LeaderTalk

Education 101

Data driven decision making, professional learning communities, balanced assessment, formative assessments, responsive classrooms, building school-community-business partnerships, accountability, balanced literacy, benchmarks and standards, achievement gaps, core knowledge, socio-economic factors, diversity, English Language Learners, classroom management, teacher evaluation, special education, student discipline, school finances, referendums, homework, hiring processes, inclusion, instructional leadership, No Child Left Behind, physical education, music and the arts, curricular issues and knowledge, professional development, school culture, site management, standardized tests, state requirements, technology innovations, and on and on............

This list is just a sample of the many initiatives and issues in education that face principals every day (not to mention the many items in your blogs!)  Our work, while greatly rewarding, is daunting!   We need to understand all the terms, respond the challenge each presents, and be able to implement most of them.  However, just implementing will not be effective until we have the following core values rooted deeply within us.

Principals must believe:

• that all children will learn, given time and appropriate teaching.
• "it" can and is being done all across our nation; children are meeting standards and performing at high levels.
• there can no longer be any excuses.  In order to invoke change, all educators must believe that they control the conditions for learning.
• students are the central focus of all we do in school.  There is no room for power struggles and hoops for jumping through.....All staff members must do "whatever it takes" to support student learning and allow teachers to teach at high levels.
• collaboration is much more powerful than individual work.  Principals must become "colleagues" working to be sure students achieve.
• the vision and goals for assuring student achievement are clear, communicated transparently, and shared with staff, students, and the school community.
• whether we like it or not, WE set the tone for our buildings and WE are models of expected behaviors.
• staff look to us to be leaders, counselors, evaluators, resources of information, mentors, and accessible.
• that we MUST take a high level of responsibility for hiring and maintaining the best people.  As Jim Collins puts it, we have to take our role seriously to get the right people on the bus and the wrong ones off!

The principalship truly is a huge job with a great deal of variety, interest, and importance.  But in order to do it well and navigate through all the expectations, a principal must have at the core of his or her being a strong desire to do the very best job possible to build a community focused on students, their achievement and social development.  Thus, Education 101 starts in our hearts and moves to our heads as we make a total commitment to improve the learning of every child, every day.

Have a terrific start to your school year!

Win-Win Thinking: Changing the Status Quo

The sytem worked!  This year I had the privilege of working collaboratively with our human resources department, representatives from the teachers' union, and two teachers in using our district's Teacher Performance Appraisal System.  The system was effectively adapted to support and encourage teacher growth.

In the fall, after making formal observations of all continuing contract staff who were on "high cycle", I made the difficult decision to maintain two teachers at that level rather than move them to the professional growth option.  As so often happens with many of us, my motives and abilities became the focus, rather than teacher improvement and growth.  However, after discussions with our HR department and the teachers' union, both teachers were offered the opportunity to work with a union colleague who then did two observations with me.  Before both observations, each union colleague worked with the teacher to plan strategies to address identified areas of concern.

The union colleagues then worked with the teachers to develop a lesson plan for the observation.  They also attended the pre-observation conference, at which time the three of us discussed the lesson plan.  After observing the lesson, the union colleague and I met to discuss our observations while in the classroom.  I, then, took responsibility for presenting the observations to each teacher and writing the summary document.

I am thrilled to say that both teachers used this experience to learn and grow professionally.  Each was able to make the necessary changes in their instruction to move off of "high cycle" and back into the professional growth portion of our teacher appraisal system.

This was a powerful experience for me as an administrator!  I was able to work collaboratively with the teachers and union representatives and our HR department toward a common goal; positively impacting instruction.  By changing the status quo of our Teacher Performance Appraisal System we created a win-win plan for all involved.

Ementoring: A Partnership that Works!

For the past five years students at Woodland Elementary have participated in a fabulous school/business partnership program with General Mills called Ementoring.  This program has made a huge difference in increasing students' writing skills, exposing them to the business world, maintaining high scores on the writing portion of the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs), and creating a mentorship relationship for each student.

Each year, from October through May, our sixth grade students have written bi-weekly emails to their General Mills ementors, each student being paired with a mentor.  The first week the students write a teacher directed assignment on the top of their email, usually one paragraph in a writing style tested on the MCAs.  (The ementor is sent a separate email from our Technology Integration Teacher outlining the expectations for this writing assignment.)  Then, at the bottom of the email, the student writes a personal note to their ementor.  Once complete, the emails are sent.

Ementors read and respond to each student's email within 48 hours.  They read their mentee's assigned paragraph and give suggestions for improvement.  Then, at the bottom of the email, they respond to the personal note from their mentee.  This email is then sent back to the mentee at Woodland.  The student is responsible to revise their writing and, the next week, send a final copy to the ementor, plus add a personal note/response (these are not evaluated).

The ementors and their mentees meet at least three times per year; twice at Woodland and once at General Mills.  At Woodland, in the fall, the group participates in fun and social activities as a means of introduction and in the spring an ice cream social celebrates the end of the year.  When the students visit General Mills, they are introduced to marketing strategies, participate in product evaluations, and spend time touring the facility and their ementor's work space.

Our school's business partnership with General Mills has truly made a difference in student writing performance and social development.  The program requires a bi-weekly focus on writing in the classroom and the students have a caring audience for whom to write (different from parents and teachers).  Plus, each adult at General Mills provides friendship, builds a personal relationship, and serves as a powerful role model.

Woodland Elementary School is VERY grateful and fortunate to have this wonderful business partnership with General Mills.  Our students' writing skills have improved, test scores on the MCAs remain high (over 80% proficient), and each student has a caring adult role model and friend who mentors them via email and face-to-face visits throughout the school year.  Due to dedicated and caring teachers and General Mills staff members, the ementoring program truly has made a powerful difference in the lives of our students.

Moving from Talk to Action

I am honored to be part of this blog group and have been very impressed with the high quality of entries.  Thanks for sharing so many great ideas and thoughts.

In this first blog, I would like to address achievement gaps.  After 16 years as an elementary school principal I have reached a point where I believe we need to convert our conversations and verbal acknowledgments of the achievement gaps between Caucasian students and other racial groups to actions that make a difference.  In saying this, there are three major areas of focus that have been discussed in recent workshops I've attended.

1.)  Eliminate making external excuses (poverty, home life, parental experience) and begin to analyze the internal reasons or contributing factors (staff attitudes, curriculum, differentiation of instruction, high expectations for behavior and learning, and accountability for meeting them).  Then make the appropriate changes.

2.)  Create schools and classrooms in which the climate permeates with Ronald Ferguson's "Tripod":  Content, Pedagogy, and Relationships all focused on student achievement.  Schools must create teacher to student relationships that include three components.  Each child must believe that:  1.) the teacher believes he/she can and will be successful.  Second, the teacher will consistently offer support and do whatever it takes to help him/her be successful, and third, the teacher will support the student no matter what and communicate and celebrate his/her success.

3.)  Analyze school populations and work to make appropriate enrollment decisions so that , where possible, schools have a percentage of poverty no higher than the district average.  Myron Orfield's data tell us that when a school reaches a concentration of poverty the chance of students graduating from high school and going on to college reduces significantly (30%).  He also informs us that research shows that two of the main reasons students graduate from high school and go on to college are the influences from their parents and peer group.

It is time we move from dialog to decision-making that results in action using data to eliminate achievement gaps at both the district and school level.  There is a wide body of research and information available.  But until we analyze what we are doing systemically that maintains and reduces the gaps and then take action to address those factors, we are merely "talking" and not acting, condoning school segregation and achievement gaps between our Caucasian students and our students of color.  Let's begin taking action now!