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Vision
Strengths
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A School Leadership Retreat Built Around Shared Vision
From school-based learning to real-world exposure
A strong school year begins before students enter the classroom. Educators need time to reconnect with their purpose, establish a shared direction, understand what each person contributes, and turn school priorities into practical action.
Aspire partnered with Jones Elementary School to create a two-day Dream BLDRS+ Leadership Retreat focused on shared vision, strengths-based leadership, team alignment, and school culture. Through guided discussions, reflection, and collaborative activities, the experience will prepare educators to begin the year with greater clarity, confidence, and connection.
The Opportunity
Reconnect with Why
The beginning of a school year offers more than an opportunity to prepare classrooms and review procedures. It gives educators time to define what an exceptional year should look like, examine the leadership behaviors that will help create it, and determine how they will work together on behalf of students and families.
Jones Elementary selected Dream BLDRS+ to help its team reconnect with why the work matters and establish a common foundation for the year ahead. The retreat is designed to move participants from individual reflection to collective action, giving the school a shared language for vision, strengths, expectations, and accountability.
The Dream BLDRS+ Approach
Dream BLDRS+ helps Professional Leaders Understand Self. Aspire uses interactive learning, research-based development principles, storytelling, reflection, and practical exercises to help participants understand how personal leadership influences team performance and organizational culture.
Participants are not asked to sit through a presentation and leave with abstract ideas. They contribute to the conversation, examine their own experiences, learn from one another, and develop tools they can apply to their responsibilities, relationships, and shared goals.
Professional Leaders Understanding Self
The “plus” in Dream BLDRS+ represents Professional Leaders Understanding Self. The experience begins with the belief that stronger leadership requires a clearer understanding of personal vision, strengths, values, habits, and impact on others.
Leadership Retreat Outcomes
Shared Vision
Develop a clear direction for the upcoming school year.
Culture and Accountability
Strengthen shared expectations for excellence and collective responsibility.
Passion and Purpose
Reconnect educators with why their work matters.
Strengths-Based Leadership
Identify and apply individual and collective strengths.
Team Collaboration
Improve communication and strengthen how educators work together.
Student and Family Strengths
Better recognize the qualities students and families bring to the school community.
Practical Application
Translate retreat insights into clear, actionable next steps.
Renewed Alignment
Begin the year with greater clarity, confidence, and energy.
From Reflection to Application
Professional development creates greater value when participants can apply what they learn after the session ends. Throughout the retreat, educators will connect each discussion to the responsibilities, relationships, and decisions that shape the Jones Elementary experience.
The final action-planning process will help participants determine what they will carry forward individually and what the team will pursue collectively. This creates a practical bridge between the retreat and the daily work of building a strong school culture.
Building the Adults Who Build the Students
Student success is influenced by more than curriculum alone. It is also shaped by the clarity, expectations, communication, relationships, and leadership practices surrounding every student.
By investing in the development of its educators, Jones Elementary is investing in the conditions students and families experience each day. Dream BLDRS+ helps strengthen those conditions by aligning the adults responsible for creating them.
Program Leadership
Led and Facilitated by Patrick Walker-Reese
Patrick Walker-Reese, MPA, is the Founder and Chief Dream BLDR of Aspire. An educator, author, speaker, and leadership facilitator, Patrick helps students and professionals connect vision, personal strengths, and disciplined action to meaningful goals.
His approach combines research-based development principles with storytelling, reflection, and interactive learning. Through Aspire, Dream BLDRS, and Dream BLDRS+, Patrick has worked with schools, colleges, companies, and community organizations seeking to strengthen leadership and help people build better versions of themselves.
Bring Patrick and other Aspire speakers to your next keynote, student program, professional-development session, conference, retreat, or corporate event.
Karimah Taylor
Dream BLDRS Engagement & Program Coordinator
About Jones Elementary School
Jones Elementary School is part of Metro Nashville Public Schools in Nashville, Tennessee. The school works to create a supportive learning community where every child is known, valued, challenged, and equipped with the tools to succeed.
Through academics, performing arts, enrichment opportunities, and family engagement, Jones Elementary supports the development of the whole child. As part of MNPS, the school helps prepare students for continued success in school, college, career, and life.
Dream BLDRS+ Leadership Retreat Summary
The Dream BLDRS+ Leadership Retreat is a two-day professional learning experience designed to help the Jones Elementary team begin the school year aligned, energized, and prepared to lead. Through guided reflection, collaborative activities, and strengths-based leadership development, educators will build practical strategies for strengthening school culture and increasing their impact on students and families.
Client
Jones Elementary School
Engagement
School Leadership Retreat and Professional Development
Facilitated by
Aspire Focus Areas
District-Wide Professional Development for School Systems
Dream BLDRS+ can extend beyond an individual school to support coordinated professional development across an entire district. Aspire can design experiences for principals, educators, school leadership teams, support staff, and central-office leaders while maintaining shared language and expectations across participating schools.
District-wide engagements may include a system-wide keynote, leadership retreat, coordinated training across multiple schools, role-specific workshops, cohort-based development, or a multi-session initiative aligned with district priorities. Programming can be adapted for different audiences while connecting every participant to a common vision and measurable goals.