College Readiness Strategies

During the past year the Principal's Leadership Program has developed several resources that can help you and your staff help to prepare students for college. The research shows that four factors are critical to student success.

1. They take the right classes in middle school and high school so that they can take rigorous classes in high school and college. The course selection should be guided by the rigor of the class, not the course title.
2. They develop the cognitive and meta cognitive skills for success beyond high school. This includes critical-thinking, problem analysis, synthesis, inquisitiveness, and intellectual openness.
3. They have a supportive structure in high school that embraces their college aspirations and provides them with the knowledge and skills to navigate in a very different social structure.
4. Students and their families are provided accurate, up-to-date information about admission requirements, timelines and availability of financial assistance.

A paper prepared by EPI for Oregon GEAR UP Principals titled Pathways to College is available at www.educationpartnerships.org/pdfs/Pathways%20to%20College.pdf. It is accompanied by a Research Brief on the Transition from Middle School to High School, and one on the Transition from High School to College. Both are available at the EPI website.

Assessing Your School Cultue

Every school has a culture, a set of shared basic assumptions that are passed from generation to generation and taught to new members. Culture reflects the unspoken norms about a school, its operations and its values.

Over time every school develops its own culture, shaped by the people who work there, the community the school serves, the students who attend the school and the way these groups respond to the successes, tragedies, and daily events at the school.

Culture is a powerful set of rituals, traditions, and practices that reflect the values of a school. It often appears irrefutable but principals are able to impact their school's culture by using these symbols to promote other institutional values and the school's core mission. Importantly, if you understand the power of culture, you can use its symbols to telegraph messages about "what is important."

A good place to begin is to assess your current culture. I'd like to suggest four strategies you might use.

• At a staff meeting, ask each person to list five adjectives that describe the school's culture. Organize the words into common themes and discuss their meaning.
• Walk the halls of your school. What do you see? What artifacts are visible that convey messages about student success? About the values of challenging work? About a commitment to not accept failure? About college attendance? About persistence?
• Talk with a cross-section of teachers and students. What gets them excited about their work? About their learning? What do they find joy in?
• Consider the past three months. What have you done to show your enthusiasm for learning? For student success? How have you recognized and rewarded students and staff?

I'd enjoy hearing from you about the way you work with you teachers and families to improve your school culture.

It All Begins with Vision

During my recent work in Oregon GEAR UP schools I'm been reminded of the importance of the principal's vision. Two principals, Jay Mathisen at La Pine High School and Scott Reed at Lincoln Junior High/High School, became principal a few years ago with a clear vision for making their campus academically excellent and a place that exemplified a culture of college readiness. After three years they've had tremendous success shaping their school and can point to significant gains in student achievement and college attendance.

Having a clear vision or purpose for your school is important. Besides having your own personal vision you must work collaboratively with teachers, families, staff and students to develop a clear and compelling vision for your school. That's what made Jay and Scott successful.

But it all begins with your personal vision. That vision consists of the most fundamental beliefs about life, about your work, and about relationships with people. I suggest you use a four-step process to develop your vision statement.

Step 1: Think about your personal and professional life. Describe what you would like to achieve and the contributions you would like to make. Think of it as something already accomplished. Describe what it looks like and feels like. For example, imagine hovering in a hot air balloon over your life. Imagine your life as successful as it might be---what would you see? what would you feel? what would you hear?

Step 2: Consider your self-image, relationships, personal interests, and community based on the things you wrote in step 1. Examine each item in your draft statement to be sure it still fits.

Step 3: Develop a list of values and identify those that are most important in your life. Once this is done, review the list and rank them from most to least important. Remove the least important. Re-rank if appropriate. Check for relevance with your earlier statement. Eliminate any item that is not relevant.

Step 4: Use the items from the first three steps to develop a statement about who you are. Review and edit the statement as often as needed until you believe it accurately reflects your vision.

