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.