Every Batman Needs a Robin

Week 20: The Art of Delegation #SAVMP

Delegation, has over the years, been an area of personal growth for me. As I began exploring this week’s topic, I waxed nostalgic and pulled out an early assessment of my leadership capacity. At the start of my leadership journey, our former Superintendent saw some potential in me and selected me to attend what I lovingly refer to as…Administrators Boot Camp. My “pet” name for this program is much simpler than its real name: The Florida Principal Competency Assessment Center.

To go through the program, a group of potential leaders is selected and undergo several exercises to demonstrate their leadership capacity. While they are navigating the exercises, they are watched by a panel of objective viewers who rate their abilities according to various leadership competencies. This “boot camp” happened many years ago for me, but from what I remember, it was actually quite fun. One of the other members of the group I was in is now an Assistant Superintendent, and it was exciting to be around other leaders who I could learn from as well as develop friendships with that would later lead to my personal network of friends.

After we concluded the activity, the raters scored us and debriefed us on our strengths. I dusted off my copy of their findings today and was truly astonished at what they revealed so very long ago when I started this journey toward being a Principal.

My strengths were:

• Proactivity
• Continuous Improvement  (Always striving to get better)
• Communication
• Facilitation (Getting others to work together effectively)
• Critical Thinking (Analysis of data before arriving at a solution)
• Organizational Abilities (Knowing how to design, plan, and organize activities to achieve goals)

Ironically, my one area of Growth that the team referred to as an “Adequacy” was the competency of delegation. All those years ago, following that exercise, I chose to work on that skill as a personal goal. And, since, as the report indicated, I have strength in continuous improvement, I have grown enormously in that area. I now have some delegation swag. LOL.

Over the years as I have set goals to improve in this area, I have learned just how critical a skill that delegation has to be for a successful leader. Here is why I believe this:

1. Leadership Delegation Is Necessary for Personal Survival

My approach to taking on new challenges is usually to learn as much as possible about a new situation. Sometimes this means that I will get down in the trenches and learn something from the bottom all the way to the top. This helps me make wise choices because I have a deeper understanding of the whole picture. However, I try and quickly move on to delegation once I learn the new program or process. If I didn't, I would drown under the weight of trying to juggle all the nuts and bolts of the system. Once my knowledge base is developed, I can look to the qualified specialists around me and I can move into the background and just facilitate. 

I was able to attend a fabulous leadership training this summer by some job coaches. One analogy they used has stuck with me and continued to be an anchor for me as I move toward more efficient delegation. The job coaches compared the system leader to a baseball manager. The team manager should be overseeing and making certain the team has what it needs to win. If the team manager is out on the field playing 1st base and 3rd base, the manager will not only fail to develop his players whose position is 1st and 3rd, but he will be inefficient at managing the whole process because he is busy playing all the roles. I love this analogy, and I have used it to help my faculty and leadership team understand when I refer them to other leaders on campus. I can not be the sole source of knowledge for the campus, or else when I am away from campus, things will collapse. It is my greatest goal to build such a strong team and strong infrastructure that it runs without me. 

2. Leadership Delegation Is Necessary for System Survival

So let's talk about the team. Wow. This takes time because you have to have the players with the capacity to partake in the execution of the vision. It is a delight when I get to bring on new staff members who are malleable and can quickly adopt the campus vision and then can align their skill set in ways to promote and protect that vision. 

I am always looking for folks who are ready to own the campus challenges and lead others in the ways that we can meet the challenges. 

First, the appropriate people must be identified. 

Next, the resources to support them must be provided. 

To encourage their success, they need to be given the matching authority and trust to complete the task. 

They need to understand the expectations clearly. 

Lastly, I need to follow up to make certain they stay on the correct path and ultimately reach the destination.

If the delegation works, then the system gets stronger and stronger because the power base is distributed among all the team members. If EVERYONE wants to win the game, then everyone will play their hardest. This creates a strong team. 

