"Reflections"

The annual Day of Reflection for Principals and Cabinet took place this week.

This dedicated day involved leadership reviewing as well as reflecting upon their work within the context of leadership standards. The process also included writing and dialoguing with a critical friend. The role of critical friend was to ask questions to cause deeper, more penetrating examination of practice or to provide clearer understanding.

The results of the day were captured in a written form that will eventually become an artifact in each principals and cabinet members year-end evaluation.

Principals were asked, what did they do, what did they learn, and what implications for their leadership were gleaned from their learnings in the following leadership areas:

I. Strategic

II. Instructional

III. Cultural

IV. Human Resource

V. Managerial

VI. External Development

VII. Micro-Political

In a like manner, Cabinet was asked to reflect on their work as defined in the Annual Planning Table, their contributions, effect, and learning informed by the Organizational Assessment and/or Comprehensive Needs Assessment. Within the context of areas identified as needing improvement or threats, each cabinet member reflected and wrote their responses to the following:

· How has my work supported, validated, or affirmed identified strength area(s)?

· What two examples can I cite to support my response to the aforementioned question?

· What implications do the area(s) needing improvement or area(s) identified as threats have for my leadership?

· What two examples can I cite to support my response to the aforementioned question?

Lastly, Cabinet members wrote their reflections to these two prompts:

1. What must I do to increase my leadership “effect” to ensure that improvement, measurable improvement is continuous in those areas I have responsibility, accountability, and authority?

2. What must I do to ensure that principals, teachers, and support staff are effective in improving both teaching and learning?

Suffice it to say, the day is a very productive, informative, and exhausting day.

Different from years’ past is a very significant factor – that is, principals and cabinet level leadership are aware and understand now more than ever “what” needs to be done!

The challenge remains – doing it.

As June rapidly approaches signaling the end of the instructional year, leadership will prepare for reconvening our learners on 25 August 2011. There will be little, if any, idle time as leadership engages in their annual leadership advance (June 15-17). As a warm up for the Advance, Leadership will participate in training on 14 June with Department of Public Instruction staff focused on unpacking school Comprehensive Assessment Needs reports with the expectation that they will, in turn, facilitate with their staff the same process in the Fall.

We will have teams of teachers and Leadership attending and presenting Discovery Education (June 20-24), AVID (June 20-24), (Model Schools June 27-29), (Co-Teaching 27 June – 1 July), (Make Your Day 27 June – 1 July) and various state meetings (June 25-29).

July will find no relief from training. Leadership will participate in Total Instructional Alignment/Common Core training 18-22 July and Learning Development Center training (July 26-28).

I will stop here – August is equally full.

What is clear, each of these trainings, learnings are designed to meet identified needs – focused on implementation – doing it!

"Really ... Seriously"

We need to do better!

We can do better!

We must do better!

The challenge however, is do we really want our learners to be successful? Really? Seriously?

Are we afraid of our students being successful?

This is a serious question –

We have a plan – a detailed plan.

We have planned and provided means for aggressive identification and early intervention.

We have planned and provided a focus and the tools to create environments – teaching and learning environments that are conducive for success.

We have planned and provided resources – technology resources to enhance, enrich, and accelerate teaching and learning for success.

We have planned and provided professional learning and growth to target specifically the needs of learners to achieve success.

We have not however implemented to fidelity. To implement to fidelity requires the same attributes of effective teaching and learning – constant and consistent monitoring, constant and consistent measuring, constant and consistent adjustment or corrective action – constant and consistent reviewing and reflection – constant and consistent planning and – constant and consistent doing.

Sadly, it appears we haven’t.

Our results suggest we have not implemented deeply those practices, programs, behaviors, and decisions that yield the desired or expected results. Our data suggests the opposite.

I purposely started with the constant and consistent monitoring. A responsibility of leadership.

The good news is that leadership recognizes that planning means little without implementation. In a like manner, implementation without monitoring amounts to random, inconsistent results. Really! Seriously!

We know now more than ever that monitoring implementation of our plan especially instructional strategies including practices and programs is lacking.

Let’s not get intentions, commitment, or desire for success to be confused with the tools, skills, and application of effective implementation. Effective implementation requires first and foremost – doing.

Doing is well, doing! It’s not talking about it, not going through the motions, not trying to dress it up or pretend on certain days or in certain environments or giving the appearance of doing – no! Doing is doing.

Let me offer a thought about Make Your Day – again! If our staffs including leadership would just do it rather than not doing it they would find that not only does it work; it will be each educators' best hopes for student management.

Just wait for the final suspension numbers and I will, you will, we will hear about how Make Your Day doesn’t work. The alternative? Suspend more students – corporal punishment – we need to intimidate and force students to behave and learn. I have one question – so how was student achievement before MYD?

I would rather be faced with implementation fidelity where principals, students, parents or all three come back to me to say, “Firn we implemented it – we did everything you asked, we followed the program protocols exactly the way we were trained and it hasn’t worked – here is the data to prove it.”

Our problem remains - an important ingredient is missing – our staff and administration have not followed the program protocols or made the complete uncompromising effort to do so.

Frustrating?

Really!

Seriously!

There are many more examples – TeachTown, Headsprout, Fast ForWord, Reading Assistant, Smart Thinking, Laptops, Connect ED, Co-Teaching, TIA, Thinkgate, Common Formative Assessments, Benchmark Assessments, and many more.

We have chosen or at least majority has chosen not to implement fully or completely, but pretend to do so.

What must and will be different – monitoring. Get ready; monitoring is about to play a much greater role.

It has to – we will not achieve the results we desire if we don’t implement with fidelity.

Training and capacity building without monitoring is akin to planning without implementation.

We need, can and must perform better. By the by, monitoring is effective only when specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and timely feedback is provided. A responsibility of leadership.

To that end, our planning work during the Leadership Advance will focus on awareness, understanding and application of effective monitoring skills, knowledge, and tools.

"Just a Dream?"

I was asked recently if the vision of all means all was just a dream – a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind; not reality.

I asked in response, “Why would you think that?”

“Do you think that all means all is achievable?” They asked.

As I pondered my response, I considered what drives me, what motivates me, what causes me to do this work.

Fundamentally, I must believe and behave in such a manner to make all means all more than a pithy statement, a political correct motto for our time.

If we don’t want all students to have access and opportunity to take full advantage, participate fully; to have choices for his or her life then what do we want?

If we don’t want all students to learn and achieve to high standards what do we want?

Which students should be successful and which ones shouldn’t be?

If equity and social justice don’t fuel our passions, our decisions, and our convictions, then what does?

Underpinning the “all means all” vision is a mindset, an attitude, and a perspective that require redefining accountability for ones’ commitments and actions. It requires being proactive not reactive. It requires moving beyond identifying, explaining, or justifying current reality to owning the reality irrespective of the circumstances or who or what created the reality. It requires moving beyond ownership to solving and implementing strategies to achieve improvement. It requires doing.

“All means all” requires choice. Shouldn’t each student, each individual have the choice to decide their career, level of education, and etc.?

To have choices requires that learners are equipped with the tools, skills, knowledge, and experience that at a minimum afford them options.

The ultimate expression of “all means all” is the response to each of the following:

“If you were accused of doing whatever it takes to ensure all students are successful, what evidence would be presented at your trial to convict you of such an allegation?”

Or

“If you were accused of having learning and behavior expectations – high expectations that ensure all students are successful, what evidence would be presented at your trial to convict you of such an allegation?”

Or

“If you were accused of never giving up or quitting on a student to ensure they are successful, what evidence would be presented at your trial to convict you of such an allegation?”

The allegations may seem trite. Yet, it is not the beliefs we espouse that matter – it is our action, our behavior.

Moreover, it is the evidence of our behaviors.

This is pretty heavy stuff at this time of the year. Yet, it is exactly this time of year we need to be reminded that testing and test scores are not an education. They are not the ultimate measure of teaching and learning.

Our beliefs matter, our behaviors matter more, the evidence of our beliefs and behaviors matter most.

The “all means all” vision includes a community that wraps its’ arms around each learner to ensure each learner has a clear choice to pursue his or her dreams.

