Standard III: Cultural Leadership
School executives will understand and act on the understanding of the important role a school’s culture contributes to the exemplary performance of the school. School executives must support and value the traditions, artifacts, symbols and positive values and norms of the school and community that result in a sense of identity and pride upon which to build a positive future. A school executive must be able to “reculture” the school if needed to align with school’s goals of improving student and adult learning and to infuse the work of the adults and students with passion, meaning and purpose. Cultural leadership implies understanding the school as the people in it each day, how they came to their current state, and how to connect with their traditions in order to move them forward to support the school’s efforts to achieve individual and collective goals.
Element IIIa. Focus on Collaborative Work Environment: The school executive understands and acts on the understanding of the positive role that a collaborative work environment can play in the school's culture.
During the second semester of the school year I added a strategy PLC meeting, making PLC meetings every week. Prior teachers met every other week to discuss data from common formative assessments, benchmarks, and DIBELS/TRC. During the data meetings teachers would share what teaching strategy and other resources they used during the lessons. I found most of the sharing would have been more useful prior to teaching the standard versus after the students had been assessed. In an effort to allow teachers time to collaborate prior to teaching a standard I added the strategy meeting for teachers to collaborate on teaching strategies and resources for upcoming standards. During the strategy PLC meetings teachers share ideas and model teaching strategies thus giving teachers instructional methods to add to their toolbox and use the best resource possible to teach students.
During the second semester of the school year I added a strategy PLC meeting, making PLC meetings every week. Prior teachers met every other week to discuss data from common formative assessments, benchmarks, and DIBELS/TRC. During the data meetings teachers would share what teaching strategy and other resources they used during the lessons. I found most of the sharing would have been more useful prior to teaching the standard versus after the students had been assessed. In an effort to allow teachers time to collaborate prior to teaching a standard I added the strategy meeting for teachers to collaborate on teaching strategies and resources for upcoming standards. During the strategy PLC meetings teachers share ideas and model teaching strategies thus giving teachers instructional methods to add to their toolbox and use the best resource possible to teach students.
Below is an agenda and notes from a first grade PLC meeting where we discussed ways to help students be more successful on the TRC portion of the DIBELS assessment.
During a vertical PLC meeting with Pamela Broome, Director of Innovative Teaching and Learning for Lenoir County Public Schools, she shared a writing technique with our K-1 teachers. The 'can, have, are' writing strategy was then shared and discussed in K-2 PLCs. In grades 1-2 we discussed adding the 'because, but, so' strategy to help students add more details to their sentences. I was delighted as I walked down the K-1 hallway to see the bulletin board below. One of the first grade teachers implemented the 'can, have, are' writing strategy with her students after reading a passage about honey bees. I have also seen the strategy used in multiple other classrooms.
In an effort to provide information to parents about preparing students for the end of grade tests teachers came together and produced LGES Goes Live on the school's Facebook page. Teachers collaborated on the slideshow to identify what information would be shared with teachers. Teachers that did not present also helped by manning the stream of questions from viewers, setting up lights and sound and videoing the production.
Below are the slides that were used as the backdrop for our LGES Goes Live presentation streamed on our Facebook page. To see the video click here.
Below are the slides that were used as the backdrop for our LGES Goes Live presentation streamed on our Facebook page. To see the video click here.
Element IIIb. School Culture and Identity: The school executive develops and uses shared vision, values and goals to define the identity and culture of the school.
To obtain a sense of the school culture at La Grange I completed an Examination of the School Community and Human Resources report. From the report I determined La Grange Elementary has a strong culture built by an invested staff where students feel supported. An excerpt from my report is below.
An additional measure to understand the cultural leadership at La Grange Elementary was to have a group of teachers complete a survey. The survey covered how the school's leadership supports the culture of the school on a Likert scale of 1 to 5. Teachers used a 1 to rate a question as strongly disagree to strongly agree with a 5.
The survey I used came from a Distinguished Leaders in Practice (DLP) session and is shown to the left.
All of the questions on the survey received a response of 4 (agree). For several of the questions the discussion centered around how staff has unified due to frequent administrator turnover. Prior to this school year, La Grange Elementary School had four principals in three years, whereas the staff remained namely unchanged. A large number of staff members attended La Grange Elementary as a student and grew up in the community so they are very invested.
Teachers also shared how they liked the way Mrs. Bell, current principal, asks for input with surveys or discussion in SIT. There is some thought that SIT may be too inclusive and seems to attend to the business of the SIP rather than functions of the school.
Due to administration changes and committee/grade level chair re-assignments the culture is changing a bit. The group of teachers surveyed felt that new processes are good and seem to be working well incorporating the best practices from the past with new ideas and resources. Staff do feel supported and that everyone at La Grange Elementary has the best interest of students at heart.
All of the questions on the survey received a response of 4 (agree). For several of the questions the discussion centered around how staff has unified due to frequent administrator turnover. Prior to this school year, La Grange Elementary School had four principals in three years, whereas the staff remained namely unchanged. A large number of staff members attended La Grange Elementary as a student and grew up in the community so they are very invested.
Teachers also shared how they liked the way Mrs. Bell, current principal, asks for input with surveys or discussion in SIT. There is some thought that SIT may be too inclusive and seems to attend to the business of the SIP rather than functions of the school.
Due to administration changes and committee/grade level chair re-assignments the culture is changing a bit. The group of teachers surveyed felt that new processes are good and seem to be working well incorporating the best practices from the past with new ideas and resources. Staff do feel supported and that everyone at La Grange Elementary has the best interest of students at heart.
