District Office and
Professional Learning
Communities
March 30, 2007
Dr. Dennis King
dking@bluevalleyk12.org
formerly National Educational Service
www.solution-tree.com
The norms for our school are
not like the norms for other
schools…we expect our
school to do things differently.
»Fred Newman
formerly National Educational Service
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Current Reality Vs Our Ideal
School
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Connecting the Strategic Plan to
Each Student
District - Strategic Plan
District Mission, Vision, Goals, Targets
School Improvement Plan
Mission, Vision, SMART Goals,
Initiatives, Interventions
Grade Level, Department Collaboration
Team Protocols, Goals and Interventions
Essential Questions of a PLC
formerly National Educational Service
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District School Improvement Model
• What are the essential components of a
school improvement model in your school
district?
• How are they implemented?
• Are they standardized throughout each
school?
• How do you guarantee the district
curriculum is being taught?
formerly National Educational Service
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“The real voyage of discovery
consists, not of seeking new
landscapes, but in seeing through
new eyes”
Marcel Proust
formerly National Educational Service
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Traditional Model of School
Improvement
Assessment
FOR Learning
Instruction
Q
Curriculum
Mapping
formerly National Educational Service
Literacy
www.solution-tree.com
School Improvement/Professional Development & PLC’s
Professional Learning Communities
Student Support
Foundation, Collaboration, Results Orientation
Interventions, SMART Goals
Professional Development Plan
Professional Learning Communities
Grade
Level or
Dept.
Grade
Level or
Dept.
Grade
Level or
Dept.
Unit/Curriculum
Design
Grade
Level or
Dept.
Grade
Level or
Dept.
Assessment
Grade
Level or
Dept.
Grade
Level or
Dept.
Grade
Level or
Dept.
Literacy
Instruction
formerly National Educational Service
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Professional
Learning Communities
Foundation for School Improvement
Student
Support
Professional
Learning
Communities
Foundation,
Collaboration, Results
Orientation
Foundation,
Collaboration,
Results
Orientation
Interventions, SMART
Interventions,
SMARTGoals
Goals
• Mission, Vision, Values, Goals
• Process for School Improvement
– Collaborative teams throughout the district –
grade level and departmental
– Developed team protocols to allow teams to
function as teams vs. groups
• School Improvement Plans – alignment
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Professional Development Plan
Professional Learning Communities
• School Professional Development Plans Aligned to
District Initiatives and School Improvement Plans
• Focused Professional Development Embedded within
the Collaborative Team
• Professional Development Initiatives
Curriculum
Mapping
Assessment
FOR
Learning
formerly National Educational Service
Instruction
Literacy
www.solution-tree.com
Curriculum Mapping
• What we want students to
learn?
– Curriculum Management System
– Curriculum
– Diary Mapping (content, skills,
assessments)
– Read Through
– Aligned to State
Standards/Indicators
formerly National Educational Service
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Assessment
•
Assessment FOR Learning
– Five Keys to Highly Effective Assessment
• Clear Purpose
• Clear Targets – knowledge, skills, reasoning
and products
• Good Design
• Sound Communication
• Student Involvement
– Assessment Methods
•
Measures of Academic Progress (MAP)
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Literacy
• Reading Continuum
• Essentials
– Reading
– Writing
– Communication
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Instruction
• Permeates throughout the
initiatives
• Teacher “tool kit”
• Researched Based Strategies
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INTERVENTION PYRAMID
Special Education Placement
Screening and Evaluation
for Special Education
Problem Solving Team
• District Interventions
Systematic School Interventions
How does the school respond when students don’t get it?
Grade Level / Department/Classroom Interventions - SMART Goals
Early Interventions – What do we need to know prior to the start of school?
formerly National Educational Service
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District Interventions
• District Interventions
–
–
–
–
–
–
AVID
READ 180
Larsen Math
Personal Plans of Progress
High School Advisory
K-12 Reading Continuum
• Language Program
– Early Intervention Summer School
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Implementation of Professional
Development
Embedding Professional Development
How do we act as a team?
Establish Team Protocols
What do students need to know?
Curriculum Mapping and Unit Design
How do we know students have learned?
Assessment For Learning
What do we do if they haven’t learned?
Instruction/Interventions
What do we do if they have learned?
Differentiation
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Aligning the School Improvement Plans
to the School Improvement Process
Mission - Why we exist?
Vision - What we want to become?
SMART Goals - Specific, Measurable, Attainable,
Results Oriented, Time-bound
Initiatives - What do we need to do to reach the
desired results? (District and School)
Interventions
Collaboration
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Developing a School Improvement
Plan
• Model Plans
• Rubric
• How do we begin?
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Culture
• What is culture?
• How do we define culture in a PLC?
• How is culture defined in your school?
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Pyramid of Intervention Strategies
Most
Restrictive
Least Restrictive
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Interventions
As a school – How do you respond when a
student doesn’t learn?
As a department – How do you respond
when a student doesn’t learn?
As a teacher – How do you respond when a
student doesn’t learn?
formerly National Educational Service
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INTERVENTION PYRAMID
Special Education Placement
Screening and Evaluation
for Special Education
Problem Solving Team
• District Interventions
Systematic School Interventions
How does the school respond when students don’t get it?
Grade Level / Department/Classroom Interventions - SMART Goals
Early Interventions – What do we need to know prior to the start of school?
formerly National Educational Service
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Using the Data Protocol to Identify Student
Learning Problems
Triangulate
Student Learning Data
2
Aggregate / Summary Reports
Disaggregated results
Strand / Indicator
Item Analysis/Curriculum maps
Student Work/Classroom Assessments
Student
Learning
Problem
formerly National Educational Service
The Data Protocol is most effective
when used within a PLC to develop
Grade-level or Departmental
interventions.
www.solution-tree.com
Professional
Learning
Communities
Strategic
Plan
Initiatives
Mission,
Vision,
Goals
Instruction
formerly National Educational Service
Pyramid
Data
Driven
Decisions
of
Interventions
www.solution-tree.com
Strategic Plan
Personalized
Learning &
Academic Growth
School
Improvement
Plan
School Goals
Professional
Learning
Communities
District Interventions
District
(Read 180, Advisories)
Data
SPED
School
School Interventions
Data
(Structured Study Hall,
etc.)
KSA, MAP
Grade/Department
Department/Grade
Level Goals
Data
Dept./Grade level
Interventions
Common Assessments,
Curriculum Maps
Teacher
Data
Instruction, Literacy,
Unit Design,
Interventions, etc.
Formative Assessments,
Student work, etc.
formerly National Educational Service
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Team Protocol Timeline
•
•
•
•
•
Week 2 – Team Norms / Consensus
Week 4 – Team Vision
Week 6 – SMART Goal
Week 8 – