In many schools, teachers assume leadership roles. These teacher-leader roles vary greatly in their selectivity, responsibilities, and authority from school to school, and in some cases teacher-leaders do not have a formal title. Teacher-leader roles do have a common purpose, however: to enable teaching peers to improve and ultimately increase their students’ academic achievement. Research has shown that in schools where teachers share leadership with administrators, school improvement changes are better accepted and implemented as compared with schools without shared leadership. Moreover, teacher leadership has been found to be an important factor in improving the life changes of students in disadvantaged schools. This session will communicate the role that teachers and teacher leaders have in the design of schools and through the use of protocols, a shared text, and artifacts. Teachers and teacher leaders will walk away from this session with a toolkit of strategies that they can use to be a catalyst for change in their schools.