Reflection and Focus - Improving Instruction

A recent article in ISTE’s April 2015 edition of their journal Entrsekt, shares a parable about preparation.  It is the story of a lumberjack who gets diminishing returns despite his best effort over the course of three days.  After apologizing to his boss, the boss asks him: When was the last time you sharpened your ax? The article is about teacher preparation.  The article concludes with a quote from Abraham Lincoln who said about preparation: “If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my ax.” (Douglas, 2015 http://tinyurl.com/l66tvls).  With competing initiatives from federal, state, and local authorities, too often educators get bogged down in trying to meet these mandates rather than regularly sharpening their ax.  This is why it is so important for educational leaders to help their schools find the time to focus on improving instruction through professional development, peer observations, and the regular sharing of best practices. Teachers also need to be encouraged to take risks by trying out new things.  Also crucial is time for regular reflection. In September, we will kick off the school year with a visit from Dave Burgess.  He will bring his high-energy to the island to fire up our educators with his Teach Like A Pirate strategies.  The true work begins after the pirate leaves the island.  In order to sustain the burst of energy that will no doubt be injected into our school, we must be vigilant and determined to take full advantage of the time we do have to sharpen our collective ax. 

Learning & Leading 30 Miles Out to Sea

I have found keeping up a blog to be challenging.  It is certainly not for lack of ideas or opinions to share.  Instead it is about making the blog part of my routine and also feeling comfortable to share ideas and opinions without giving the impression that these ideas/opinions will translate to instant and rapid change at my school.  While I had the excuse of writing a dissertation for not blogging in the past, there really is no longer an excuse now that I have earned my Ed.D. and the dissertation is complete http://gradworks.umi.com/36/16/3616041.html.

Since my last blog post, I have been the middle school principal on the island of Nantucket.  It is a unique place where we have a student population that is made of up of urban demographics, yet located in a remote, rural setting 30 miles out to sea.  Today as I write this entry, we are in the middle of a Nor’easter.  These storms have become routine – however it brings attention to where we live.  Today there are no boats and no flights on/off the island due to the high winds and rough seas.  Thankfully most of the year features terrific weather for all four seasons.

We face the same challenges that other public middle schools face throughout the Commonwealth and the country.  However, we also have additional challenges because of our location.  For example, teacher recruitment and retention are challenges in many school districts.  On the island, due mainly to high cost of living and a significant housing shortage, it is incredibly challenging to find highly qualified teachers to fill open positions.  Unless candidates already have some connection to the island, most simply do not even apply.  Another example is that our student-athletes need to be dismissed early (very early) for away games due to the travel time to get to opponent's field/court/rink. 

In this blog, I occasionally hope to write brief posts on my thoughts on education and leadership.  These posts will include thoughts on technology in schools, homework, standards-based grading, and differentiation, among other topics.  Stay tuned.

Technology Leadership - the final push of this research study

I find myself back at Boston College for the third and final summer of my doctoral program.  I moved into the dorms for this year’s two-week stay.  It is great to be back on campus.  The start of this final summer residency makes that light at the end of the program that much brighter.  It is within reach.  After these two weeks and then the completion of comprehensive exams I will find myself in that all too familiar time in the life of a doctoral candidate - ABD - All But Dissertation.  I am looking forward to the work ahead.  One more year.  It is hard to believe, but I am sure this final year will pass quickly as have the previous years of the program.  In researching technology leadership in schools it is incredible how much technology continues to evolve seemingly daily.  Not only are students coming into our schools with more advanced technology skills than ever before, but new teachers as well as veteran teachers are learning more and more about how to effectively integrate technology into the classroom to meet learning objectives.  Many schools and districts find the level of technology hardware available is insufficient to meet the needs of teachers and students.  Yet, moving to 1:1 or any large-scale digital conversion is still out of reach for many/most.  It will be fascinating to see how schools, how teaching, and how leadership evolves over this next year.  As my research team and I study the leadership moves of five superintendents where large-scale technology initiatives are underway, I can’t wait to see what patterns of leadership emerge.  Stay tuned.