3. Leadership Delegation Is Necessary for Success 

Ownership by all stakeholders is critical for the system to succeed. We are still in the process of building this ownership across multiple leadership groups on our campus. Two great examples are our Safety Committee and our Positive Behavior Support System. We have been working to have members of both of these teams make critical decisions for the whole school so that they understand the process and implications for how those decisions impact everyone at the school .... from the teacher all the way down to the student and their family. After a recent safety assessment by our District Safety Officer, our Safety Committee broke down all of the recommendations from the officer into individual action items. Each team member carried out those action items to completion because they saw how a break in the safety plan could impact the safety of our students and staff. Team members were checking campus evacuation maps and confirming that current maps were posted in every classroom. Our PE Coach worked with the custodian to develop a rotating schedule for determining if fire extinguishers are in working order monthly. AND...this has enhanced everyone's awareness of what it means to be "safe" on our campus. No longer is the safety of the school a prescient thought in the Principal and Assistant Principal's minds only. Now, we have a team of folks who are aware and proactively working on the behalf of our school's safety goals. This makes us so much stronger! We are more successful for the leadership that has been delegated to these team members.

Leadership delegation works, and it creates a strong organization. Now, there are problems to address when you have employees without the willingness to lead or participate. There are great resources out there for those situations such as Todd Whitaker's book Shifting the Monkey. 

Whatever the case, as a leader, FIND WAYS TO DELEGATE. You and your team will be stronger for it.

Setting Professional Goals #SAVMP #15

Goal Setting is my contentment. I love the day-to-day goal setting, the short-term goal setting, and the long-term goal setting. I revel in the sense of accomplishment that I achieve from crossing things off my lists. Being task-oriented always leads me to a sense of jubilation at the end of the day because ..... if I write something down, you can be assured I will get it done.

So what are my professional goals at this time?

The start of the school year yielded the genesis of two long-term goals from last year. The data showed that we had been missing the mark for our lowest and highest performing students. We added an inclusion program this year AND we added a TAG program for our Talented and Gifted students. So far so good. The programs seem to be setting down roots and flourishing. Certainly they have had their share of starts and stalls, but the students are growing and achieving--that is the ultimate goal. That is what makes every day fresh and exciting...to see our students thrive.

Since school began, I set out with several major goals for this year:

1. Move our faculty from data awareness to data interpretation for impact.
2. Develop a writing team and action plan to grow our students' abilities to write proficiently.
3. Work on rigor and engaging instruction within our core reading program.

Again, we seem to be making progress in all three areas. The writing and reading goals are moving along swiftly. We are using a core replacement program to increase our reading scores. Our writing team is a highly effective group of faculty who are sharing the leadership in spreading writing success across our campus. They are peer-rating papers, cross-calibrating scoring, and analyzing the data to attain greater proficiency for our students.

The data goal is the one that is most daunting. My greatest desire and vision for our school is to develop our school into a school where data drives instruction. We need to be watching for the exact moment where a student stops learning so that we can reteach the skill/concept and help them achieve mastery. This can be difficult to do if teachers are not paying clinically close attention to daily and weekly formative assessments as well as analytics provided by online learning progress monitoring data.

This data journey presents challenges as we must look beyond interim assessments and drill down to the data collected minute-by-minute and day-by-day. That data, the data of learning, is the data that should and needs to drive our instruction. We are building this capacity across our campus, and I love hearing the amazing stories of things our teachers learn about their students every single day.

I certainly have long-term goals as well, and the top three are:

1. Student Achievement (OF COURSE)
2. Faculty Family
3. Facility Improvements

Goals 1 and 3 are complementary. One focuses on what is going on inside the classrooms, and the other focuses on the classrooms and the buildings. A great mentor just shared with me this weekend, that at a school....."I should see your fingerprints all over it." Wow. That is a humbling thought. Progress is the goal in both areas.

