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.