Why do you do what you do? What do you miss family dinners and doing homework with your kids? Why do you work on the weekends and wake up in the middle of the night? Why do you come in early and stay late and spend your own money on school supplies or clothes or birthday cupcakes or clothes?
One of my colleagues asked me this earlier this week. "What is your why?" Why do I do what I do to the extent that I do it? The answer is pretty clear cut - I have to.
The passion that I feel for the students in my school is deep. I have two biological children and 800 other children that I feel equally as passionate about as I do my own. I did not know that urban education was my calling, however, once I started on this path I was completely taken.
You have to know your why. If you don't know what drives you, then you cannot have a clear vision and you cannot lead others.
In her book, The Leadership Muse, by Linda Cureton, she talks about determining your why. In this inspirational text, Cureton challenges leaders to consider what drives them and what inspires their leadership. Knowing what drives you and where that drive comes from is critical in inspiring others.
My teachers returned to school this week. We have the benefit of additional professional development before the students return. All of our work this week has focused first on the why. Why are we looking closely at our restorative practices? Why are we shifting our practices in mathematics instruction? Why have we aligned our writing instruction with our content instruction? The why has to be clear before the how or the what is ever discussed.
As a leader, knowing your why is essential. It is your vision. It is your messaging. It is your branding. And it is your drive.
I have written about this topic before - there is nothing more important to school turnaround than having the right team. That includes your leadership team, your teachers, your key supporters, and your consultants. The second part of this key competency is more challenging - right the remainder. You have to have your whole team rowing in the same direction and if there is even one person who is rowing against you, it can have devastating results.
I have been highlighting the Turnaround Competencies and Actions from Public Impact over the past several weeks because they are essential for turnaround leaders to consider as they plan for the upcoming school year (if you haven't reviewed them, please refer to them here). What ways will you address this competency during the upcoming school year?
Get the Right Staff; Right the Remainder (from Public Impact)
Require all staff to change: When turnaround leaders implement an action plan, they make the
change mandatory, not optional, beginning with accountable team leaders in the organization.
Make necessary staff and leader replacements: Successful turnaround leaders typically do not
replace all or even most of the staff, but often replace team leaders who organize and drive change.
After initial turnaround success, staff who do not make needed changes either leave or are
removed by the leader
Even if you have already started your school turnaround, you need to consider how you will "right the remainder" each year. I have been reviewing each teacher's data, determining strengths and areas for growth within teams, developing support plans, and mapping out the way I will deploy my resources in order to maximize the growth. Last year, I replaced all but one teacher on a grade level team because they were not maximizing their potential, working collaboratively, using data effectively, or getting results from their students. In 2015, there were ZERO students from that team who scored proficiently on our state assessments (on either ELA or Mathematics). The new team was in place for this school year and we learned Friday that we had 15 students score proficient on the Math assessment and 11 students score proficient on the ELA. This is cause for celebration! While we recognize that we are not where we need to be, we are definitely moving in the right direction and the team is now on the right path.
Right the remainder means having the right supports and the right conversations with your staff. There is not time in school turnaround to "hope" that staff or students "just get it." You must create a culture where it is the norm to challenge, to ask, and to even push back in order to always get better. If the school culture is not geared toward being able to have difficult conversations, doing what is right for children above what makes adults comfortable, and letting go of individual areas of self-interest in order to work collaboratively as a team, then you might have silos of superstars, but you will not achieve as a turnaround school. There is only time for what we know we will be effective - no time for some cutesy thing we saw on Pinterest or Teachers Pay Teachers. Teachers who are truly going to make a difference on your team have the ability to connect with other effective practitioners and say, "hey, I saw how you really produced results there, I want to learn more."
So, what we are talking about is hiring and supporting a growth mindset. How can you tell if you have created a culture that values a growth mindset in your school and why is it important to school turnaround? We have to focus on results in school turnaround, but because moving the needle on overall student achievement takes time and relentless commitment, you need a team that has the right mindset for growth and change over time. In this article, by Xclusive Fitness, they talk about the importance of a culture of development and having positive relationships with your team. The reality is that the right team is not just about working with your friends - it is really about being able to have difficult conversations with your team, hold them accountable, push them to be better, and still be able to know that you respect and care for one another. Creating that culture of collaboration, of challenge, and of unified purpose is key to school turnaround. In preparing for this upcoming school year, consider how you can support a culture of development in your school and with your teams.
How well do you promote your vision and the purpose of your school turnaround? I never envisioned that being a principal would involve quite so much PR as I am involved in. The messaging and branding of your vision are critical to the success of your turnaround plan.