The challenge lies in the second goal. I truly, truly want to develop a feeling of 'family' among our faculty. I know they are still learning to trust me and to accept the demands of our situation. It is an ever tenuous balance to raise expectations and to also keep morale high. I will leave no stone unturned to keep this harmony.

Goals for the goal setter--I love them. I find elation in the art of achieving, and I look forward to every morning to get started on my latest mission. GO is the first word in GO-a-l. Go for it!

Viral Learning is Contagious!

Week 13 – Individual Learning and Mass Sharing #SAVMP

The week 13 SAVMP posted asked these questions of the BLOGers:

How do you share the work that you do during individual staff PD to ensure that great learning goes viral? I would love to see some other examples of how people are sharing.

I don’t know why, but I have ALWAYS been a sharing person (sharer).  Often times, it does not benefit me whatsoever, as folks will take my ideas and implement them, and then THEY get the credit. But, hey, wasn’t it Reagan who said, “There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.”

There are two ways I am “sharing” the professional development we have at Cherry Street Elementary. One way is my Twitter feed. During our two days of pre-service training this year, I ran a live feed during the two days of training and posted all the videos we used as well as images of our teachers as they provided the professional development for our campus. I know that the Principals in my PLN often share videos and training topics, and they give me brilliant ideas. I hope that my sharing does the same! Here are some examples from back in August.

And, even more fun, I have started sharing videos of EVERYTHING! I created a YouTube Channel about a year ago, and I have been having the most fun populating it with faculty videos and videos I have made for school-based professional development goals. Here are just a couple:

The sky is the limit when it comes to sharing. I don’t know who the approximately 4,000 people are who have viewed my BLOG, but I hope in some way that they have had at least one “take away” from the experience. This is connected learning at its best. Viral learning is contagious! LOL. 

Week 8 -- Meaningful Professional Development #SAVMP

This week's assignment asks the question...What are some of the ways to create meaningful staff professional development?

To begin with, I believe that meaningful professional development leads to better learning in the classroom. The professional development on our campus has gone through a metamorphosis-- by design, and the change is remarkable.

When I first arrived on campus as the new instructional leader for our school, there were immediate pressing needs. One was the need for infrastructure and systems to fill the void. Unfortunately, that meant that our monthly faculty meetings were committed to rolling out these initiatives and to training faculty and staff on the necessary requirements needed to comply with district initiatives. The second critical need was for our faculty to get to know their new leader and to "roll out" my style and credibility for them. So...over the course of a year I set out to meet those two goals.

Well...leap forward in time to a full year later. My style is one of teacher leadership and distributed leadership among the staff. Our very first faculty meeting of the year, I was committed to making that shift to the teacher-led faculty meeting where WE ALL own the growth made by the school experts--the teachers! A year's worth of work had resulted in a great professional development experience vs. the old style "meeting."

Our first faculty meeting was a success! If I was to use the measure--would I enjoy sitting in one of my faculty meetings? The answer, after this first meeting, was a resounding yes! I began the meeting with a new tradition I had started. The idea had been shared with me by my wise friend. At pre-service training, I brought in a large stuffed Cheetah that I had bought at Toys R Us--the Cheetah is Cherry Street's mascot. At each meeting thereafter, whoever received the Cheetah would have to "pass the torch" to the next Cheetah Champion AND they would have to personalize the Cheetah in some way. I gave the "torch" to one of our teacher leaders who is known for going above and beyond especially with her ability to network with families. I also personalized the Cheetah by adding a BluRay box to his collar. I am a huge science fiction geek, and I added the box for the movie Oblivion.

At this first faculty meeting, it was the teacher leader's opportunity to "pass the torch" and recognize a Champion on our campus. She put on her glasses to read an index card that she had written with notes because she said, "I wanted to make sure I got this right." She then set out to describe a teacher who knows the name of every student in the school, a teacher who takes weekend time to have his family help him clean up the campus, and a teacher who makes a difference with our students. As she shared this information and ultimately the teacher's name, I got chill bumps and a few tears welled up in my eyes. There are so many champions at our school, and now the teachers are stepping up to recognize the champion in each other. The room broke into applause, and as our COACH received the Cheetah that was now covered in chocolate wrappers (the teacher leader's new personal touch), I could swear I saw a tear in his eyes too. That was waaaayyy cool!

