Creative Leadership Solutions (CLS)

Services

Creative Leadership Solutions provides coaching services to educators, particularly in “high-poverty” schools. CLS provides its services in three primary forms: on-site summits, coaching, and action research task forces. Online summits consist of speeches and breakout sessions provided by CLS to groups of teachers. Coaching sessions are focused on individuals, primarily educational leaders such as superintendents. Action research task forces are programs designed to help schools and teacher groups conduct research to solve specific problems. ^{2 3 4}

CLS’s consulting covers ten areas of focus: Collaborative Teams PLCs (professional learning communities) Done Right, Grading Reform, Strategic Planning, Equity, Master Scheduling, Evidence-Based Instruction, Leadership Development, Power Standards, Keynotes, On-Site Summits. ²

Controversy

In June 2025, Defending Education, a right-of-center organization that opposes the teaching of critical race theory and related left-wing ideologies in public schools, published a research report on “Equitable Grading,” also known as “anti-racist assessment,” the practice of introducing the left-wing concept of equity to the grading process to address “inequities” and “bias” in education. The report examined instances of public schools hiring consulting firms to introduce equitable grading programs. ¹

The report discovered four schools (three in California and one in Ohio) that paid Creative Leadership Solutions to teach equitable grading. In 2025, the Alhambra Unified School District paid CLS $10,000 for its services. In 2023, Corona-Norco Unified School District paid CLS $11,900 for its services. From 2022 through 2024, Modesto City Schools paid CLS a total of $3,937,000 for its services in each of the three years (and also paid consulting firm California Education Partners $360,000 during that span). In 2021, Springfield City School District paid CLS $74,400 for its services. ¹

Leadership

Creative Leadership Solutions was founded in January 2015 by education consultant Douglas Reeves. Reeves also founded the nonprofit Finish the Dissertation, which offers free consulting services to doctoral students. He has authored more than 30 books on “leadership and organizational effectiveness,” including Achieving Equity and Excellence. ^{5 6 7 8}

According to Reeves’s research, the difference between high-performing and low-performing schools is that the former have “the unending support of their leaders and teachers.” Reeves is a proponent of spending extra attention on low-performing students and giving such students additional time to complete tests. He has also attributed the relatively low international test scores of the United States to a lack of “respect” for teachers within American culture. ^{5 6 7 8}

In 2022, AMP Reports published “Sold a Story,” an investigative series that claimed American children were falling behind in literacy due to the recent popularity of Reading Recovery, a literacy teaching method of allegedly dubious value. In November 2022, when the fifth episode of the series was published, Reeves co-signed a lengthy online comment criticizing the series for creating “divisiveness,” being too harsh on well-meaning educators, and forming an impression of a false dichotomy between Reading Recovery and traditional literacy methods such as phonics. ⁹

Reeves has written in defense of setting educational standards. He has argued against portraying standards as being necessarily “anti-child,” arbitrary, or based on rote memorization, instead preferring to craft standards that are based on “reasoning, analysis and deep thinking.” ¹⁰

Lisa Almeida is the chief executive officer of CLS and previously was its executive director. She has “more than 20 years of experience delivering professional development and implementation support” for teachers and previously served as the national director of professional learning at the Leadership and Learning Center. ¹¹