Do they really not have "Gossipers"?

As part of the analysis of the business, I returned yet again to be a type of "secret shopper".  By that I mean, I had casual conversations with employees in the parking lots, the gift shop, in the fields and prompted some difficult conversations.  I talked about the economy, working conditions, the "owners", and I could not find a gossiper in the group. I even went as far as speaking to a person I know as an employee who would trust me that I would not provide evidence of who they were.....but nothing, no negative experiences or stories.  Can an organization really have a satisfied group of employees who have such a strong positive and productive working relationship with nothing negative to say?  (Only terrific stories about the farm, the family, the tradition and the quality.)

The Vineyard Experience

As I have ventured out to the vineyard organization and met with several of the personnel there, I can't say enough that this experience has been both rewarding and enlightening.  Both the business owner and I have ben able to remind each other of things we want to do as organizational leaders better our own organization. 

We have come away with teaching each other a bit of what we do and how there are similarities and differences. This organization would like us to provide them feedback of what we have found out about their company, if what they said is a shared meaning throughout and if there are any ideas that we would like to share to better the organization.  I do not want to give it away, so I shall not to tell you the common elements of this organization and the educational system, but I will share with you that policies, unions and too many rules, can alter what we could possibly be doing in education.  I hope you have enjoyed the various blogs as everything relates, OD and leadership development,  regardless if it is directly related to a specific assignment.    

Sanger USD - The How Do To It Model Using DuFour - Learn By Doing

 

HOP ON THE BUS WITH ME AND LET'S GO FROM GOOD TO GREAT!  OUR CHILDREN ARE COUNTING ON US!

 

Real World Changes and the How-To Do It!

After this presentation, I wanted to race home and roll up my sleeves! 

Build a Culture of Care first and Build Practices that can sustain over time!

 

Sanger USD the DuFour Model!!!

·        Preparing individuals to be functional individuals of society.

·        Literacy, Fluency, Caring

·        Need consistency of curriculum across grades across the district. Articulated curriculum throughout.

·        They had a long way to go… moved many schools from 500s to 700-900s.

·        Character Education Program! Resilience!

·        Exited PI in two years and currently none of the school are PI

·        Get all kids to believe in themselves

·        In the Board room is a wall of all of the data and its updated every year.

How Did We Move This Fast?

• Developed an Organizational Focus

• Changed our view of the world, our culture!

• Developed Structures

• Improved Delivery

• Focused Response and Supports

Kept the focus for the past 7 years!

DPA District Progress Assessment is given three times per year prior to CST testing based on the district determined essential standards. 60 question test. 

When you are on fire in trouble you move fast.

Professional Development – Golden Gate – you paint it and re-paint it. Train and re-train.

All trainings – all of the administrators are in these trainings as well. 

Move forward, and back track  if we miss something. Don’t forget about norms.

Need to develop the developmental process. Take the teachers to DuFour training. 50-60 teachers per year. 

Principals receive the COMMON INTENT aligned goals and objectives

Then the Principals write up their common intent for their sites.

Their principals are the best in the state, they say. (SLCUSD can top that, wait and see!

RtI - they cut special ed identification by 50%!

Principal stated that focusing on 5 common elements was the key for him. Model it, do it with any classroom. Principals teach, talk the talk and walk the walk. 

Assumptions Regarding Our Work

 Teachers Matter

 Teachers Care

 Schools Matter

 If Teachers and schools have a significant impact on student achievement,   

      they serve a fundamentally moral  purpose.

 We now know how to create schools that help more kids learn at higher levels

The Power of Professional Learning Communites

The most promising strategy for sustained, substantive school improvement is building the capacity of school personnel to function as a professional learning community.

The path to change in the classroom lies within and through professional learning communities.

‐Milbrey McLaughlin (1995)

Learning, collaborative culture, results!

Team Defined

A team is a group of people working interdependently toward a common goal for

which they are mutually accountable.

                                                                                    Rick DuFour

What do we want them to learn? The essential standards. (Common core)

Criteria for Identifying Essential Common Outcomes

To separate the essential from the peripheral, carefully

apply these three to each standard:

1. Endurance‐ are students expected to retain the skills/knowledge long after the test is complete?

2. Leverage‐ is the skill/knowledge applicable to many academic disciplines?

3. Readiness for the Next Level of Learning‐ is this skill/knowledge preparing the student for success in the next grade/course?

                                                                                                Reeves 2002

Keys to Formative Assessments

To determine if an assessment is formative ask:

1. Is it used to identify students who are experiencing difficulty in their learning?

2. Are students who are having difficulty provided with additional time and support for learning?

3. Are students given an additional opportunity to demonstrate their learning?

Care enough to let kids be re-taught and be able to re-test. 

Interventions built on shared core values!

Core values are discussed, agreed upon, and written down by the staff.

 All students can learn.

 Some students need additional time & support.

 It is the action of the ADULTS that make the difference!

 We don’t blame the students

Intervention must be in addition to core not in place of core!!!!!

Materials are tools to generate student learning.

Sanger’s middle school is now a “School to Watch”.

Quality of instruction is the most critical component. Explicit Direct Instruction EDI.

I do, we do, you do

 M. Hunter –

Teach, ask, pause, pick a random volunteer, (pair-share), listen, echo

Invest in the sustainability.

Change Culture

• Move from focus on adults to focus on kids

• Themes to Build Focus

– Fish

– Care Enough to Make a Difference!

– When you Believe it, You will see it!

– Every Child, Every Day, Whatever it Takes!

– Together we Can

Powerful Leaders Speak and We Need to Listen

So 5 Superintendents spoke and here are key ideas, statements and changes.  Too many take aways to single out today.  There is a fire in my belly!!!

 

Panel of Superintendents

Change through Leadership

·       Hold people to unconditional high regard.

·       Treat everyone with trust and respect and be a family.

·       Be a coach and provide resources

·       Keep my reluctant dragons close to my side

·       Involve as many people as possible even if it takes longer to accomplish something

·       Balance when to lead and when to step out of the way.  Try to empower others!

·       Talk with my heart with passion

·       Relationships are everything

·       Need a supportive governing board, a focus on kids

·       The appropriate level of push and pull

·       Be as assertive as you can get away with

·       Leadership is a form of service, its not about TITLE

·       There is no place as “good enough”

·       Not every child is proficient, so don’t stop

·       There is no such thing as population insignificant – every child is significant

·       Keep the main thing the main thing.  The kid is the main thing. 

·       Be willing to lose your job to do a good job

The above statements are great for all teachers.

Conditions for Sustainability

·       Lead by example

·       Shine the light on the path

·       Need to build capacity

·       Sometimes need to change people

·       Culture of Learning and Success/ Look at the culture of the organization

·       Culture of Change with the ability to withstand change in leadership

·       Distributed Leadership – give away as much power as someone will pick up. Reform needs to be owned by everyone.

What to do when you start out to change?

1.    A guiding coalition – a few people guiding the leadership, guiding the change

2.    Make corresponding leadership/organizational changes

3.    Be serious about capacity building by teams

4.    Learning is the work – it is what happens on a day to day basis

(look for article - Professional develop a great way to avoid

 Change)

What can I get done in 100 days? 

·       Helps to keep the momentum and results. 

·       Short term wins.  Short term changes

·       Cancel some meetings – if it is not interactive or its not to make decisions, don’t meet.

What have you done to increase the EL to more proficiency?

·       High expectations

·       Don’t treat them differently if you treat all students individually (regarding the assessments and interventions).

·       Do ELD all day every day

·       What are you doing all day every day?

·       It’s the behavior of teaching

·       Its not about the certification they have it how they are using their knowledge they gained through the certification education.

·       Parent education, provide them everywhere

·       Provide after school programs throughout the district in community areas as well

What about unions?

·       Union Professionals vs. Professional Unionism – being a member of a union should stand for, “we will meet the needs of your child”.

·       When meeting with union members regularly, keep the focus on teaching and learning.

·        Treat them with respect and hopefully we can build the reputation “You can now trust the district office.”

In the very beginning, what did you do to Change?

·       Engage the school board immediately

·       Mandated that the teachers go through 3 professional development days

·       One page plan

·       Teachers are not our number one priority, it’s the students.

·       Take the risk, step out and be the start of the Change Agent

·       Be honest about our work – the outcome of our work

o   Hope is not a strategy

o   Don’t blame the kids

o   It’s about learning

·       We are doing this because this is what our kids need from us.

Early Learning – what are you doing?

·       The best K teachers

·       Pre-screening for all

·       Preschool is critical

·       Community involvement

·       Home outreach – 3 year olds

·       Poverty, At Risk, EL  (At Promise kids)

·       Parent Education

·       Early intervention with parents

·       First 5

·       Parent summit – keynote speakers

·       More effective the elementary school is , the more effective the site preschool will be

Today: System Leaders

What are the big issues we need to get?

·       Honor teachers in ways we haven’t seen?

·       We need to be able to focus on a few things and do them well, the results will follow.  Continuous improvement will lead to outstanding performance.

·       Empower with fewer mandates

·       Local control, leave us alone, give us our money in one pot, let us do our job…. But we have to do our job!

·       Don’t worry about compliance, do what is best for our kids, and have the data to back it up.