Relying on that same teacher leadership model, we moved on to the next part of the meeting which was for one of our campus experts in Kagan to model for the group and then have the group work through some activities as well. Our teacher leader worked with the group to have us create a Kagan team cheer and to spend time in a Kagan team-building activity which allowed us to get to know each other a little better. Some of our cheers were very goofy, but the whole experience was wonderful. In just a few short minutes, we had invested a little time in getting to know each member of our group and hear their story. And, we got to do a little risk-taking by moving outside of our comfort zones and creating something silly and goofy that unified our groups. The room was filled with laughter. Ultimately, the goal is for the groups to take these demonstrated activities and begin to implement them successfully in their classrooms.

Next, we watched ANOTHER teacher leader demonstrate the behavior management program called Classroom Dojo. This program is so accessible that parents can log on during the school day in real time to see how their students are behaving during the school day. Additionally, teachers can use the App for the program to carry hand-held devices with them such as their SmartPhone or their iPad or tablet, and they can track behavior data from any location on campus. One of our kindergarten teachers provided a testimonial about how successful the program had been in her kindergarten classroom. Her feedback was definitely a strong selling point for many folks.

We covered several more items, and the new precedent has been set for our faculty meetings.

And here is where the impact on instruction can be felt from all this DISTRIBUTED LEADERSHIP. 

1. Climate and morale are encouraged and positively promoted when the teachers praise each other.
2. Positive climate is increased ACROSS CAMPUS when the faculty and the students participate in team-building and class-building activities. Discipline referrals typically decrease when Kagan structures are implemented at a school.
3. The effective best practices of one teacher are shared with other faculty members, and WE ALL GET STRONGER.

In my weekly Classroom Walk-Thrus, I have seen the Kagan Structures being used, and I have seen the Class Dojo spread like wild-fire. This type of faculty meeting is less about meeting and more about professional development to impact instruction. AND....I am so glad we are in Year Two. I just can't wait to get to Year Three--the sky is the limit!

Week 7 -- Promoting Critical Conversations #SAVMP

Week 7 -- Promoting Critical Conversations #SAVMP

How Do You Go About Getting Honest Feedback from Your Team?

This is such a great question. I am truly grateful for the thought provoking questions that George has provided us in each week's assignments. These are not easy questions.

Here are my thoughts about promoting critical conversations: 

Critical conversations can only happen in an environment where honest feedback is honored. For the first year at my current school, I have worked diligently to provide an expectation of a positive culture. We have too much to do and too little time to do it in for the adults on campus to focus on things beyond our control or to engage in destructive conversations about our students, parents, the district OR even each other. One of my favorite quotes of all time is where Abraham Lincoln says ... "All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind."   I have ALWAYS tried to be positive in everything I do. Attitude is such a huge part of conquering any obstacle. I recall when my doctor told me I had colon cancer. He was shocked at my reaction which was ridiculously positive. I smiled at him through tear filled eyes and told him, "Okay. I've got cancer. What do I have to do to beat this?" This is how I approach every problem and all of life. So at school, I discourage negativity but.... I encourage problem-solving. I don't want the faculty to be confused that I frown on disagreement or other points of view. These are necessary to make us stronger. I have one teacher at school who is my "go-to" person for real and honest feedback. I call her my "real-talker". She alerts me to things that need to be watched, handled with care, or revamped. So, if any teacher comes to my office and says, "I don't mean to be negative...." I listen to what they have to say, and then I let them know that notifying me of problems in the system is NOT being negative. I always want to hear what they have to say. I honor everyone's opinion. AND, I also ask them to think of resolutions to the problem so that all of us have input in improving OUR school.