If “all means all” is not your dream, your vision then what is?

If “whatever it takes” or high expectations for each learner or never giving up are not what you want to be accused of, what should be the allegation?

If creating the conditions that ensure each learner has a choice – an authentic choice is not why you are in this work, why are you?

Come to think of if, what drives your work?

What motivates you? Inspires you?

The “all means all” vision is achievable – it must be what drives the work – it is for me.

"Learning"

“The greatest threats to normal childhood are the expectations of adults. We must remember that growth is a slow process. Children not only grow but they grow up; and up is a very long distance for all of them”

Unknown

Last Friday Cabinet participated in the exit interview related to the third annual Organizational Assessment. Though there are several areas of noteworthy accomplishment and improvement, there remain areas yielding inconsistent, incomplete, or incoherent results. We are anxious to unpack the strengths and threats in greater detail. The exit interview did not include the final report but did have scores for comparison purposes.

Nonetheless, we do know from the scores two words that are the presently the bane of our existence – expectations and implementation.

The existence and subsequent practices of low expectations across our school system, within each school, and within each classroom irrespective of elementary or secondary grade, course, or program continues to limit both our students and staff.

Simply and with great candor, we expect too little from our students and staff. The “we” in the previous sentence extends far beyond the educational community.

Too few citizens from our community believe and expect our students, all students to successfully learn to high standards.

Low expectations are even more egregious within the educational community. Educators that expect little of students as well as themselves commit what President Bush called “soft bigotry”. Strong words.

No one wants to be called or labeled a bigot especially not educators. But, when we expect and accept below standard performance, below standard work, below standard learning simply because of where we live we hurt children.

Shifting expectations is not easy. Several factors influence low expectations. Chief among these is experience – past and current. Because we have expected little, little has been produced reinforcing the belief and practice that students can’t or students won’t.

Our inability to deeply implement practices as well as programs contributes in part to low expectations. The scores from the Organizational Assessment reveal pockets of improvements but these are isolated not ubiquitous. Interestingly enough where improvement was identified the level of implementation coupled with high expectations were found.

Implementation is important.

Deep implementation is critical!

Not surprisingly implementation has been challenging. Implementation requires a sense of humility that starts first with recognition, openness, if you will, to think differently about ones’ own practice.

Humility requires an examination of results attributed to ones’ practice. We know from both personal as well as professional experience that different results don’t come from simply “wishing” or “hoping” they will. Rather they come from a commitment to continuous improvement.

In the weeks and months ahead, the Organizational Assessment will serve as a powerful tool for our learning and improvement. Yet, we know that learning does not take place unless there is application of the information.

Hence, our challenge is to apply the output of the Organizational Assessment as the input for continuous improvement.

“Why or Why Not … a matter of vision”

"Some men see things as they are and say why - I dream things that never were and say why not."

George Bernard Shaw

Though definitions vary, it is generally accepted that strategic planning is a management tool for organizing the present on the basis of the projections of the desired future. But it is much more.

Simply doing better what you are currently doing is not necessarily the path to breakthrough results. Especially if your organization or in our case a school system, has not operated at a high level, consistently and constantly meeting the needs of each learner.

Strategic planning therefore must fundamentally be strategic.

Two glaring shortcomings hinder strategic planning. The first teeters on the obvious. We must think strategically to plan strategically.

Thinking strategically is what Shaw, in part was conveying. Dreaming, visioning, and seeing require different lenses. Thinking strategically requires balancing addressing improvement in the immediate, current or existing programs, practices, and procedures while simultaneously filtering these actions through a forward-looking, transformational if you will, picture of the work completed.

“Planning can be considered strategic only if it sees a new reality and does whatever it can to push the existing system toward that reality or to begin working outside the existing system” (Cook, 2004 p. 73).

The second obstacle to strategic planning is the absence of a detailed implementation plan – the detailed tactical plan that lists precisely the responsibilities of everyone involved in implementing each particular strategy.

There it is – the absence of a clear picture of the future and the necessary detailed implementation plan are the reasons that our plan, strategies, action steps, programs, processes, or practices have not yielded the desired or intended outcome.