Communicate a positive vision: Turnaround leaders start their turnaround campaign by
communicating a clear picture of success and its benefits. This motivates others to contribute their
discretionary effort.
Gain support of key influencers: Turnaround leaders gain support of trusted influencers among the
staff and community, then work through these people to influence others.
Silence critics with speedy success: Turnaround leaders use early wins not just for success in their
own right, but to cast vocal naysayers as champions of failure. This reduces leader time spent on
“politics” and increases time spent managing for results.
Messaging and branding are key concepts in school turnaround. As we move toward full implementation of a community school model, creating a sense of welcoming for parents, families, and the community is key to our messaging and our branding. If parents do not feel welcome, they will not use the school as a resource and it will ultimately have a negative impact on their child's education. Our turnaround campaign has had to include professional development, practice sessions with scenarios, direct conversations, and targeted feedback for anyone in our staff who comes in to contact with our parents, families, and the community in order to ensure that we are all on the same message and that our "brand" says "welcoming" to our community.
Another key component of branding is the use of social media. How well are you utilizing social media to promote and maintain your messaging and branding of your vision? Is your vision clear in what you post, how you post, and to whom you post things on social media? We can all learn from Nike or McDonald's when thinking about branding and messaging - we have to think like those major players when we are branding our school turnaround. Clear, consistent messaging is as important to school turnaround as it is to business leaders.
In this time of social media, it is important to consider that you are your brand. As the turnaround leader, there is very little separation between you and your vision for your school. Consider that in posting, commenting, and sharing things on social media. While everyone does deserve a degree of privacy, posting on social media allows what was once private to be public, and that should be considered as you build, market, and support you brand and your vision.
I have spent some time with the Turnaround Leader Competencies - I have even written about them in my blog. This week, I spent some time with some amazing leaders in my district, reviewing these Turnaround Leader Competencies, and I was brought back to "Focusing on the Early Wins." I will admit that I had thought I was past this stage, since I am entering in to year three as a turnaround leader. I was brought back to thinking about the early wins as a way to frame the positive things that are happening in my building - thinking about the early wins as a measurement of our current goals, rather than just as a point on the original path that we started out on.
Collect and analyze data: Successful turnaround leaders are focused, fearless data hounds. Initially,
turnaround leaders personally analyze data about the organization’s performance to identify highpriority
problems that can be fixed quickly.
Make action plan based on data: Turnaround leaders make an action plan that includes annual
goals and major steps, with enough detail that each group in the school community knows
specifically what they need to do differently. This allows people to focus on changing what they do,
rather than worrying about impending change. Plan should cover years 1 – 3, with more detail for
year 1.
Focus on a few early wins in year 1: Successful turnaround leaders choose a few high-priority goals
with visible payoffs and use early success to gain momentum. Although limited in scope, these
“wins” are high-priority, not peripheral, elements of organization performance, and they are bold in
speed and magnitude of change. Early wins are critical for motivating staff and disempowering
naysayers.
I thought that we were "past this" point in our turnaround, but when I was challenged to think about the early wins for right now, or for year three, I was suddenly able to see how important it is to frame the early wins in terms of where we are right now.
With that in mind, I will celebrate a few of the early wins in our turnaround. We are currently implementing a thematic, project-based summer program for our students. Students were able to select their theme (from options like I, Robot, Outdoor Explorers, Designing the Future, or CSI: Classroom Science Investigators). We are working with our enrichment partner so that everything we are doing is aligned to the theme. Our students are having so much fun learning! One student actually said to her teacher "When are we going to do math?" after they had finished a hands on activity where they were measuring perimeter and area. This is what we want for our children! To be so engaged in learning activities that they are not even aware that they are learning! I am so proud to be leading a team of teachers who believe in the power of hands-on and minds-on learning for our students.
Students creating their own blogs
Principles of engineering in mathematics - hands on and brains on!
Working together to solve problems - that's what real engineers do!
I started my own blog in January of 2015 and it is one of the best things that I have done in terms of my own leadership; providing me an opportunity for reflection and a chance to think through my next steps. So, I am 100% behind the idea of supporting the students at my school in starting their own blogs.
Blogging provides students with an opportunity to write with a purpose - to take a stand on a topic and use research to support their opinions and to develop their own voice as a writer and an owner of ideas. This is what we want for our future generations - to be literate, to be well-spoken, to have ideas that they can support with facts, and to be creative. Blogging is a natural entry point into all of these aspects of being college, career, and life ready.
