Les Paul Shout Out!

When the current group of 8th graders entered 6th grade, 36 of them met College and Career Reading Readiness scores on the Fall MAP of 2014. In our Winter 2017 MAP test session, 132 of our 8th graders scored College and Career Ready with a projection of a 22(+) on the ACT.
Even more impressive, 115 of those students had a 24+!! Excellent work everyone!!

Making Leadership Coherent

How do you turn overload and fragmentation into focus and coherence?

As your experience this post, reflect on the quadrants your leadership has most significantly developed in 2016-2017, and potential quadrants that need attention in the future.

This is the question and subject of Michael Fullan's book Coherence, and one of our resources in developing our SAIL process for continuous school improvement.  Coherence consists of a shared depth of understanding about the purpose and nature of the work.  So often in the literature, it is easy to point to the wrong drivers: external accountability, "new" stuff be it curriculum, technology or the latest "it" things, strategies so broad that none can be effectively implemented and more...as educators, we know what does not work, yet we are products of systems and experiences that have perpetuated the "wrong driver's" in leadership.  Our SAIL process puts us on a path to examine and build capacity around the right drivers, those are the driver's we believe will lead to transformational learning opportunities.

FROM:                                                                              TO:

So what does Capacity building, Collaborative effort, Pedagogy and Systemness look like in ACTION?

Notice at the center of the framework is LEADERSHIP.  Leaders must reflect upon and find the right combination of these components for the to build the people, practices and process that lead to systems improvement.  Fullan tags the concept of simplexity to refer to narrowing the focused direction, build capacity around that direction, moving deeper into practice and perhaps most timely, securing and ensuring internal loci of accountability.  While coherence might be like Danielson's level 4, a place you visit, but rarely live, think of coherence as an ongoing quest to deepen learning, focus direction, build collaborative cultures and secure, rather than ensure, accountability.

The framework provides a support to move from theory to practice, department to system, teaching to learning and the cultures that support the conditions for these to take flight.

As you finish reading this post, reflect on the quadrants your leadership has most significantly developed in 2016-2017.  Think about how teams and individuals might reflect on the quadrant.  Use the reflection to start or frame conversations about next steps in moving the teaching and learning culture forward at your site, school or on your team.

Director SAIL Coaching Assignments for 2017-18

This is the time of year, when we start planning already for our summer year 2 SAIL launch. Each school created a Theory of Action this school year that has allowed customization of focus areas using data-based problem identification. As we approach the second year of this school improvement framework, sites will be refining the work and continuing to narrow the focus.

With the Director retirement of Sara Behrendt, Sharon Thiede will be our new Director of Educator Development. This created a vacancy in Student Services and we have hired Luke Pinion from Oak Creek as our new Director of Student Services. These changes have caused us to take pause and make sure we maximized our Director coaching with each school in our district. The list of Directors with SAIL coaching teams are listed below. Director SAIL coaches will be reaching out to Principals before Spring Break in order to help front load planning for June and help support your school's work. 

Sharon Thiede (Director of Educator Development) - Meadowbrook, South, Hawthorne

Dan Keyser (Director of Secondary Learning) - STEM Saratoga, Prairie, North

Melissa Yow (Director of Elementary Learning) - Blair, Whittier, Hillcrest

Deirdre Garcia (Director of Multilingual & Global Education) - Lowell, SummitView, Les Paul

Luke Pinion (Director of Student Services) - East, Butler, Banting

Patty Hovel (Director of Special Education) - eAchieve, Early Learning, Heyer

Jason Gahan (Director of Secondary Special Education) - West, Horning, Hadfield

Karen Peterson (Director of Elementary Special Education) - Bethesda, STEM Randall, Rose Glen

Additional information / District SAIL Process and Student Achievement Data (Humanities)

Please accept the attached highlight from Humanities as it was missed in last week’s update.

On behalf of the Teaching and Learning team in collaboration with Student Services, I am happy to highlight all of our school and coordinator SAIL plans. This week, during our quarterly reviews, each Principal and Coordinator highlighted their SAIL team’s progress around their Theory of Action. Subsequent data around adult learning practices as well as student achievement data was celebrated throughout our organization. I am pleased to share a few things from each of their presentations this week in the attachment.

Jody Landish

District SAIL update - Humanities

Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Schools

This month, students who are eligible to earn the first ever Wisconsin Seal of Biliteracy will be demonstrating their GLOBAL Competency with a short service project.

You may have a need in your classroom or school community that one of these scholars might help to address.

Students are compiling proposals right now to help them demonstrate the 21st Century Skill of Taking Action by:

Acting responsibly

Understanding Diverse Audiences

Communicating with Diverse People

If you have a need in your department, office or school that could be supported by a multilingual and socio-culturally competent student-please contact D. Garcia at dmgarcia@

Below is the criteria students are planning to meet!

District SAIL Progress and Student Achievement Data

On behalf of the Teaching and Learning team in collaboration with Student Services, I am happy to highlight all of our school and coordinator SAIL plans. This week, during our quarterly reviews, each Principal and Coordinator highlighted their SAIL team’s progress around their Theory of Action. Subsequent data around adult learning practices as well as student achievement data was celebrated throughout our organization. I am pleased to share a few things from each of their presentations this week in the attachment.

