Prince George County Public Schools

Prince George's County Public Schools serves a diverse student population of more than 131,000 students from rural, suburban, and urban areas around Washington, DC. PGCPS includes 198 schools and nearly 20,000 employees, making it one of the 20th largest school districts in the United States with an annual budget of $2.3 billion.

About 20% of students are learning English in school, and 66% qualify for free or reduced meals. With such a large organization, efficiently coordinating efforts, navigating conflicts, and meeting the various needs of school leadership, teachers, administration, support staff, parents, and students proved extremely difficult.

Stuck in Reactive Crisis Mode

One PGCPS administrator, James Storm, reflected: "With a district as large as ours, I mean, over 125,000 students and close to 20,000 employees, it's very easy to get stuck in that reactive process, I mean, because there are daily crises."

The constant crisis response prevented proactive leadership and strategic coordination. Leaders couldn't focus on student achievement when consumed by daily firefighting.

Pervasive Silos Fragmenting the District

Despite serving the same students, different staff groups operated in isolation, focused on duties, policies, or changes impacting them directly. "It's easy to have silos. And we don't probably mean to, but we do," Judie Strawbridge, an Elementary School Principal, explained.

The fragmentation was reinforced by language and behavior: "You hear it in hallways, 'That's not my job, that's not my job, that's him,'" Kristi observed.

"Negative this, negative that, bam this, bam this, she this, she that. We, we, we, we," Judie described the hallway conversations that reinforced division rather than collaboration.

Blame Culture Between Grade Levels

One area of recurring tension: high school teachers felt students weren't leaving middle school with necessary knowledge or skills to succeed. Where students struggled, accusation and resentment flourished.

Kristi Holden, a high school principal, admitted: "Before the Arbinger training, I would blame the middle school for what the students don't know."

This blame cycle prevented collaboration on actual solutions. Middle schools blamed elementary, high schools blamed middle schools, and no one took responsibility for helping students succeed across transitions.

Communication Breakdown and Lack of Recognition

"There was definitely a lack of communication," Eric noted. Problems festered rather than being addressed directly.

"Before, we just kinda walked around and just avoided that, or allowed it to deteriorate to a point that we just said, okay, well, now we'll just get rid of those people, or I'll just leave," Rudolph explained.

Employees didn't feel recognized or valued in a demanding profession with limited financial compensation. "They're not recognized, and they don't count, and they don't feel that they count," one leader observed.

The disconnection was personal: "At one point I was, you know, just contemplating that I even fit into the organization," Doug reflected.

PGCPS took a proactive approach by engaging Arbinger to provide solutions that would drive meaningful change across the district.

Starting with Leadership Self-Awareness

An Arbinger facilitator consulted with the senior leadership team, providing training and coaching geared toward improving school leadership's capacity to positively influence and develop others.

Like all Arbinger training, the process first focused on enhancing individual self-awareness, or self-deception, regarding counterproductive tendencies of a self-focused, inward mindset. Because mindset ultimately drives behaviors that create results, any lasting change depends on fundamental mindset change.

"How am I the problem?" Judie asked herself—the critical first question.

"How can I be a better leader? How can I be a better role model for teachers as well as students?" Wayne questioned.

"If your relationship's not working, when you know something's wrong, to kinda stop and analyze, what could it be?" Shawn reflected.

Equipping Leadership with Tools

The school leadership team, supported by the Arbinger facilitator, realized ways they had inadvertently been inhibiting progress by seeing others as objects rather than people. They were equipped with tools to cultivate and operationalize an outward mindset by focusing on people and results.

"I know the triggers when I'm not being helpful to someone else," Monique explained, demonstrating the increased self-awareness.

"Am I seeing them as a person?" Eric learned to ask himself.

Scaling Across the District

Arbinger also worked with the talent development team, focusing on cultivating growth and improvement for PGCPS employees, including examining hiring, onboarding, and promotion practices.

To scale impact, PGCPS identified 70 employees located strategically across the district who became trained and certified to deliver Arbinger workshops to employees in both district administration and school leadership.

"The fact that we had a common language to talk about culture really helped us move our work to the next level," Shawn observed.

Proactive Rather Than Directive

"We are very good as educators in following directives, but to want to do something and to have to do something are two different things," Monique noted. The training helped employees want to change, not just comply with mandates.

"It's all about relationships. It's all about building relationships. It's all about trust," Judith emphasized. 

Implementing Arbinger principles created meaningful impact throughout PGCPS, transforming how nearly 20,000 employees worked together to serve students.

Interpersonal Relationships Transformed

One employee recalled her supervisor's proactive approach: "My supervisor approached the disciplinary conversation in an outward way that respected my humanity... I'll follow her to the ends of the earth because she saw me as a person. That's the person I want to work for, and that's the person I'll give 110% to."

This shift was felt between peers as well. "There has been an intentional focus on changing the way we treat each other," Eric stated, fostering collaboration across departments or divisions that formerly had been siloed.

"Relationships have just flourished as a result," another faculty member explained. "We truly believe that collectively, we can do exponentially more than what any of us can do as individuals, so it's all a we thing," Ebony added.

Cross-Department Collaboration Replacing Silos

"You see more instances, collaboration across departments, across divisions," Sharon observed. The silos that had fragmented the district began breaking down as employees became "more aware of and responsive to the goals and challenges faced by their colleagues."

"I'm much more aware of what my colleagues are trying to accomplish," James reflected.

Improved Integration of New Hires

"The Arbinger framework's proactive approach has helped to better integrate new hires into the district," one administrator stated. "This shift in mindset has helped us to adjust to bringing new people in. Last year was tough. This year is a lot better."

The common language and framework provided by Arbinger unlocked cooperation that had been impossible before.

Student Achievement Through Employee Collaboration

The connection to student outcomes became clear. "We know that education and schools are people business," Rudolph observed. "Where we're beginning to think of others before you think of yourself," Sharon explained.

One employee reflected on the unexpected acceleration: "Through these conversations that we're having, we're accelerating the work even though we're not concentrating just on student achievement."

By helping administration, faculty, and employees across PGCPS improve their ability to work together, Arbinger created the foundation for teaching and uplifting students more effectively.

"The school system, as well as each individual school, continues to strive to be the best we can be. That's what we ask of our children, it's the least we can ask of ourselves," Josephine concluded.

Prince George's County Public Schools proved that even with 20,000 employees across 198 schools serving 131,000 diverse students, silos and blame culture aren't inevitable—they're a choice. When PGCPS leadership shifted from "that's not my job" and "it's the middle school's fault" to "how am I the problem?" and "how can I help?", collaboration replaced finger-pointing, relationships flourished, and the work accelerated. By training 70 internal facilitators and creating common language across the district, PGCPS demonstrated that large educational systems can break down silos and coordinate efforts—but only by addressing how employees see each other, not just what they're supposed to do. The lesson: you can't improve student outcomes when staff are stuck blaming each other instead of collaborating on solutions.