With everything that students can consume online, isn't it a better option for them to engage in being producers of a positive online presence? George Couros, whose blog I love, shared his similar points of view in his own blog (here). Our students can, and should, see themselves as having a positive influence and online presence. There are countless YouTube videos and Reddit articles for them to consume, but in order to truly make a difference in the world and in their community, they must have opinions that they can support and speak intellectually about - even when their opinions may be about pop stars or sneakers or fashion icons. Check out these children bloggers who certainly have something to say and who are making an impact with what they are saying here.
Here are some great resources for models when you are encouraging your students to begin a blog (remember that a model is important because it provides something that you either can choose to or not to emulate and that is important for framing kids perspectives):
Blogging is a vehicle for self-expression, reflection, and for making a positive imprint on this universe that we live in. In this time of anger, protest, violence, and confusion, isn't it important that we give our children a means to think through the questions that the have in a way that will help them to learn and grow and make a positive impact on this ever changing world in which we live.
It's July 1 and in my district, that usually means the beginning of new leadership roles and newly formed leadership teams. We have a fair amount of movement in our district each year, and this year was more than usual. My team is no exception - I am beginning this summer with a new vice-principal and an unfilled leadership position. So, the topic of building a new leadership team is at the forefront of my thinking - even as I am vacationing with my family.
There are a couple of important conversations that must be had as people join your leadership team. The first is what you need from them - the non-negotiables that you have to have in order for things to run smoothly. For me, I have to have someone who works hard, meets deadlines, is completely committed to the well-being of our children, who is not afraid to give honest feedback, and whom I can trust. The other side of that conversation is what the new team member needs from me. That conversation is equally important because you are really setting the norms for your working relationship. It is essential that we enter into new leadership relationships with a clear vision of how we need to work together in order to move the work forward. I am two years into the turnaround in my school. It would be completely unfair for me to expect my new team to be able to match my pace immediately upon entry. I must look at a 30, 60, 90 day entry plan that will structure success for my new team, much like I did for myself as I took over as principal.
If I fail to create the vision for my new leadership team, fail to set goals for them, fail to develop an action plan with them, or fail in my monitoring of the plan, my new team will fail. In my district, we have seen this time and time again - the lack of vision leads to people reacting, rather than building a purposeful and proactive plan. In many of our schools, this translates to becoming overwhelmed with discipline issues and reacting to classroom problems that could have been addressed by having a clear vision that everyone was a part of.
I have one opportunity to get this right - the stakes are very high as I enter into year three. At the end of the day, I am responsible for the education of 800 children every day and they deserve the absolute best.
Are you adding to your leadership team or are you a new member of a leadership team? Here are some additional resources that might help you frame your success.
The end of the school year. As much as it seems like we should be able to kick back and relax at the end of the school year, this is a busy time for school leaders. Not only are we trying to make sure that we have absolutely everything tightly wrapped up with a bow, from end of the year data to hiring plans to culminating events, we are also gearing up for whatever work we are engaged in during the summer (for me that includes running a summer academy) and planning intensely for getting us off the ground in September. The planning for a solid opening cannot be underestimated - so this alone requires a great deal of reflection, planning, collaboration, and visioning.
I started working with a group of teacher leaders that represent a cross section of the different types of work we are engaged in a few weeks ago as part of a Turnaround School Leadership Program that I am involved in through my district. As we looked closely at different areas of our turnaround, we reflected on where we felt like we needed greater clarity. We looked at School Culture, Education Program, Talent Management, Operations, and Governance and Accountability. We decided that the areas for us that needed greater clarity centered on core values. We felt like we had a clear vision and that it was clearly articulated and that there was significant buy-in, but there was not always consistency in how our vision is carried out. Our core values are the beliefs that we have as an organization and what transpires as a result of those beliefs. An organization's core values must be clearly known and shared throughout the organization in order to have systemic change.
In this article by Jim Collins, he describes how the core values of an organization have to be shared by everyone in the organization. There is no detail too small to attend to - as Rory Sutherland talks about in this Ted Talk called "Sweat the Small Stuff."
In our work with the core values of our school, we used the analogy of a house that we built based on our core values. We described four pillars with an overarching "roof" on our structure. Our pillars are Academics, Social Emotional Learning, Collaboration, Culture and Climate with Community as our arch over the system. Looking at these pillars, we were able to articulate our core values and begin the discussion around what we need to do in order to ensure that everything we are doing aligns to these core values.
As the school leaders, we are responsible for the core values and alignment of those core values to the work across our organization. Teachers are the leaders in their classrooms and it is up to them to ensure that their classrooms align to the core values within the pillars of Academics, Social Emotional Learning, Collaboration, and Culture and Climate, as well as the Community. Ensuring systemic shifts in our organizations requires that our core values are in alignment throughout the system. Stay tuned for the next steps we will take to ensure that in our turnaround school!