Focus. How school districts can avoid death by initiative

Too many school districts are struggling to maintain focus on prioritized initiatives.  Districts are dealing with local initiatives, state initiatives and federal initiatives and struggling to do any of them well. Teachers are not buying in to these initiatives because they were not in on the decision making, believe “this too will pass,” or are just too overwhelmed to take on more and more. In Massachusetts, the federal mandate of adopting the common core standards and the state mandate of the new educator evaluation system are both occupying much of the limited time that districts dedicate to professional development.  Local districts are also drowning in the alphabet soup of initiatives.  Here are just five of the more popular:

UBD = Understanding By Design

UDL = Universal Design for Learning

RTI = Response to Intervention

PBIS = Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports

PLC = Professional Learning Communities

The problem is that with all of these admirable initiatives most districts are still failing to improve in any dramatic way.  Why?  I call it death by initiative.  Districts that take on too many initiatives, fail to make connections between initiatives, or fail to leverage the power of mandates quickly find that teachers are too overwhelmed to take on any of the tasks needed to move the district forward.  Instead of trying to do all of these initiatives in any given year, district leaders need to work with a leadership team that includes classroom teachers to prioritize. 

Frequently, time is used as the excuse for initiatives not succeeding to make a positive impact on student achievement.  Time is just an excuse.  If there were fewer initiatives, if initiatives were connected, and if there were clear strategic plans in place time would no longer be a problem.  Instead time would start to work for us.

One often hears talk in schools about teachers having too much on their plate to the point of feeling overwhelmed.  Instead of putting more on a teachers’ plate without ever taking anything off of the plate, districts need a new approach.  I suggest a new “plate.” The plate needs to be all about collaboration.  For schools to be more efficient it is time to break down the isolation of teaching and the isolation of educational leadership.  Collaboration needs to be the new plate and the tenets of professional learning communities can serve as an effective guide. 

Let me give a concrete example of how school districts could execute this.  Starting in September every school in Massachusetts needs to implement the new educator evaluation system.  Many have already implemented the new system over the past two years.  This system can be leveraged to help a school system work together to improve and positively impact student achievement.  Under this system every educator in the school system needs to create SMART goals – at least one student learning goal and one professional practice goal.  If every individual educator is allowed to create his or her own goal, it is a set up for failure.  There will be no clear direction and professional development opportunities will be ineffective.  Instead, every educator should be part of a team of educators.  Every team should have clear guidelines for goals.  For example, if the priority for the district is integrating technology and implementing the common core state standards (CCSS), then all SMART goals should relate to those two initiatives.  All professional development should relate to those two initiatives.  This should be true for at least two consecutive years.  No other initiatives added.  This sets up intense focus on two things (CCSS and technology integration) for at least two consecutive years.

To solve the obstacle of time, a number of things can be put in place to get creative with time.  The middle school structure provides a template.  In most middle schools teachers work in teams and there is time in the schedule for common planning time.  Common planning time needs to be in place at all levels, not just the middle school.  Additionally, if there is a grade level assembly in the auditorium, administrators can free up the teachers to use that time to collaborate.  Instead of doing lunch duty or study hall duty get parent volunteers to take on this work and free up teachers to have a duty free lunch and additional time in school to collaborate.  Dedicate more professional development time in each school year. (Consider also front loading PD at the end of summer before students arrive – see earlier blog post).  Use faculty meeting time for additional professional development.  Use all of this available time on the two initiatives and only on these two initiatives.  And don’t forget to celebrate progress and success.

We can do this.  We can avoid death by initiative in schools by prioritizing one or two and providing the time to effectively put things in place that will help improve student achievement.  Let’s leverage the SMART goal process and stop overwhelming our teachers.

Has your district successfully stepped back from trying to implement dozens of initiatives and focused in on one or two for an extended period of time?  Has your district overcome the obstacle of time?  Please share.

Thoughts on the School Calendar

I am a life-long fan of the San Francisco 49ers.  Before I even watched football, my favorite aunt in SF would send me 49ers t-shirts, hats, and other team gear for my birthdays.  I grew up watching the great Joe Montana, Jerry Rice and later Steve Young win a total of 5 Super Bowls.  Then there were the 18 years of no super bowls until this season when the team finally returned to the big game and nearly won another championship.  I have long thought that the Monday after Super Bowl Sunday should be a holiday in the US.  After all, the game is the most watched television event year after year and those of us on the east coast stay up past our bedtime to see the conclusion of the game.  Others have had the same thought: http://tinyurl.com/c7kjkef

Not that sports should dictate our work-week, but I wonder how many young sports fans in the east coast get interested in baseball, college football or college basketball when the playoffs and national championship games are all on too late on school nights to draw a young audience able to stay up and watch these exciting events.  I digress.  Really, this blog entry is my thoughts on the current structure of the school calendar in the northeast. 