To address these obstacles we are resetting our planning processes with the integration of Hoshin planning.

The basic premise behind the Hoshin plan is that the best way to obtain the desired result is to ensure that all in the organization understand the long-range direction, our Strategic Commitments, and that each member of our organization is working according to a linked plan to make the vision of “all means all” a reality.

The second aspect of Hoshin planning is that there are fundamental process measures that must be monitored to assure the continuous improvement of our organization's key processes.

The Strategic Commitments are forward-looking, visionary and achievable. They are purposeful in describing our core work. In a like manner, they specifically describe the key success factors for each commitment to be accomplished. The key success factors drive the work at all levels. Unfortunately, we have not demonstrated the alignment of department, school, and classroom improvement efforts according to the commitments. Hoshin planning will ensure this alignment is achieved. It will also ensure greater awareness, understanding, and implementation vertically and horizontally in our system.

Planning strategically therefore requires vision – a vision that encompasses seeing not only the work completed but also each and everyone one of us in making “all means all” a reality.

Who said our students cannot be successful? Cannot achieve to high standards?

Rather than “why” shouldn’t our focus, our intentions, our commitments, our convictions be “why not”?

“Why not” is a mindset – the mindset that must overcome any obstacles preventing thinking strategically and implementation.

Hoshin planning is not mystical or magical. It is hard work. Different work.

Isn’t that what strategic planning is suppose to be?

"If ..."

I will never forget a conversation in or around the spring of 1985. My wife and I were having dinner with the former president of Washington State University, Dr. Glen Terrell.

As we were discussing myriad topics he paused and asked, “Who will be the leaders of your generation?” I am quite confident that I had a “deer in the headlight” expression. How do you answer that question?

Sensing that I was in completely uncharted waters, Dr. Terrell broke the silence by sharing that leadership, effective leadership doesn’t just happen by chance. It is planned, thoughtful, deliberate, and with purpose.

He continued by explaining that thinking about leadership now and in the future is accepting that individual giftedness, skills, knowledge, experience and passion all combine or converge not as happenstance. Rather, the path of leadership is constant and consistent learning, humility, risk, perseverance, making sense, meaning making, and unwavering commitment to improvement of self as well as others.

At the time, I recall nodding my head in agreement knowing full well that I had little to anchor or reference with respect to experience to these pearls of wisdom.

The conversation concluded with three questions that serve both as a reminder and motivator to the oft-daunting task of leading others. Dr. Terrell queried again in a rhetorical tone “Who will be the leaders of your generation?”

· “If not you, who?”

· “If not here, where?”

· “If not now, when?”

That conversation has and continues to serve as a reminder that leading is about knowing oneself, being clear about purpose, mission, and accepting a reality that inspiring, motivating others comes more from modeling, teaching, integrity, character, and grace.

Grace?

Absolutely – giving and receiving grace is core.

In our fallible human condition, grace is an act critical to effective leadership. As Dr. Terrell clearly pointed out leaders make, take, and commit to risk. In doing so, there are and will be mistakes. Accepting and admitting these shortcomings is not a sign of weakness. Rather it endures leaders to those they lead through the power of grace. Let me be clear, leaders don’t create and sustain followership by consistently and constantly making mistakes. Making, taking, and committing to risk is not about arbitrary, reckless, or ill-conceived actions.

We have witnessed as well as experienced leaders that fail to take action, follow up or follow through, and etc. Indecision, ambiguity, and incoherent actions create a loss or failure of confidence, trust, and commitment.

Conversely, making, taking, and committing to risk require decisiveness, clarity, and coherence. There must be congruency of risk with vision, mission, and core or guiding principles.

Years later, my leadership journey would cross the path of Reverend E. V. Hill of whom I have quoted recently. It is the Reverend Hill I cite with a sobering reality – “if you are leading and no one is following, you are just out on a walk”.

There remains confusion with many leaders that assume that a title or position commands followership. Missing from this mindset is the understanding that followership – the followership that is committed, loyal to a mission, and vision is earned not appointed. Please note that commitment and loyalty must be to the work not to a person or program – the work – the enduring work of teaching and learning.

