized communities of practice. They needed a platform that allowed specific professional groups to talk and share resources without hitting the broader membership with irrelevant notifications or compromising data privacy.
In Their Words
“We wanted a dedicated space where mentors and mentees can easily collaborate, share resources, and message one another. Because our members hold highly specific roles with unique responsibilities, we want to give them targeted communities of practice that simplify how they support each other across districts.” ย โDana Schon, Associate Executive Director, School Administrators of Iowa
How Networked Is Supporting Their Vision
SAI is launching its first community on Networked, which will include a pilot program for their statewide mentoring cohorts and shared superintendents. The platform allows the association to create private, role-based spaces, ensuring that conversations and resources remain relevant to each specific cohort.ย
For example, members of a mentoring group can access their dedicated feed and document library, while those spaces remain hidden from the broader membership to maintain clarity across the platform.
This structure allows the SAI team to manage targeted engagement for specialized groups from a single hub. By utilizing the platform’s built-in communication tools, administrators can package relevant feed updates into custom newsletters for specific cohorts. This flexible design allows SAI to test the platform with select pilot groups while maintaining the capacity to scale to the wider association in the future.
Learn more about the School Administrators of Iowa and their work supporting educational leaders by visiting their community here.
See more of SAI here:
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