What is the Impact on Kids?

No matter what we are doing - whether we are planning, analyzing data, collaborating with teams of teachers, or looking at student work - we should be asking ourselves "What is the impact of this work on our students?" In other words, how are we making a difference each and every day for every single child we serve? This is quite a shift in thinking. If I am continually reflecting on what is the impact on kids, then when my students don't "get" my lesson or my approach - I adjust. I change it. I think about how I can reach and teach that child and I make adjustments. That is a very different approach from writing plans that I will teach no matter what.

We administered writing benchmarks as part of our turnaround goal to increase 75% of our students' writing scores by at least one point on the NYS rubric. Our grade level teams have been able to look at student work to identify trends (across classroom or grade level teams) and gaps (individual or small groups of students who lack specific skills or conceptual understanding). This has allowed us to plan more effectively - even within our curriculum - to give students more of what they need. The impact for our students has been clear as we see students who are aware of what quality work looks like and what they need to do differently to get closer to their goals. Involving students in understanding their own data by looking at specific growth on individual indicators within the rubric has had a powerful impact on students owning their own progress and targeting their own improvement.

So, what is the impact of using data to identify gaps and trends in student learning? Why is it worth the amount of time and effort that it takes? If we think about the amount of time that we, as educators, spend planning, wouldn't it make more sense for that planning to be targeted to the needs of students in order to ensure that we are moving students to where they need to be? If I give myself permission as a teacher to say, my team mate needs to focus on this strategy because that's what his/her students need, but my students need something different, AND then I share this thinking with my colleague through collaborative discussions and unpacking the standards - we both benefit from understanding our students more deeply and have increased our toolbox of strategies to meet different learners. The impact on using data to drive instruction is far reaching. Our students grow in their learning and understanding and are better able to meet or exceed grade level expectations. Our planning becomes more effective at reaching and teaching all of our students. Our school communities become more collaborative and better able to determine the specific competencies and skills that students must master to be proficient in the standards. It is time well spent and is the work that we need in order to turnaround our schools.

A Strong Sense of Community

The power of community is in the sense of shared purpose and support within a group of individuals with common experiences. A strong sense of community allows us to support and challenge one another both as people and as professionals as we pursue our common vision.

How do we develop a true sense of community in our school and in our classrooms? What strategies are most effective in helping our students see their role in the greater community? How can we promote a sense of belonging and purpose to our young people so that we are truly making a difference? Sometimes in times of crisis, we see the need for community and we feel the power that having a sense of community can bring. We can build that sense of community within our classrooms and our school in order to help our students be more compassionate as people and more focused as learners. Morning Meeting is a powerful tool in creating a sense of community. Using the power of the community circle to create a safe place where students have mutual respect for one another and have the ability to share who they really are is critical to teaching students to value and respect one another within the learning community. I regularly used community circle in my classroom – as a beginning to our day to set the tone of our work, as a problem-solving meeting if things were not going well, as a reflection on our learning and our work together, or as a fun way to engage with one another in our learning. There is great value in the circle within our learning communities. Here is another powerful article that stresses the importance of building community within the classroom through purposeful and explicit expectations and the development of a set of norms for how we will work and live together in our learning community. http://www.edutopia.org/envision-schools-learning-community-respect

Schools who develop a sense of community are able to withstand any challenge. That sense of belonging, safety, and support within a school learning community makes it a safe place for staff or students to be real people within the challenge of the work. There is power in knowing that we are here to support one another and to care for one another – and there is strength in our common vision and purpose that brings us together. Community supports us as we continue to push forward and continue to focus on the work we are engaged in. Community pushes us to have rigorous lessons, high expectations, and opportunities for students to think deeply about the work we are engaged in. Community reminds us that collaborative teams are different than collegial teams and pushes one another in our thinking and in our expectations for student work. Being a part of a community that shares in a common vision, a common belief, and a common commitment to the work is unique and does not happen without purposeful development and leadership. If you are fortunate enough to be a part of a community that shares a common vision and belief, values reflection and growth, and develops the best thinking and practice in its learners, then you are fortunate, indeed.

Leading the Tough Times in a Turnaround

Leading a turnaround school is tough. Leading a turnaround school through tough times is even tougher. What do you do as a leader when the staff begins to lose their focus and their momentum? How can you help to keep the level of commitment high? How do you encourage staff when they are feeling the weight of the work load? Shifting the trajectory of a school can feel all-consuming. There is no "down time" and no room for "good enough." The weight of the work can start to make people question their commitments and believe that there is an easier path somewhere with an easier work load and/or easier children.