The job of a principal begins with vision. If you don't have a vision, or haven't revisited it recently, you won't have a clear direction when pressures mount. I encourage you to take the time to develop your own vision and to work with your school community to build a shared vision.

I'd enjoy hearing from you about your school and the vision that guides your efforts.

Tips for Working with Families and Community

It is important that schools maintain regular contact with families and with members of the community. Principals have an important role cultivating and nurturing support for their efforts to strengthen and refine their schools. It is critical to provide families with the information and tools they need to support your vision for a more effective school. Rather than be reactive, develop a proactive strategy.

In suburban Phoenix a principal asked his staff to share "turnaround" stories with him---stories of students who made a significant positive change in their learning. The principal always had two or three stories that he could share with families in formal and informal conversations. At a middle school in western North Carolina every communication with families include the school's core belief---"learning is not optional."

Families are almost always supportive of increasing the quality of their child's education. What they want, however, is specific ideas about how they can be helpful. Three strategies are critical. First, establish a variety of communication procedures, some in print, some in person, some electronic. Technology is helpful but not all families have the same access. Second, create and support authentic, meaningful roles for family members. Rather than just holding a meeting, include training and support. Craft volunteer opportunities that capitalize on family members' expertise, abilities and interests. Finally, provide families with support and resources. Although the specific types may vary depending on your families, families are almost always looking for good ideas and resources to support their children's success.

Here are some other tips from other principals.

• Provide ideas for how to organize the home to support homework completion.
• Create a parent library with books and materials about parenting and supporting students' academic growth.
• Organize a parent support group.
• Help families locate libraries and other helpful resources.
• Arrange for parents to share ideas and strategies they find successful in supporting their child's success in school.
• Include tips for parents in every school newsletter or other communication.

I hope you find these ideas helpful and would enjoy hearing from you about your ideas for working with families and community.

Collective Leadership and Student Achievement

During the summer the Wallace Foundation released a report showing a direct link between collective, rather than individual, leadership and student achievement. The report found that when principals and teachers share leadership responsibilities students benefit. It is a useful report and clearly identifies things principals can do to positively impact student achievement.

Leadership emerged as "second only to classroom instruction" among school factors contributing to student learning. Further the report found that effective leaders find the proper balance between stability and change. "They work to develop and support people to do their best, while working to redesign their organizations to improve effectiveness.

Other findings include:

• Collective leadership has a stronger influence on student learning than any individual source of leadership.
• Teachers in high performing schools attribute greater influence to teacher teams, parents and students.
• While principals and district leaders have great influence on decisions, effective principals encourage others to join in collective leadership.
• Teachers working relationships are stronger, and student achievement higher, when principals and teachers share leadership.

An executive summary of the report can be found athttp://www.wallacefoundation.org/KnowledgeCenter/KnowledgeTopics/CurrentAreasofFocus/EducationLeadership/Documents/Learning-from-Leadership-Investigating-Links-Ex-Summary.pdf, and the full report may be found athttp://www.wallacefoundation.org/KnowledgeCenter/KnowledgeTopics/CurrentAreasofFocus/EducationLeadership/Documents/Learning-from-Leadership-Investigating-Links-Final-Report.pdf.

I'd enjoy hearing from you about your experience with collective leadership and your thoughts about this important report.

Great Summer Reading

Summer is a great time to rest and relax for the coming school year. I value the summer as an opportunity to catch up on my reading and I’d like to recommend some of my recent favorites to you. They include:

The Way We’ll Be by John Zogby - Known for his polling expertise, Zogby provides an intriguing look at contemporary American life. He suggests that the American dream is being redefined by several meta-movements including learning to live within our means, looking inward for spiritual comfort, demanding authenticity and embracing diversity. The book discusses the implications for every American institution, including its schools, and challenges some long-standing norms about the future of our nation.