I have just started our annual February school vacation week. It is at this time of year that many school districts create their school calendar for the next school year.  There are so many decisions to be made.  When do the vacations fall? Though this has become pretty standard in each state.  Do students and teachers start before or after Labor Day?  Will we have full day professional development days, half day PD days, delayed openings for PD, or some combination of two or more of these options?  When will the PD opportunities take place?  All of these questions are challenging to answer and I have not even brought up the length of the school year or the school day, which would most often be questions that need to be collectively bargained and decided by local school boards and or state departments of education. While you would think a simple survey of the three major stakeholders (students, parents, and teachers) could assist districts in making these decisions, the opposite is true. In fact a survey on any one of these questions typically results in no consensus at all.  If you survey students, often the high school seniors respond differently than other students.  Seniors typically end their school year earlier than all other students so their bias tips the survey results.  For every teacher that prefers a half-day of professional development there is another who prefers full days.  Parents are equally divided in their opinions of school calendar decisions as well, as they are concerned with child-care on early release days, for example.

In New England, some of the school calendar decisions are weather-related decisions.  In New England most public school classrooms are not air conditioned because realistically it is only hot enough for A/C for a brief time at the start of the school year and a brief time at the end of the school year.  Additionally, school calendars in New England need to account for snow days (see my last blog entry for thoughts on snow days).

There are not easy answers to any of these questions, but here are some ideas to consider:

1)  Consider front-loading professional development for teachers to extend the summer (and summer camp) opportunities for kids to be kids.  The teachers would have a week of PD before Labor Day and the students would return to school after Labor Day.  Front loading professional development would allow teachers to have up to a full week to both prepare classrooms for the return of students and learn, train, and collaborate prior to the start of the school year.  This would provide focus, a theme, and get the whole district moving in the same direction.  Any additional professional development during the school year should be related to the theme, which ideally will last more than a single year.  Let’s work to avoid getting stuck in school systems because of too many initiatives.  Fewer disruptions to the school calendar because of PD is something to strive for.  Take advantage of quirks in a calendar year to make PD as least disruptive to student learning as possible.  For example, follow-up on front-loaded PD could take place in what is often a short week of school after New Year’s Day.  Bring teachers back for PD days on January 2 and extend the vacation by a day or two or three for students and families.  Use this time to assess the initiative that was started back in late August and plan next steps.

2) Consider consolidation of the February and April vacation weeks to a longer break in March.  The one week in February and one week in April tend to disrupt flow.  Momentum in schools, particularly schools in New England, is already challenging in winter with Monday holidays, parent conference days (see past blog entries on Student Led Conferences that replace traditional parent-teacher conferences), and snow days. 

3)  States should consider moving assessments to the end of the year.  In Massachusetts, for example, the MCAS tests take place in March for ELA and in May for math.  If all of these exams were moved back to June, the tests themselves would not be disruptions and teachers would not feel as stressed about having the time to complete lessons that will result in better results on these exams.

What are your thoughts on the school calendar challenges that schools face.  Do any of these thoughts resonate with you?  For those of you in Massachusetts, enjoy this February vacation week :)

Snow Days

This post may be more relevant for those of us in New England, but I welcome thoughts even from those of you who have never experienced a snow day.  When I was growing up, I remember not getting a lot of sleep if there was snow in the forecast.  I would wake up every couple of hours to peer out the window in the hopes that there would be snow.  I must admit I occasionally did the same thing when I was a teacher and even now as a principal I will sometimes do the same.  However, today more often than not I am hoping against snow days.  Snow days disrupt flow in schools.  Teachers begin to feel stress as the state assessments approach and days are lost.  Additionally, I do not like adding on the days in June when it is hot and humid and the most effective learning and teaching is in our rear view mirror.  When the calendar turns to June, most educators and students are looking ahead to days on the beach, not new lessons.  Perhaps if school were more like camp, June would be a more positive experience in schools.  But I digress. The schools as camp thoughts are for another blog entry at another time.

