“Natural and Timely”

The work let alone progress of transformation is not easy and is more often fraught with frustration, disappointment, and discouragement. The lack of instant or immediate positive change, success, or results reinforces the naysayers as well as erodes confidence, taints the vision, and makes ambitious initiatives questionable. Leading to a loss of motivation, passion, and commitment the inevitable happens with transformative work – abandonment.

Suffice; Transformative work is not easy!

To create the conditions for transformative success, we set out five and a half years ago with a plan to address what many labeled a “persistently and chronically low performing school system” – bluntly, a failing district. 

That plan, the Strategic Commitments articulated the key success factors that must be achieved for breakthrough results.  Our plan created a word picture of what our school system could, should, and would look like when the work was completed.  Three commitments framed our work – and continue to frame our work.  Common to each commitment is the core of our work – “All Anson County School students meet or exceed state and community academic learning standards”.  The emphasis on “all” birthed the vision of “All means All”.  

The commitments are:

1.     All Anson County School students meet or exceed state and community academic learning standards

2.     The Anson County Schools are organized efficiently and effectively to ensure that all students meet or exceed state and community academic learning standards

3.     The Anson County Schools will engage, promote, and partner with parents and community to ensure all students meet or exceed state and community academic learning standards

The core work of our school system resides in commitment one.  It is here that we find the essential components of our instructional program – standards, curriculum, instruction, and assessment alignment with student performance and adult learning.  Those individually and collectively are keys to success – hence they are key success factors.  Achieving alignment and implementation fidelity of each of these factors will result in fulfilling our commitment.

We discovered of late that missing was an additional factor within commitment one.  That is, our commitment to digital conversion and digital integration.  Thus, administration is recommending amending our commitments to add under key success factor 1.4 – “Student learning is planned and predictive” a new factor:

“Implementation of digital, mobile instructional and learning devices, tools ensure each student experiences contemporary methodologies via digital delivery, acquisition, and application of digital tools, skills, knowledge and experience.”

Though generally understood, the digital conversion and digital integration initiative has resulted in unprecedented access and application of digital tools throughout our system.  We have seen incredible growth in both teaching and learning.  We have proved both in concept and in practice that digital conversion and integration works – it works for both teacher and learner.   We, or better put, our students have proved in both concept and practice responsibility and accountability for digital tools albeit laptops or tablets.  Sure there have been damages to equipment as well as incidents of inappropriate use but this was expected and not as egregious as some prophesied.  We have learned and adjusted as a result.  Our digital literacy program provided by one of our strategic partners; EverFi is comprehensive and effective. 

We have consistently and constantly engaged in new learning to integrate effectively and efficiency digital content into lesson design.  We have provided unprecedented product and device training as well as the more important instructional capacity development to ensure that staff does, in fact, weave the power of digital learning into daily lessons. 

We learned last week that at least twenty of our staff (the goal is every staff) will soon participate in an unique and powerful Discovery Educator Network (DEN).  As participants, our students will be invited to participate in an international consortium of distinguished digital learners – shaping the development of new tools, new applications, and new solutions to local, state, national, global and who else knows – but they will do it 

Thus, it is both natural and timely we include in our commitments – Strategic Commitments not only our aspirations for but our commitment to digital teaching and learning, digital tools, digital content, and digital demonstration and application.