How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins - The author of Good to Great identifies the stages of organizations that fail to develop the capacity for sustaining their work. Rather than focusing on how individuals and organizations fail, Collins offers hope by identifying specific strategies that can be used to avoid decline.

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell - Written by the author of The Tipping Point and Blink, this book examines of question of why some people succeed far more than others. Gladwell identifies a pattern that emerges from looking at outliers---”people whose achievements fall outside normal experience.” It offers insights into ways each of us can increase our likelihood of success.

The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann - This parable describes the experience of an ambitious young man. Along the way he is introduced to others who reflect the principles of service, contribution and success. It is a delightful story that teaches a valuable lesson about success as a leader.

Summer Hiring

Summer always includes some unexpected personnel changes. Teachers transfer, they move or may take another position. Finding the right people can occasionally be a challenge. When I was a principal I once conducted an interview with a teacher who called from a phone booth in a campground. It was a great interview and I ultimately offered her a job but it certainly was one of the most unique interviews in which I've participated.

Hiring is often guided by district policy but there are some important things you will want to consider. First, develop your selection criteria. Each criterion should be relevant to the work. Differentiate between the skills or characteristics that are required and those that are simply desirable.

Second, create and use a set of standard interview questions. They should be linked to your criteria but open-ended enough so that they provide in-depth information about the candidates. Principals I've worked with have suggested these examples because they don't lend themselves to a single answer and allow you to assess how the candidate responds.

• What do you see as your strengths and how will they help you in this position?
• As you think about your past work experience, what has been your biggest challenge?
• Talk with me about the things you consider when designing a lesson.
• When you're teaching a lesson how do you monitor whether students are learning?
• Imagine you were hired for this position and it is a year later. What was the best part of your first year and what was your biggest challenge?

Finally, follow the same process for every one you interview. Even when you realize early in the interview that a person is not the best fit for the job, you need to respect the candidate and finish the interview. Otherwise they can suggest that they were not given an equal opportunity to share their background and skills.

I also like to send everyone who interviewed a short written note thanking them for applying and considering my school. Even if the person is not a fit for a particular job they might be right for another position in the future.

Schools are basically people places. So it is important to hire the right people and nurture talented employees so that they feel part of the school. That can begin during the interview and hiring process. Asking about student learning and professional growth sends a signal about their importance to you.

I'd enjoy learning from you about your experience with hiring and look forward to hearing from you.

Great New Resources for Principals

I'm always looking for new tools and resources for principals and as the school year ends I would like to share a few with you.

Blogs for Principals - There are some incredible resources available at several blogs designed just for principals. Here are some of my favorites.

Get Organized! http://frankbuck.blogspot.com. This site is devoted to making life easier through organization and time management and is written by Frank Buck author of Get Organized! Time Management for School Leaders.

Leader Talk http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/LeaderTalk/. This Education Week blog is written by school leaders for school leaders and provides interesting commentary and useful ideas for leading your school.

Effective Principals, Effective Schools http://effectiveprincipals.blogspot.com. This blog shares strategies used by principals to positively impact their school. The author of The Principalship from A to Z maintains the blog.

I hope you find these resources helpful and would enjoy hearing from you about other great sites for ideas to improve our schools.

Evidence Linking Small Schools and Student Achievement

For the past decade there's been a growing movement to create small learning communities and small schools with the belief that they will positively impact student achievement and school climate. Most Oregon GEAR UP schools are relatively small and will be interested in the findings of an Oregon initiative funded by The Gates Foundation and the Meyer Memorial Trust.

The Oregon Small Schools Initiative (OSSI) reported in their initial evaluation that small schools have a positive impact on student success and that "despite high rates of poverty and other barriers to success, . . . small school students generally perform as well as or better than non [small school] students." The report also said that "students enrolled at a small school for multiple grades will, on average, have better outcomes" than those there for fewer years. The complete report is available at http://www.e3smallschools.org/documents/Statewideoverviewreport_FINAL4_8_10.pdf.