I also reviewed the latest Teacher Working Conditions Survey and made judgements on the school culture from that data.
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Coming into a new school with no knowledge of how things had been done in the past it was important for me to ask questions and get help from staff. One way I show my appreciation is by writing individual thank you notes or notes regarding instructional practices or methods I viewed while visiting their classrooms.
Element IIIc. Acknowledges Failures; Celebrates Accomplishments and Rewards: The school executive acknowledges failures and celebrates accomplishments of the school in order to define the identity, culture and performance of the school.
It is important to acknowledge when a school, staff member or students experience success in academics, behavior or other endeavors. We also have to know when something does not work and find a way to not have the failure occur again. Although experiencing failure is one way to learn we should never let failure be the outcome when proper monitoring and midcourse corrections could have prevented the failure from occurring. Therefore one way to ensure success for each endeavor is to constantly monitor how it is progressing. Through monitoring we can assess when things may not be working as planned and provide a revision before we experience a larger failure.
An example of when I had to monitor an endeavor was with our remediation program. One component I considered incorporating was a competition piece where points would be awarded based on progress students made from pre to post assessment. There was some initial concern about our lower students not being able to experience success with the competition model. While still considering the competition piece I acknowledged the time to put the competition piece together was not worth the benefit we would be able to provide to the winners. Also realizing that any student that grew more proficient as a result of the remediation had a successful outcome regardless if the gain was large or small.
I learned the vital lesson of monitoring progress on initiatives in ELP 551: Context and Challenges of School Improvement. The course focused on what next generation schools do differently. The visual below represents the process of monitoring through adoption of a plan (Hall & Hord, 2006).
An example of when I had to monitor an endeavor was with our remediation program. One component I considered incorporating was a competition piece where points would be awarded based on progress students made from pre to post assessment. There was some initial concern about our lower students not being able to experience success with the competition model. While still considering the competition piece I acknowledged the time to put the competition piece together was not worth the benefit we would be able to provide to the winners. Also realizing that any student that grew more proficient as a result of the remediation had a successful outcome regardless if the gain was large or small.
I learned the vital lesson of monitoring progress on initiatives in ELP 551: Context and Challenges of School Improvement. The course focused on what next generation schools do differently. The visual below represents the process of monitoring through adoption of a plan (Hall & Hord, 2006).
By following the steps above it has helped me to lead change through the remediation plan.
White, Stephen, and Raymond L. Smith. School Improvement for the Next Generation. Solution Tree Press, 2010. p.98.
- Leaders should monitor change efforts to support implementation at high levels and assess the degree to which school practices are having an impact on student achievement.
- Leaders need to provide individualized support so that those implementing the intended change become skilled experts over time.
- Leaders must anticipate and facilitate change at the individual level since "organizations do not change until individuals within it change."
- Leaders facilitate individuals and organizations as they "move across the implementation bridge" because implementers of innovations don't all learn at the same time or the same rate.
- Leaders address the concerns of implementers to "reduce resistance to change", thereby increasing the rate of adoption of the innovation.
White, Stephen, and Raymond L. Smith. School Improvement for the Next Generation. Solution Tree Press, 2010. p.98.
One of the ways we celebrate students meeting behavior expectations are quarterly PBIS celebrations. I work with the PBIS team to schedule these events.
Due to 91.8% growth in the previous school year we wanted to reward students and teachers for their growth. Mrs. Glover (interim principal) and I discussed what we thought students would like most and decided to give them an extra recess making sure teachers let students know why they were receiving the reward. We realize that it is really the little things that children get excited about and we didn't have to spend a lot of money to show students we were proud of their success. Teachers reported that students were thrilled about the extra recess due to the school's growth in the previous school year. We also provided time for teachers to have lunch off campus for their hard work as well.
As the third nine weeks were coming to an end teachers expressed how overwhelmed they were feeling during a staff meeting. As a way to show teachers how much we appreciate them I came up with an idea to treat them to Chick-fil-A lunch. Below is the email I sent to our contact at Chick-fil-A, the card letting teachers know they had a surprise coming and a picture of Mrs. Bell (principal) and Mrs. Burke (4th grade teacher) during the lunch.
Element IIId. Efficacy and Empowerment: The school executive develops a sense of efficacy and empowerment among staff which influences the school's identity, culture and performance.
Our district came out with an initiative entitled, Urgency Matters, as a way to get school staff members focused on using each minute we have left in the school year. I co-lead a professional development session where we (mentor principal and I) discussed collective teacher efficacy and the effect it can have on student success. Teachers completed a concept map on what urgency is and what it means for our students the last 10 weeks of school.
This training specifically resonated with me as an aspiring school leader. The thought that just believing in students can increase student proficiency so profoundly was an ah-ha moment for me. Believing in students doesn't cost the school anything and can build morale of not only the students but teachers as well.
Our district came out with an initiative entitled, Urgency Matters, as a way to get school staff members focused on using each minute we have left in the school year. I co-lead a professional development session where we (mentor principal and I) discussed collective teacher efficacy and the effect it can have on student success. Teachers completed a concept map on what urgency is and what it means for our students the last 10 weeks of school.
This training specifically resonated with me as an aspiring school leader. The thought that just believing in students can increase student proficiency so profoundly was an ah-ha moment for me. Believing in students doesn't cost the school anything and can build morale of not only the students but teachers as well.