Leadership is the start of moving a turnaround school. Chicago Public Schools developed a rubric of competencies for turnaround leaders that can assist in determining the "fit" for a school leader in the work that drives a turnaround school. http://www.publicimpact.com/publications/Turnaround_Leader_Competencies.pdf  According to the report, there are three key actions for successful turnaround leaders:

• Identify and focus on a few early wins with big payoffs, and use that early success to gain momentum 
• Break organization norms or rules to deploy new tactics needed for early wins 
• Act quickly in a fast cycle of trying new tactics, measuring results, discarding failed tactics and doing more of what works  

Mary Anne Radmacher said, "Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day that says, "I'll try again tomorrow." For a turnaround leader, this sums up the continuous push forward toward the goal of improved student achievement. For teachers leading their own classrooms, it is seeing the progress and celebrating each student as they move toward their goals, while continuing to reflect on improving practice, identifying growth areas, and using data to drive instruction. There is so little room for ego or hurt feelings in this work. There are tiny victories in each day, but there are also miles to go before we sleep. Turnaround leaders must be skillful at motivating and moving their staff, while always seeing the next step or the next goal. Teachers must be committed to continuous improvement, self-reflection, and receiving feedback, while inspiring and motivating students to continue to work harder than they may be used to. So, when the going gets tough, in a turnaround school, the tough must be even tougher.

 

 

 

 So, it comes down to commitment. A turnaround leader, or a turnaround teacher, must believe that the work and the children are worth the sacrifice. There will be tough days - days when you feel like you are losing the battle and that the sacrifice is too great. A turnaround leader must be committed to the belief that the right work will make a difference and that tomorrow will be a better day. Reflect, regroup, and remain committed to the belief that the students we serve deserve a bright future and we are the ones who will make it happen.

 

 

 

 

 

Staffing a Turnaround School

Hiring and retaining effective staff is one of the biggest challenges for a Turnaround Principal. Changing a school's trajectory - from failing scores, ineffective practices, a sense of apathy, and a lack of engagement - into an energetic enthusiasm for learning and a passion for the work meeting students' needs is an all-encompassing task. The work involved in turning around a school is similar to starting your own business - it takes a deep commitment, a real sense of vision, never-ending problem-solving, and a fire for success. It can take long hours, trial and error, significant reflection and revision, and feeling frustrated when things do not work.

So how do we stay committed to the work, even when it is tough? There are certainly other places where it may not as difficult to do what we do. The call of "the grass is greener" can be strong and seem like a dream come true. In Chicago, where many of the schools have already undergone the turnaround process, the average turnover rate for staff is 18% (http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/news/2014/04/17/65867/turnarounds-revolving-door-most-teachers ). This constant flux of staff members can be extremely difficult for students who are slow to build trust with adults to begin with, as many students are in high poverty schools, and it can impede the progress that the turnaround plan is trying to support.

Massachusetts promoted a rubric for the characteristics of a turnaround teacher. In Massachusetts, the superintendent shared data that supported the removal of at least 50% of the staff in order to reach gains of over 85% ( http://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/20131222/News/312220322 ). Likewise, the number one competency that is promoted for a turnaround teacher in Massachusetts is "Relentlessly committed to high achievement for all students." turnaround teacher rubric 

Relentless is a powerful word. It means never giving up - a deep level of commitment that involves nearly every fiber of your being. It means being passionate about the children we serve and the work we are doing, even when it is difficult and not going well. It means that there is night after night of analyzing data, planning, reflecting on what isn't working, and reading about more effective practice. Are teachers up for this type of challenge? I believe we are. I believe that turnaround teachers should have and do have the grit and the passion to see the light at the end of the tunnel and they realize that they hold the power to change lives every single day. This is powerful and deep work - and not everyone has it in them to be a turnaround teacher - but if you have relentless commitment, a sense of vision and purpose, a "can-do" attitude, and a belief in our children then this work may be for you. We are building the future. What do you want the future to look like?

Going Deeper with Data

We have been using data more than ever to understand our student's progress and reflect on our teaching. Benchmark assessments, formative assessments, mid-module assessments, progress monitoring, and unit assessments all tell a story about the gaps in student learning. Teaching to fill the gaps - teaching to mastery - is still a mystery to many of us. Digging deep enough to use that data to see a clearer picture into children's understanding and misconceptions is powerful. Planning proactively - saying "because I know this about this student, I will be prepared with this strategy" - is so different than reacting to what a child's gaps in understanding may be and re-stating or re-explaining. Really teaching to mastery is about student understanding and having students prove how they understand a concept or skill in many different ways. Simply put - it is deeper, not wider.