·       Release the restricted funds

·       Collaborate with all, develop great teams even across the state and not re-creating the wheel different ways

Take Away message:

·       Moral purpose – how to teach well

·       Tackle achievement gap with gusto, must all work together, need new and more partnerships

·       Ongoing journey and we will always be there

·       The Superintendents all had a job to do but with teams

·       We lead in a tremendous opportunity.  It’s an attitude we choose every day.  Model it.

·       We need to build systems that are so deep.  We need to know every child’s story in order to be able to support them. 

Doing the right thing, right now.

I just love this stuff!  Now you can hear from Dr. Reeves, via Jackie's perception and take aways!  Stay tuned more to come tonight.  It was a Changing Day for me! My mind is spinning and we can do so much with the right stuff, people and practice.

 

Douglas B. Reeves  2011

Dr. Reeves is the founder of The Leadership and Learning Center. In partnership with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the Center serves school systems around the world. Dr. Reeves is the author of 30 books and many articles. He received the highest honor from the National Staff Development Council for his lifetime contributions to the field of professional development. He was named the Brock International Laureate for his contributions to education, received the Distinguished Service Award from the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and the

Parents’ Choice Award for his writing for children and parents.

Leadership Focus:

Doing the Right Things, Right Now

The big ideas:

 Moral Imperative - • Impact, not popularity

                                    • Sacrifice, not bargaining

                                    • Values, not money

                                    • Learning Activity #1

                                                                – Essential goals

                                                                – Present Reality

                                                                –Moral Imperative

 The Essentials: Focus, Monitoring, and Efficacy

 Change Leadership

 Evidence

 Sustainability

 Implementation - The impact of implementation on student achievement. How do you   

     measure implementation? Create an implementation rubric.

Implementation Rubric

• Specify a CURRENT strategy

• Proficient

• Progressing

• Not meeting standards

• Exemplary – challenge your most experienced and expert staff

                                Planning for success

                                                • Efficacy – bone deep belief that teaching and leadership matter

                                                • Prioritization – six or fewer

                                                • Specificity

                                                • Measurability

                                                • Monitoring (adult actions, not just test scores

Don’t blame the teachers until we solve the poverty issues

Social Injustice and Poverty – solve it.

More than six priorities inversely related to achievement

                • 90% faculty participation, 3-5 times higher achievement gains than 10% faculty                       participation

                • PRACTICES, not PROGRAMS

Stop engaging in the toxic conversation and engage in the productive conversations so build the practices.

Coaching – not used correctly. Need direct modeling in the classroom.

For every workshop should equal 7 days of 1:1 modeling.

Coaching is getting cut because it is not being done right.

FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS

90 90 90 schools:

-Laser like focus on achievement

-Collaborative scoring

-Non- fiction writing

-Multiple opportunities for success

See the change:

From 90 90 90 to 100 100 100

• Poverty levels increasing

• Second language students increasing

• Parental anxiety and stress increasing

• And . . .

• Dramatic reduction in failures

• Increase in college credit

• Improvement in discipline and morale

-Teachers and leaders burned to a cinder doing EVERYTHING their boards and administrators require – even high scores on implementation of two dozen initiatives – BUT WITHOUT FOCUS, they score LOWER Than other schools.

The Focus Imperative

Focus at one item at detail. Also use the motivational ways to engage people!

Factor Analysis - look at millions of starts of data and find the constellation – what fits together

• Three of 21 factors have disproportionate influence – Focus, monitoring, efficacy

            Twice the gains!

-       Schools with the highest levels of focus and monitoring achieved twice the gains

            in reading over three years compared to schools with the lowest levels of focus

            and monitoring improvements

• Focus – six or fewer priorities

• Monitoring – adult actions, not just test scores

• Efficacy – teacher conviction in their  impact on student results

Focus Tool: The Implementation Audit

• 1) What is our initiative inventory? Find all of the layers.

• 2) What is the range of implementation? Doing it or not doing it?

• 3) What is the impact of implementation on student achievement? What is the real impact of            

      student achievement?

Using the Implementation Audit

            High Impact – Lead and Invest

            Low Impact – Weed and Evaluate

Choose to weed or not to weed and what to weed.

Standards of Evidence

• Belief

• Experience

• Shared opinions

• Objective observation

• Preponderance of the evidence

Ask people the next time, is this based on belief, experience, opinion, observation or the 2% of evidence?

Today will be a success if . . .

• Lead while managing conflicting priorities

• Use technology to implement change

• Maintain focus without getting into focus

• Organizing and prioritizing mandates withdecreased staff

• Help staff incorporate best practices

• From concept to implementation – get the

“but” out of the room