Fostering A Positive School Culture Through
Collaborative Administrative Practices
A Framework for Excellence: The Role of Administration
Session Goal
 To
outline ways in which
Central Office personnel can
foster school-level collaborative
administrative practices and
support the district mission and
goals
Key Terms…
Collaborative
Distributed
“Loose-Tight”
Structures & Processes
District Importance
“Excellent schools in poor
districts implode over time,
whereas, poor schools in
excellent districts get better.”
-Linda Lambert
A Leadership Framework
THOUGHTS
Shared
Knowledge
What
Vision
Common
Beliefs
EMOTIONS
Why
How
Trust
Collaboration
Collective
Commitments
ACTIONS
Shared Knowledge Through
Strategic Focus
THOUGHTS
Vision
Shared
Knowledge
Collaboration
Strategic Focus
These…
Policies
 Practices
 Procedures

Should Align With…
Ensuring that all
students learn
 Results-Orientation
 Collaborative
Culture

Structural Changes
 An
academic program supportive of all
students’ learning
 A system for monitoring student
progress
 Job-embedded professional learning
An Academic Program
1.
2.
3.
How are all students placed in
academic classes?
How do collaborative teams refine and
consistently follow the agreed upon
pacing of a guaranteed and viable
curriculum?
How are all students provided
necessary interventions?
“Loose-Tight”
 The
Central Office should be
“tight” on supporting school sites
in making these structural changes
and “loose” in providing school,
sites the autonomy to make the
accompanying cultural changes
Monitoring Student Progress
1.
2.
What systems and processes are used
to frequently provide collaborative
teams with timely data on student
learning?
How are results used to provide
support and feedback to collaborative
teams?
“Loose-Tight”
The Central Office is “tight” on the
need for schools to support each
overarching central office goal
 Yet “loose” on each school’s action
steps and respective SMART goals


Then monitoring, support, and
feedback occur continuously
Professional Learning
1.
2.
3.
4.
How is collaboration time embedded during
the school day?
How are support and coaching services
provided to collaborative teams for their
professional learning?
How is professional development, jobembedded and guided by students learning
results?
How do tools and routines guide the work of
collaborative teams?
“Loose-Tight”
Again it is critical that the Central Office
shift its focus and resources to be
“tight” on ensuring school sites make
structural changes to allow for jobembedded professional learning
 And “loose” in providing school sites
with the autonomy needed to make
necessary cultural changes

Common Beliefs Through
Distributive Leadership
Vision
EMOTIONS
Why
Common
Beliefs
Trust
Common Beliefs Through
Distributive Leadership
1.
2.
3.
Establish common beliefs
Indentify and articulate the
fundamental purpose of the district
and the big ideas to achieving that
purpose
Trust- encourage organizational
autonomy within defined parameters
“Loose-Tight”
Loose leadership practices promote
collegiality by providing a collaborative team
with the autonomy to develop values and
beliefs that drive their team and classroom
practices
 Tight leadership practices promote
accountability by requiring a collaborative
team to produce artifacts that articulate
their focus on student learning

Collective Commitments
Through Collective Efficacy
ACTIONS
Collaboration
How
Trust
Collective
Commitments
“Loose-Tight”
Tight leadership is exhibited by focusing the
efforts of collaborative teams within the
defined parameters
 While loose leadership will simultaneously
be exhibited by allowing the teams to
design, implement, and refine tools and
routines to collectively engage in the
continuous improvement of student
academic achievement

Conclusion
Educators want
solutions that are exotic
and easy, but in reality
the answers are simple
and hard to do.