Going deeper to fill gaps in student learning requires a deep understanding of the standards, our students, and the specific competencies and foundational skills that our students must have to achieve mastery. This is very different than re-teaching by providing students with similar questions or problems (or parallel tasks) in order to achieve mastery because it involves a deeper analysis to determine what is missing in the students' understanding of the standard. If we take standard, for example RL 5.3 which states "Compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., how characters interact)," In order to teach to mastery of this standard, we must know what the competencies and skills are that make up this standard. There is no process or short cut that we can give students to master this kind of deep thinking. Students must be able to identify character traits, determine text details that identify the setting, make inferences, identify cause and effect, understand rich vocabulary, identify similarities and differences, and use details to understand the context of dialogue and narration. This takes practice and classroom structures that support this type of thought and analysis.

 In a Reader's Workshop model, teachers model metacognition and text analysis in order to build the capacity for students to think deeply and carry on their own dialogue. In the video clip below, you see how the teacher models both the kind of thinking he expects around the standards and his expectations for students to carry on this kind of dialogue on their own.

 

Click here to view video directly.

Our expectations as teachers and the structures that we implement to support student learning will lead to the type of learners we produce. Our understanding of the standards and the competencies and skills that our students must have in order to achieve mastery will impact the way we plan and the way we use data to teach for mastery. If we understand our students, our data, and the standards, we can produce amazing results in student achievement that will have a lasting impact on our students' lives.

Re-commit to Higher Expectations

It's time to start the countdown. You know how you start to think about "back to school" in terms of the hours remaining? So what will you do with these next few hours? How will you prepare yourself to take charge of that first day back? What expectations will you set for yourself and your students so that you can take charge of the growth you will see in 2015?

Let's start with expectations. If returning to school after a long vacation is like starting fresh in September, how will you start with your students? What do you expect in terms of their work ethic, their behavior, their interactions with their learning community, and their achievement? If we expect students to have certain attributes as a learner - such as applying a certain level of effort to written work or expressing ideas completely to partners - then we must model and practice those attributes with our students until they have mastered them. Returning after a vacation means we must "start from scratch" in terms of modeling, teaching, and reinforcing those skills in order to help our students master them.

The power of our expectations is outlined in much of the book, Teach Like A Champion, by Doug Lemov. Chapter One (linked here http://teachlikeachampion.com/wp-content/uploads/TLAC-Chapter-1.pdf) gives powerful examples of how we as teachers set our expectations for our students in every day interactions in our classrooms. Sometimes we are not aware of the subtle messages we send our kids - apologizing for what they are about to learn because "we have to get through it," answering for them rather than pushing them to persevere and find the solution, and allowing students to answer questions incompletely or not at all - all set our expectations significantly lower than we think they are.

The challenge for 2015 is to re-commit to having higher expectations. Making a resolution to have higher expectations would mean that we didn't have high expectations in the first place. Reflecting on our practice and realizing that we need to have higher expectations - and that our students can achieve those expectations if we stack them for success in our classrooms - that takes re-committing to the work at hand. If each of us re-commits to higher expectations for our classrooms and for our students, we will see great gains in our students' learning and achievement. Let's make 2015 the year for higher expectations. Let's make 2015 the year that our students achieve and we create classrooms where children love learning, thinking, problem-solving, and creating in community with others. We have the power - are you willing to re-commit to that vision?

Re-commitment for 2015

Happy New Year! As we close out 2014 and begin 2015, it is time to think about commitment. Re-commitment actually. How do we re-commit to the children and families we serve so that we can come back strong in the new year? What do we need to do to re-commit to the work of turning around a school culture? Where did we fall short in 2014 that we must re-commit to honest reflection and more effective strategies? I would encourage you to think about re-commitment, rather than resolutions, because re-commitment to something you have already chosen is so much more powerful.

Turning around a failing school is deep, difficult work. There is no coasting - no easy way out. In Closing the Achievement Gap, edited by Belinda Williams, chapter 6 focuses on the importance of teachers in turning around schools. Building strong relationships and having high expectations for students - believing in their true capacity for success and not taking any excuses for behavior that does not align with their true potential - is what sets effective teachers apart. You can read the whole chapter here as well as access some checklist tools for self-reflection http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/102010/chapters/Turnaround-Teachers-and-Schools.aspx. This is important reading for anyone involved in a turnaround school.

In 2015, I will re-commit to building strong relationships with parents and families to help them see their role in turning around our school. I will re-commit to regular feedback and opportunities to practice the feedback for our turnaround teachers. I will re-commit to providing our students with the most effective educational strategies because they deserve a high quality education where they are believed in, able to achieve to high levels, and have access to experiencing success. I will re-commit to using data to determine what works and what doesn't work for our students and move forward with what works in our classrooms. I will re-commit to this deep, difficult work with a passion because it is what our students, our families, and our community need and it is what they deserve.

What will you re-commit to for 2015?