From a superintendent’s perspective, snow presents another challenge.  Is it the right call to cancel school or have a delayed opening or an early release to keep students and staff safe?  With these decisions so dependent on the meteorologists on television and the accuracy of the forecast (and we know how reliable they tend to be), it is a difficult decision almost every time.  With the Blizzard of 2013 and about thirty inches of snow to clear away over the past few days, I had some time to think about snow days.  Should we create an online experience for students so that we get credit for the day and not have to make it up in June?  It is an interesting thought, but around here, each major storm tends to bring with it power outages, so an online experience may not be possible.  What if we had built in, ready to go lessons for snow days for students to complete?  They could be snow related so that students get a chance to enjoy the snow and learn at the same time.  Math/geometry related snowman or snow sculpture building activities.  Science related experiments with snow and weather.  Poetry or other writing assignments with snow as the topic.  Of course an occasional day off to just play in the snow is good for all.  It is just when we have a winter with heavy snowfall and days off for hurricanes in the fall that the days quickly add up and then the month of June, that less than productive month in schools, becomes longer and longer.  Maybe if we had a longer school year... and maybe if state assessments were not so early in the school year... the snow days would not have such a major impact and we could just all be kids and have fun in the winter wonderland created by a major snowfall.

What are your thoughts?  How can we best deal with the snow in schools?

A CHEER For A New Year

As another year comes to an end (hopefully not in the Mayan sense of end) it is the perfect time for reflection. I have now been a principal in the same school for 6.5 years.  Over that time we have accomplished much.  I am incredibly proud of the students who have passed through the classrooms at our school.  I am also continuously impressed and amazed by the effort of the educators at the school.  Over the years we have transformed a good school and made it great. 

There are over 100 student-designed and student-painted murals on the walls of the school with positive messages.  These messages convey our core values (PRIDE: Pride, Respect, Integrity, Dedication, Excellence), our school motto (Do The Right Thing), inspirational quotes, and anti-bullying messages.  The school is a warmer, safer place due to this addition of the murals.  In addition to this physical change to the building, we have also evolved and progressed in other ways.  We now have student led conferences instead of traditional parent teacher conferences.  This system forces students to reflect on their own strengths and areas for growth and take more ownership for their education.  Everyone at the school, students and staff, set goals each year and develop plans to meet those goals.  Our advisory program has evolved over the years to the robust program that it is today.  Students have a home base at the school and there is time in the schedule for kids to connect with teachers, for teachers to provide interventions for struggling learners, and time for teachers to provide extension opportunities for those that are doing well and ready for additional challenges.  The advisory program brings the community closer together and each adult in the school has a group of students under their watch. With murals, student led conferences, and a robust advisory program we have made three major improvements to the school.

While PRIDE has served us well, I have recently been looking at other schools to see their mission statements, vision statements, and core values.  The Public Schools of Brookline, MA have a terrific site on the web http://www.brookline.k12.ma.us/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=59&Itemid=89

Any school that has core values that include Collaboration, High expectations, Excellence, Equity, and Respect makes me want to stand up and cheer.  These core values align closely with my own and connect well to my vision for schools.  If designing a school from scratch I would include some of the things we already do such as advisory and student led conferences, but there is so much more.  Some of the highlights of this school I will list here. The school would be a fully functional professional learning community including data driven instruction. I would add technology integration including a 1:1 environment, flipped classrooms where appropriate, and on-going professional development for teachers to integrate technology in meaningful ways. I would eliminate homework that is anything other than practice.  I would extend the school day – not to pack in more academics but to slow the pace of the day and allow for the rich interactions that can take place between teacher and student.  I would design a report card that provided students and parents with more information. I would incorporate time for instructional rounds so teachers can observe and learn from their colleagues.  Similar to a teaching hospital, it would be a teaching school filled with interns from a local university.  Each of these items is a blog post waiting to happen to expand on what these things would look like in schools.

Hopefully I will find time in 2013 to blog more about some of these topics. 

Do any of these thoughts resonate with you?  Leave a comment and continue the conversation.