The Oregon Small Schools Initiative provides many resources to support improvement and work with your community to improve student learning. Check our the things that they offer. I'd like to hear from you about your experience with small schools.

Caring for Students and Their Families

The current economy has impacted students and families in significant ways. A recent report from the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth reported that in over half the states there has been a 50% increase in homeless students since 2007. The nation's official poverty rate was 13.2% and for children younger than 18, 19%. The US Department of Agriculture found (Nov 2009) that food shortages, even outright hunger characterize the current economy. The number of Americans running out of food each month rose to 16% of the population.

Schools are responding in respectful and caring ways to this crisis. I recently learned about a program at Mitchell School in Ann Arbor, MI. About 60% of Mitchell's students qualify for free or reduced price means. The staff works with Chartwells, the district's food service provider, and with Food Gatherers, a local non-profit organization to gather food and pack backpacks that students take home on Friday. Principal Kathy Scarnecchia says that keeping students "fed and healthy" helps them to be more successful in school. Students return the empty backpacks on Monday.

What a wonderful way to support students, their families, and commit to the success of every student.

Productive Student Work Groups

Some form of group work has been part of most teachers' classrooms forever. The challenge is how to make sure that groups are productive and contribute to student learning.

It is important to build both individual and group accountability into every task assigned to a group. Each student must be responsible for his or her contribution and the group must be responsible for the overall task.

A recent study of the most successful group activities found six common characteristics. They included:

• Tasks that emphasized larger learning goals rather than discrete facts and knowledge;
• Teachers provided students with smaller tasks before asking them to tackle larger, longer and more complex tasks;
• Timelines for both individual and group responsibility were explicit in each activity;
• Each task was broken into interim steps or parts so that individuals and the group could monitor their progress toward completing the larger task;
• Students were asked to evaluate their individual work as well as the group's work;
• Teachers included both individual and group evaluations when determining a grade for a project. (Frey, Fisher & Everlove, Productive Group Work, 2009).

It is also important to be sure students have the skills to work collaboratively. Skills at active listening, offering constructive feedback and considering different perspectives are critical.

Because I use groups a lot when I teach I am always looking for resources to make the groups productive. Recently I found a rubric from the authors of Productive Group Work that helps to assess the quality of student groups. It is available at http://www.fisherandfrey.com?page_id=20.

Expand Leadership Capacity

There are many ways to nurture leadership skills among your staff. It involves creating a school with a variety of leadership roles, opportunities for inquiry and reflection, and a chance to learn and develop new skills.

You can develop leadership by asking someone to work closely with others as part of a committee or leadership team. You might invite a teacher to shadow a school leader for a day and then talk with them about their observations. Or you might challenge them to work with others to solve a "real-life" problem in your school.

The following ideas are adapted from a NASSP publication, Practical Suggestions for Developing Leadership Capacity in Others (http://www.principals.org/Content/topic/56566).

Expand their skills and knowledge base

• Invite them to work on a project outside their area of expertise;
• Ask them to screen and interview potential employees
• Encourage them to attend district level meetings with you.

Provide opportunities to observe and reflect

• Encourage them to maintain a journal and reflect on the "good," "bad," or "flawed" leaders they know and observe;
• Talk with them about how and why you handled a situation as you did.

Support their participation in professional development

• Ask them to serve as a mentor of a new teacher;
• Encourage them to join and be involved with a professional organization;
• Ask them to present information to the staff after attending a conference or other professional development activity.

Expanding leadership capacity is an important role for principals. It recognizes the contributions that employees, other than administrators, can make to improving your school. I'd enjoy hearing from you about the ways you build leadership capacity in your school.

Accountability for Students

Students also share accountability for their own learning. They should be actively involved in their own learning, make decisions about their learning and be held responsible for asking questions, being clear about the expectations for their work, and for completing assignments.

