Helping leaders turn priorities into practice

Spring founded Valorem Change Consultants in 2020 to help schools, districts, and other organizations turn improvement priorities into practical, sustainable work. The firm’s approach brings together equity, excellence, efficiency, and engagement, with attention to both the changes leaders want to make and the capacity of the people who will carry them out.

Services range from focused reviews and leadership advisement to collaborative planning, staff training, coaching, and implementation support. Valorem works with leadership teams and stakeholders to understand needs, strengthen systems, and establish useful ways to monitor progress.

Areas of consulting support

• Change management and strategic planning. Assess the demands of competing initiatives, sequence implementation, and use change management dashboards to make workload and organizational capacity more visible.
• Instructional and organizational improvement. Train and coach teams in improvement science, develop school and district improvement processes, and use evidence to refine instruction and daily operations.
• Student support and alternatives to suspension. Develop general education intervention systems, trauma-sensitive practices, restorative approaches, and therapeutic diversion pathways in collaboration with school staff and community providers.
• Equity and resource allocation. Review policies and practices, develop dashboards that reveal disproportionality, and design student-based budgeting approaches that account for differences in student need.
• Program and operational reviews. Examine special education services, staffing, enrollment, human resource systems, and spending patterns; evaluate programs and develop practical improvement plans.
• Community partnerships and engagement. Help leaders build relationships, clarify shared responsibilities, and involve families, staff, students, and partner organizations in planning and implementation.

His writing on change capacity asks leaders to consider the demands an initiative places on an organization alongside the benefits it promises. That question is central to his work on change value units and his current book project, Finding the Sweet Spot for Change, written for managers and executive leaders.

Professional experience

A career in district leadership and improvement

Selected writing

Leadership ideas in practice

Articles by Laurence T. Spring, published on The Org’s business and leadership platform and on Medium, explore organizational culture, employee retention, hiring, educational practice, and the everyday demands of leadership.

Research and writing

Spring’s doctoral dissertation, An Examination of the Effect of Therapeutic Alternatives to Out-of-School Suspension, examined an approach to responding to student needs through therapeutic alternatives. His educational work also includes the General Education Continuum, trauma-sensitive schools, and restorative practices.

His article Finding the Sweet Spot for Change appeared in the Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice in 2021. He is developing those ideas into a nonfiction book focused on change capacity and change value units.

Selected Presentations and Panel Discussions

Spring has presented on organizational change, student discipline, equity, and student support. Selected engagements include:

• Finger Lakes Community Schools Rally — keynote speaker, 2024.
• Urban League of Rochester — “Disrupting the School-to-Prison Pipeline,” 2024.
• Learning Forward Annual Conference — “Finding the Sweet Spot for Change,” 2020.
• New York State School Boards Association — “Why Does My School Spend Less Than Yours?” 2019.
• New York State Office of Mental Health — What’s Great in Our State — featured panelist, “Therapeutic Alternatives to Suspension,” May 2019.
• U.S. Department of Education — Every Student, Every Day National Conference — featured panelist, June 2016.
• New York State School Boards Association Annual Conference — “Data-Driven Student Discipline Decisions,” October 2014.
• AASA National Conference on Education — “Linking Nutrition to Improved Academic Success,” February 2014.
• New York State Council of School Superintendents — “Equity and Excellence: Addressing Issues of Disproportionality Among Student Subgroups,” February 2011.
• New York State School Boards Association Annual Conference — “The Data That School Boards Need,” October 2008.

Education

• Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership — Manhattanville College, 2020.
• Master of Science in Education, administration — University of Rochester, 1997.
• Bachelor of Arts in History, minor in psychology — SUNY Geneseo, 1992.

Get in touch

For consulting inquiries, speaking opportunities, or questions about my writing, contact Larry@valoremchange.com.

Laurence T. Spring
Leadership, education, and the capacity for meaningful change.