Dr. Terrell certainly did not limit leadership to risk. Sense and meaning making resonate now more than ever as keys to unlocking the myriad uncertainties, mixed messages, and dissonance created by years of narrowly defined accountability and conflicting purposes of education.

I will in the future attempt to unpack more of the lessons learned from that very purposeful conversation with Dr. Terrell. For now, I ask you to ponder the very question asked of me – “Who are the leaders of this generation?”

“If it is not you, who?”

“If not here, where?”

And, “if not now, when?”

"There is no one left to blame"

Presenting at the National School Board Association’s national conference was a significant milestone for the Anson County Schools. Presenting on a national stage was both affirming and validation for leadership and the dedicated work of our staff at all levels.

An audience of school board members from across the nation listened with great interest of the work to make transparent the challenging work of transformation.

Several school board members indicated their systems were in turnaround. This opened the door for a conversation about the difference between transformation and turnaround.

In the end, most agreed that there is a significant difference between the two. To that end, I was asked to what degree was our staff albeit teachers or administrators aware as well as committed to transformation. I replied less than fifty percent but we were working on developing greater awareness, understanding, and support for transformative work.

A key in creating capacity is being clear that it is the system not people that must be fixed. In doing so, we cannot blame people past or present for our current situation. We must shift as well from seeking new programs to deeper, more critical examination of our practices.

The implementation gap ‐ the gap between expected or desired outcomes and actual results is almost entirely related to deep implementation or the lack of. As we have discussed before, implementation is predicated on those factors associated with personal meaning, relevance as well as a person's sense of purpose, mission, beliefs, and guiding principles. Many of these, if not all, shape habits, conveniences, and behaviors.

We need to look no further than our own personal preferences to understand the challenges, obstacles, or barriers to change. Therefore, leadership cannot be upset, angry, or frustrated when others, who have not had time to fully reflect, ponder, think, process, or consider different practices are reluctant or hesitant to change practice.

Central to transformation is the ownership of dissatisfaction with current performance results. It does little good to have dissatisfaction residing only with a few. We know the vision of "all means all" means little to those who are not dissatisfied that not all our students are performing at proficient in the basic skills of reading, writing, and mathematics.

Further, the lack of dissatisfaction prevents looking at root cause. Too much time is devoted to blaming administration, teachers, support staff, students, parents, the state, federal government, county, and etc.

With a critical mass of dissatisfied stakeholders, the vision of "all means all" becomes the impetus to a deeper, more critical examination of the causes of the failure to learn and failed learning.

The vision of "all means all" does not mean we will experience drastic performance improvement overnight.

We must remember that the path followed resulting in our current situation is not the path that will lead to “all means all”. It can’t – it wasn’t intended to.

If all our strategies, work plans were focused fundamentally on the work of ensuring that each learner at a minimum demonstrated proficiency first and foremost we would certainly accelerate improved performance for all learners.

In fact, if we were relentless in the pursuit of proficiency no matter what, we would see increased attendance, decreased disruptions, decreases in inappropriate behaviors, decreases in teacher absenteeism, increased student engagement, increased parent participation, and etc. Yes, a relentless pursuit of proficiency no matter what it takes is the powerful first step in making the "all means all" vision reality.

Dissatisfaction, the "all means all" vision, and relentless pursuit of proficiency no matter what it takes are the three factors that will overcome both reluctance and hesitancy.

It will not, however, remove resistance. Those that choose to resist have reasons of their own but I can without hesitation state that these reasons do not have anything to do with ensuring that each learner is proficient.

Though argumentative, it is time to acknowledge what some will construe as a personal attack, offensive, and most certainly not politically correct. We don't have time to discuss or debate whether or not all students should learn, can learn, or must learn the basic skills represented by proficiency.

A preponderance of evidence exists that unequivocally and empirically demonstrates that gender, race, language, socioeconomics, geography, and etc. are merely factors not determinants of learning.

Implementation, deep implementation of what we are doing is required by all, for all and of all.

Why can’t we do this!