Sounds simple but it is much more complex. Many schools provide students with the support they need to be successful. Here are some strategies that support students and help them to be accountable for their work.

• Provide exemplars for all work and rubrics that students can use to assess their success on assignments.
• Adopt a grading policy of A, B or Not Yet.
• Provide opportunities for students to revise and resubmit work.
• Include support and scaffolding in classroom instruction.
• Include engaging instructional activities connected to real life
• Provide quality and timely feedback on student work.
• Act consistently on the belief that each student can learn, will learn, and your power to help them do so.

Increasing accountability for students is important. But it requires that teachers and principals look closely at their instructional practices to assure that they provide students with the support they need to be successful.

Dealing with Stable or Declining Resources

No issue impacts schools more intensely than the current economic malaise. Every school I visit is being impacted by stable or declining resources. At the same time they are more accountable than every before for a high quality educational experience for all students.

Almost universally the issue becomes one of how to be both more efficient and more effective. You are expected to sustain your efforts at improvement while being even more efficient with your resources.

Generally there are three responses. You can identify areas where you might reduce expenditures. You can also consider an alternative way of doing some of the things you are already doing.

Or you can prioritize what you are doing. This is almost always difficult because in the process you are seen as valuing one program more than others. When you prioritize you must anchor your decision in your school's vision and mission. For example, you would not want to eliminate programs that provide additional support to students if your vision is one where every student is expected to achieve at higher levels.

You do not need to set aside your vision during tough economic times. But you might need to reconsider how you provide essential supports. You may want to work with other schools or districts to share professional development. You might want to ask a local business leader to support your advocacy efforts with families or community. You might want to increase your efforts to identify volunteers, such as senior citizens, to work with students.

These challenging decisions are almost always better when teachers, families, and other stakeholder groups are included. I'd enjoy hearing from you about how you reconcile the need for greater efficiency and greater effectiveness.

Details of Upcoming GEAR UP Success Conference

Plan to attend the GEAR UP Success Conference at the Inn of the Seventh Mountain Resort in Bend April 29 - May 1. This year's theme will be "Transitions" and the conference will provide opportunity to learn about effective practices that support the successful transition of students between middle school and high school as well as between high school and college.

The conference will be keynoted by Dr. Dudley Flood, a former middle and high school teacher and principal. Noted for his work in the area of improving the achievement of minority and under-performing students, Dr. Flood worked for many years in the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and serves as a consultant to schools throughout the United States. Breakout sessions will be provided on successful drop-out prevention and retention practices and a panel will engage in a lively discussion on successful transition practices between middle and high school as well as between high school and college. During the conference school teams will work together to develop a plan that they can implement when they return to their school.

The Success Conference provides a valuable opportunity to reflect on the success of this year and use that success as a springboard to even greater success in the coming year. We look forward to working with each of you and your teams during the conference.

Ten Skills for Successful School Leaders

NASSP recently released an important new book, 10 Skills for Successful School Leaders. It combines the knowledge from NASSP's principal assessment centers with the school improvement framework developed in their Breaking Ranks series. The book describes each skill and provides a set of behavioral indicators. Perhaps most helpful, the book suggests activities that principals can sue to reflect on their own skill and build capacity in each area.

The ten skills are organized into four themes---educational leadership, resolving complex problems, communication and developing self and others. The complete list includes the following:

Educational Leadership

• setting instructional direction;

• teamwork;

• sensitivity;

Resolving Complex Problems

• judgement;

• results orientation;

• organizational ability;

Communication

• oral communication;

• written communication;

Developing Self and Others

• developing others;

• understanding your own strengths and weaknesses.

Finally, the book provides a protocol for developing your own personal learning plan. It supports your continued professional growth in a user friendly, non-threatening format. I think you will enjoy 10 Skills for Successful School Leaders.

Instruction from a Student's Perspective

It is important to honor the student voice. One way to do so is to conduct a Student Shadow Study. A shadow study is a way to gather data about the experience of students with curriculum and instruction in your school. They involve selecting students at random and following them throughout the school day.