Know thy impact,

Jody Landish

District SAIL information

UW-Whitewater Masters Program

The School District of Waukesha and UW-Whitewater are partnering to provide an opportunity to complete a Masters Degree in 

Professional Development, a Masters Degree in

Special Education (path to cross-categorical licensure)

or

 a Masters Degree in Special Education with specialist certificates in Autism and Transition. 

Exciting news!  We are more than halfway to our staff number 

needed 

to keep this opportunity available! 

If you are interested

in this program  

p

lease 

apply to

 UW

-

W

hitewater

 by April 15th 

here:  

http://www.uww.edu/

(

Click on Admissions

- 

apply to the grad program)

To view the course catalog click here.

Stumbling toward Coherence

This week some Waukesha teams met in the Dells to continue their learning on the SAIL process. To open the day teams were asked to read and reflect on a short article about coherence. I have included the link here, if interested.

Fullan's work mirrors the SAIL process, which is the commitment to systematically implementing the right "drivers" (high-leverage practices). Indeed coherence only comes about when people across an organization work towards a common outcome (Theory of Action). During the day, teams learned how to clarify and connect practices to outcomes be describing the Knowledge, Attitude, Skill, Aspiration, and Behavior (KASAB) one would expect to see if teams/organizations implemented the work with fidelity. The discussion around these five change area in relations to one of our high-leverage practices helped the team to clarify what actions we needed to put into our next 100-day plan.

As we go in the spring and shed the last remnants of winter (optimistic here), I am reminded that one of the goals of SAIL is to build a system that helps to build coherence within, and across, each school. As we work toward coherence, we should begin to see what Fullan calls the "right drivers":

• Focused Direction
• A Cultivation of Collaborative Cultures
• The Deeping of Learning
• Securing of Internal Accountability

This work takes time, patience, and commitment to the process. If you are seeing elements of these drivers within your teams, support and encourage their work. If you are seeing a team struggle, ask yourself which driver is needed to bring more focus to their work. We will all make missteps along the way and will need the support of each other as we stumble toward coherence. 

District Strategic Planning

With a successful launch of SAIL across all of our schools this year, the executive team has decided to use the SAIL framework as part of an overall district strategic planning process. The cycle of improvement and innovation as a continuous improvement framework will help guide our district goals and priorities. Using the SAIL framework, we will model transparency in our theory of action and subsequent leadership actions as we work collaboratively to build 100 day cycles that help us measure progress and results along the way.

The Assistant Superintendents' started the process this week together with Superintendent Gray. We are in the beginning stages of problem identification and root cause analysis. Our ultimate goal is to prioritize six or fewer foci upon which our organization can take action on over the next few years. As an executive team, we are excited about our synergy as we work towards more coherence across our entire system. We will continue to provide you updates along the way.

Do you want to be part of making Waukesha History?

Do you want to be part of making Waukesha History?

The School District of Waukesha is looking for faculty advisor/mentors for our scholars pursuing academic honors.   

The role of the faculty advisor/mentor is to support a student, or small group of students to meet deadlines and ensure that they are developing evidence to meet the criteria to earn the Waukesha Wisconsin Seal of Biliteracy (see below).  

ANY staff person could be a valuable faculty advisor/mentor no matter your role.

An Information Session for interested faculty will be held on Monday March 6th at 3:30PM, in room 203D at Lindholm.  The session will be recorded for your convenience if you cannot attend but would like to get involved or are interested.

First cohort to graduate with biliteracy credential

By Lauren Anderson

Freeman Staff

WAUKESHA — This spring, a few dozen Waukesha high school seniors will graduate with a credential that shows colleges and employers they are able to communicate in more than one language.

About 40 students in the Waukesha School District are poised to earn the Wisconsin Seal of Biliteracy, a recognition given to students who have demonstrated achievement in bilingualism, biliteracy, and multicultural competence in and through two or more languages.

This is the first year students are eligible to receive the biliteracy endorsement, which will be reflected on their diplomas and transcripts.

“The purpose of the award is to communicate to the community, to future employers and universities that we have bilingual, biliterate and globallycompetent students,” said Deirdre Garcia, director of multilingual and global education for the Waukesha School District.

The award was first offered in 2008 in California and has since spread in recent years to 23 states, Wisconsin among the most recent. So far, the Waukesha and Verona school districts are approved to offer the recognition, according to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.

To earn the Seal of Biliteracy, students have to demonstrate proficiency in English on the ACT, as well as in a partner language by scoring proficiently on an AP test in Spanish, French,or another language; or on the SAT in that language; or on the Assessment of Performance toward Proficiency in Languages test.

Other requirements include writing an essay in both English and their partner language that demonstrates they are able to examine their own perspective, as well as the perspectives of others. Finally, they must develop their own service project and complete it.

Garcia said families of participating students are enthusiastic about the award, recognizing it could give their children an advantage as they enter college and the workforce.

And for many students coming from Spanishspeaking homes, she said, it’s a validation of their upbringing.

“These parents never expected they would be publicly recognized for a skill they gave (their children),” she said. “They’ve never heard ‘Your kids are scholars. Look at what they can do.’ So it’s been really validating for all kinds of kids, but validating for different ways.”

Those interested in learning more about pursuing the Seal of Biliteracy can contact Garcia at dmgarcia@waukesha.k12. wi.us.