Friday, April 27, 2018

Working with the Best!

I am pleased to celebrate one of my colleagues this week, as Chris Hedstrom received the President's Award of Excellence from our State Association last week! Sometimes it's "lonely at the top" as they say, so I wanted to take pause and congratulate her on this accomplishment.

Chris Hedstrom is the epitome of integrity, work ethic, professionalism and teamwork. I am glad her colleagues across the state of Wisconsin recognize her leadership contributions as well. She continues to represent our district with high expectations of excellence and innovation in HR. Our Stay Interview processes and our Hiring Practices Guide for Certified Staff have become models across our state for other districts to emulate.

In the spirit of saying thank you to others, Chris...thank you for your exemplary service in the School District of Waukesha. It is my pleasure to work with you!




Innovation in Learning

I had the opportunity to visit Apple in Chicago on Tuesday for a district learning session. As former Principal at Waukesha North, we were a "wave one" school for iPad rollout with students and staff back in 2013. Five years ago, the North staff paved a path of risk taking, innovation, and high school reform that positively challenged the traditional paradigms of schooling.

As I reflect on my learning this week, I was inspired to challenge myself to a "no Mac May". This will be a learning curve for me as I haven't really used my iPad since I was at North. However, the light bulb went on for me this week when I look at our student iPad use, especially across our secondary classrooms. Data shows our use of iPads in the areas of modification and redefinition at the secondary level lags behind our elementary classrooms. Likewise, our achievement data is hitting a stalemate in some areas as well.

How can our students become empowered to be collaborators, designers, doers, and engaged learners? I believe their learning can be enhanced through the innovative use of the iPad. Teachers, I challenge you to re-acquaint yourselves with your iPad if it isn't your dominant tool of use in your classroom.

Waukesha ONE has provided equitable access and has helped foster the highest levels of collaboration that I have seen in our district! We are ready for that next level of innovation for our students, but only if we can push one another as adults to model the importance and power of the student learning experience.
#noMacMay

Monday, April 23, 2018

Getting from 50/50/50 to 90/90/90-reflections and resurrections




I thought of resurrecting a piece of reading I have stacked away in my mental files on schools that are 90-90-90 (See D. Reeves here).  These schools serve a student population where 90% receive free and reduced lunch, 90% are members of an ethnic minority group, yet 90% perform at or above district or state academic standards.

There are some valuable lessons to be garnered from a quick re-read of this NCLB era research, namely that effective teaching and leadership make a difference, and a great difference when effectiveness is ensured year after year.

These schools do something different than other hard working buildings of staff do, namely:

90-90-90s are persistent, and I would add they are urgent.  They take a no excuses approach to their responsibility to ensure not only student learning, but student attainment and achievement.

90-90-90's use replicable systems and practices.  They ensure that these systems are replicable at each grade level across their site.  They inspire other leaders to learn from them how to create adult capacity.

90-90-90's are consistent in their area of emphasis.  While they modify for local contexts, these schools emphasize the abbreviated following as shared in their entirety here:

  •  Devoted Time for Teacher collaboration: teachers collaborate routinely with student learning as the focus an and artifacts of learning as the evidence. Teachers meet together to review student achievement data at a deep level, including the sub-scale scores related to standards.
  • Performance assessment: student learning is tested and assessed frequently with opportunities to strengthen learning and attainment
  • Informational Text Writing: student learning is demonstrated through information writing/write to think across the curriculum and as assessment of their learning
  • Focus is clear: teachers become excellent on highly focused practices that leads to student learning that are systemic across the site and levels served within the building/district.
  • Displays of Proficiency: every teacher displays proficient and exemplary student work in a highly visible manner. The result of these displays was that every student, parent, and teacher had a clear and consistent understanding of what the school-wide scoring rubrics meant in practice. 
  • Principal: involved in the direct instructional leadership of the school, taking personal responsibility for evaluating student work with teacher teams 


    Next steps for any teacher leader-encourage your PLC to make a commitment to discuss student learning using artifacts of their learning, or any other form of data.  Encourage your PLC, or grade level partner or ESL/Special Ed Co-teacher to assess student learning frequently to craft effective feedback so students can respond to and deepen their learning.  Choose to increase the amount, quality and type of writing you ask your students to produce to communicate their learning-we have so many great models and practices that support our practice (Claim, Evidence and Reason is just one, but a living practice in SDW).  Begin or continue to discuss with your learners the criteria for their success in meeting daily objectives for learning.

    There are infinite opportunities for team leaders to internalize some of the big ideas here in preparation for the opportunity deepen messaging, tighten up and recommit to the focus, and prepare our teams to analyze the systems that create and sustain highly effective schools for all learners..









    Friday, April 20, 2018

    Informational Meeting for Discounted UW-Whitewater Programs

    Hello!

    Thank you all for your interest in the UW-Whitewater programs.  We have enough interest to hopefully run the Masters in Professional Development and the ESL License!  Unfortunately, there was not enough collective interest to run either special education program. 

    We are hosting informational meetings in conjunction with UW-Whitewater representatives to answer any questions and to discuss the enrollment process.  You can attend the meeting even if you did not fill out the interest survey.

    ESL License Informational Meeting
    May 1, 2018
    4:00 PM
    Les Paul Media Center

    Masters in Professional Development, Cohort 2
    May 8, 2018
    4:00 PM
    Lindholm Room 213/215

    Thursday, April 19, 2018

    Turning Kids Into Grown-ups

    First and foremost, I take no credit for the title of this blog post.  I have an hour commute to work each way each day.  On my ride home from evening meetings I often listen to NPR, and one of my favorite radio programs is the Ted Radio Hour.  In the attached podcast, the host, Guy Raz, explores the topic of parenting through Ted Talks. 

    Now, I am not trying to influence how any reader of this post chooses to raise their children.  I have four and know first hand the challenges of parenting.  That being said, as I listened to this podcast, I reflected on how we educate students, how we set expectations for students, and how we support students in achieving their goals.  The podcast is 48 minutes long, so if you intend on listening, please set some time aside.  Also, for a more direct educational connection to this theme, I suggest reading How Children Succeed by Paul Tough. 

    Turning Kids Into Grown-ups

    Thursday, April 12, 2018

    Five Levers to Improve Learning

    We have started our Priority School meetings this week with site leadership teams and in part of those planning conversations we ask Principals, what are the biggest leadership levers to increase student achievement?
    leancor.com

    We are asking teams as part of your SAIL journey, how are you prioritizing for powerful results in your school?

    Thank you Ryan Galante for connecting my prompt to Frontier and Rickabaugh's work around the five levers: structure, sample, standards, strategy and self.  Each lever holds varying degrees of potential for improving student learning. This is a good book to read or go back to if you haven't visited it for a while as much of this theory is grounded in the work of our SAIL framework.

    In each iteration of SAIL, as we get deeper in our learning and root cause analysis of data, we can multiply our collective capacity to improve student learning by maximizing our effectiveness with our focus on the right work. When intent, effort, and results are aligned across a school, the desired outcome reaches a level that would otherwise not have been possible. If we prioritize our focus areas to make changes that matter to students, student achievement will continue to soar in the School District of Waukesha.

    For your focus and collaborative commitment, I am celebrating our progress!