The shadow study protocol was originally developed by NASSP and suggests charting the experience of students a five to seven minute intervals. The allows the observer to see the ebb and flow of activities during the day. Spending the entire day with a student and documenting his or her experience provides interesting insights into how students experience your school. Of course students quickly figure out that something is going on so the best approach is to talk with them and assure him or her that you are not gathering information about them to report to the office.

Shadow studies are best done by a team of people. After gathering the information you can use it as a springboard to launch conversations with the faculty or departmental level about the student experience. The patterns that emerge across students and across classrooms can provide helpful guidance to improve the quality of instruction in your school.

Conducting a School Culture Audit

Every school has a culture that reflects underlying values that shape patterns of behavior among the people who are part of the school community. Over time every school develops its own personality. It is shaped by the people who work in the school, the community the school serves, the students who attend the school and the way these groups respond to the successes, tragedies and daily events at the school.

Successful school leaders recognize the power of culture to shape their school. They regularly audit their school's culture and work with their staff and community to make the culture more positive and supportive of student success. Here are some ways to assess the culture in your school.

• At a staff meeting, ask each person to list five adjectives that describe the school's culture. Organize the words into common themes and discuss their meaning.

• Walk the halls of your school. What do you see? What artifacts are visible that convey messages about student success? About the value of rigorous work? About a commitment to not accepting failure?

• Talk with a cross-section of teachers or students. What gets them excited about their work? About their learning? What do they find joy in?

• Consider the last three months. What have you done to show your enthusiasm for learning? For student success? How have you recognized and rewarded students and staff?

We hope you will consider these strategies about ways to audit the culture of your school. We'd love to hear others ideas that you find successful to nurture and sustain a positive school culture.

Changing Your School's Schedule

Creating and managing the school schedule can be one of the most time-consuming tasks faced by a principal. It's easy to focus on the logistics of the schedule, but the schedule is just a tool to accomplish other things. There are four basic principles for building an effective schedule.

• The schedule reflects your school's values and priorities. Talk with key stakeholders to identify goals. Clarify of goals builds support for a new schedule and narrows the alternatives.

• The most effective schedules are anchored in a shared vision. Do you want to provide more collaborative time, extended instructional time or additional support for students? The options you will consider vary depending on your vision.

• A quality schedule emerges with teachers and administrators work together. Because the schedule is always reflects your priorities, it is important to engage others in the process of thinking about and considering the options.

• Without clear goals, the schedule is merely a plan for organizing teachers and students; when guided by clear goals, the schedule becomes a powerful tool to positively affect teaching and learning.

Before you begin to design a new schedule you will want to be clear about any district or local requirements about the use of time. And other things also affect the schedule like transportation schedules, employee contracts and facility constraints. But, learning about the alternatives and working with others to clarify priorities can really accelerate your thinking about how to use time differently.

There are several good resources including the Research Briefs on scheduling available at The Principals' Partnership website and the book Scheduling to Improve Student Learning (2009).

Physical Activity and Student Learning

Today I visited North Valley High School, an Oregon GEAR UP school in the Three Rivers School District outside of Grants Pass. I was there to talk with principal Linda Hugle about her school and the success they've had during the past few years improving student learning. Linda described several recent initiatives including implementation of a trimester schedule but was most proud of the opportunity provided for students to have some physical activity during the school day. In addition to longer passing time between classes Linda arranged to have exercise equipment installed on the school lawn outside the front door. Students are able to use the equipment between classes, during lunch and before and after school. The combination of physical activity, fresh air, and an opportunity to relax a bit during the school day is valued because of the positive connection to student learning.

Linda and her staff are congratulated for taking the initiative and doing something that would be unheard of in many comprehensive high schools. It is a great example of focusing on students' needs and finding a way to meet them while maintaining an excellent academic experience.