Next, I promote a culture of growth and learning by the students and the adults. We are currently undergoing individual data chats at school where I walk all of the teachers through a data activity that analyzes their instructional impact, their student achievement indicators, and the global data that represents our school's impact on student achievement. As all of us reflect on OUR data, we are asking questions like HOW CAN WE DO A BETTER JOB WITH OUR STUDENTS? WHAT CHANGES NEED TO BE MADE TO HELP OUR STUDENTS LEARN WITH MORE EASE AND MORE SPEED? WHAT CAN I DO TO INCREASE STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT? WHAT HIGH-YIELD STRATEGIES WILL INCREASE STUDENT LEARNING? HOW CAN WE QUICKLY CLOSE or ERASE ACHIEVEMENT GAPS? To answer these questions, all of us have to reflect and honestly undergo self-actualization in order to make change. These are difficult conversations to have especially in the face of raw student data. I read a book this summer that captures this process beautifully. In Peggy Hinckley's book, Monitoring, she says, "The data is not a personal indictment of you as a teacher. It is the next teaching decision."

To have such honest questions will require difficult and honest answers. If the data shows we are not meeting the needs of our students, we must make changes. We must make these changes with urgency. Accordingly, it is critical conversations and honest analysis that will move us there quickly. 

So, honoring feedback and asking even the adults to grow and learn will promote the critical conversations and reflection required to help us all improve. I will continue looking for less thistles and more flowers..... and, as a few of my previous posts will contend....I will also hug the cactus. We must look at the flawed parts of ourselves in order to repair them and make continued progress!

Developing Leadership #SAVMP Week 5

Week 5 – Developing Leadership #SAVMP

How do I develop leadership? I must say this is one of my favorite things to do. However, at the last three schools where I have been able to lead, it was not a natural part of the culture of the school for teacher leadership to succeed. This was a culture that had to be developed over time. Actually, I am involved in year two of creating such a culture at my current school, and nothing pleases me more than watching a teacher begin to lead others. It is vital to distribute the leadership across the entire school or else we will exhaust those few who have been the engine of the school. They will run out of gas, and morale will dip. To prevent this from happening, avoid using an elite few to impact change and rely on every faculty member and their abilities to make the whole team stronger.

How do I do this?

1. Look for those with natural leadership penchants and begin to tap into their talent. At our school, we had no Talented and Gifted program. Weeks after arriving on campus, I identified several teachers who were innovative in their approach to teaching. They also were fearless in their desire to try new things if they believed they would help their students learn. AND, they were highly organized. These teachers began their gifted endorsement coursework, and today the two I challenged are now part of a very successful fledgling enterprise in our new Chee-TAG program! Each of them demonstrates their talents to the faculty at faculty meetings. One recently held two separate sessions on grant writing and earning money to support innovative programs in the classroom. The other is a technology tester, and she recently demonstrated Classroom Dojo to the faculty as a behavior management system. Teacher Leaders Rock!

2.  Look for those who are not leading at all in any way and think of ways to draw them into leadership roles. This tactic is the most fun to watch develop because you have to get teachers to believe in themselves. One of the strongest leaders on campus this year has been a teacher who was so modest she never promoted her own skill sets. She felt this was boastful and was uncomfortable sharing her expertise. Now, she has accepted a role as grade chair, and she is mentoring three new teachers to our school. This teacher was always strong, but she liked to work in the background unnoticed. This may have been a more comfortable existence for her; however, it did not benefit the other teachers on campus. Now, she is leading, and she is a shining star. She is in the kitchen, and she is cooking with gas! 

3. Create systems of teacher leadership. This is critical for leadership development. A Principal needs teams to carry out the vision across the campus. For me, it has been a year-in-the-making developing my leadership teams. I have relied on our grade chair team and our school improvement team. The grade chair team and I will soon engage in a professional learning community where we begin with a book study and conclude with taking our vision of common assessments to the rest of the faculty. Our school improvement team will meet with me once a month to take a status check on all of our improvement initiatives and how they are impacting our students and their learning. I could easily be frustrated trying to push all of these initiatives using a top-down model, but I have locked arms with a strong group of teacher leaders who will fan out and monitor the vision with me.

4. Develop the leadership strengths of those closest to you. The inner circle that surrounds a Principal can bolster or can harm the leadership style of the instructional leader. To ensure they are supporting the leader, I believe it is important to share my vision with those around me and allow them opportunities to practice supporting and investing in the vision. As these leaders maneuver through the growing pains of pseudo leadership roles, I must be careful to monitor progress and protect them from the frustrations that can exasperate developing leaders. This means I will dole out responsibility to those capable of managing it, and I must protect those who carry this heavy load--which sometimes means I need to let them work through their own development of leadership style, even when it gets messy. But when it gets too messy, I have to help these new leaders reflect and regroup.

I could write for ages on this topic because I love to watch new leaders grow. Distributed leadership is, in my humble opinion, the most effective leadership style. I am always analyzing new personnel and thinking about long-term plans for how they will work and lead on our campus. Everyone has talents, and if we repeatedly share our strengths, our system will be STRONG. 

The Vision I Have for School #SAVMP

The Vision I Have for School #SAVMP  

Assignment: 2

Well, it is assignment 2 for #SAVMP, and I am excited to finally sit down and have the time to reflect on this topic. We started school today, and it was a great -- GREAT -- first day. 

So what is my vision for what school should look like? Here goes:

Foremost school should be where Distributed Leadership is the system for all change and for all professional development. I desire to work in an environment where everyone's opinion is honored. We all need honest feedback in order to grow. I often refer to it as "hugging the cactus". Each of us must look at the parts of ourselves that sometimes cause us pain if we are to grow and make progress. I also want our work environment to be one where everyone "owns" and is invested in the processes that shape the school. It is critical that our teacher leaders are involved in guiding the new teachers in their growth. AND, with some practice at this leadership style, everyone on campus is collaborating and creating vs. reacting to someone else's agenda. With this model, eventually, we will become a professional learning community where we are continually looking for ways to improve and to impact learning.

Next, I believe that school should be a place for Ensured Learning on Behalf of Students AND Adults. With the advances in technology and data collection systems, we have precise information at our fingertips that will allow us to analyze, interpret and ultimately, IMPACT student learning. This is the pinnacle of teaching. I believe we need to move beyond awareness of data and use it for calculated measures to improve student learning like never before. However, we must also rally together as adults and insist that we too are continually learning. Brain research and technology are reshaping old paradigms for learning. Teachers need to model life-long learning and commit to polishing and sophisticating their craft at all levels.

Relevant--we must be relevant! Brick and mortar schools are quickly fading away. Our instructors must evolve with the new coaching and/or facilitator models that are presenting themselves or else we will be obsolete. We must bring relevance to our classrooms, whether they be within 4 walls or virtual. Relevance requires authentic assessment, project-based learning, and higher-order questioning. I recently watched a YouTube video of Heidi Hayes-Jacobs where she asked why we were asking students to complete the questions at the end of Chapter 2 when they prefer to create a FaceBook page for Julius Caesar. She asked the provocative question, "Is the 21st century inside or outside the doors of your classroom?"

AND Caring....all the other items are useless without our love for learning and for our pupils. I have frequently throughout my career served under-resourced students. These students come to my classroom with so much baggage and many obstacles to prevent their success. Frequently, one of their obstacles is the missing resource of family....someone to believe in them, to protect them, and to love them. As much as possible, our schools should be that bridge for these students. While we may not be able to cure their ills or give them family, we can certainly, and with fervor, BELIEVE in them, protect them in our school, and love them into learning! We may be their only positive adult role model. We must care and care deeply because they don't care what you know unless they know you care.

There are many other elements that would be a part of my vision for school, but these are the ones that speak to me strongly at this juncture of my journey. I hope this is a school where you would like to send your child.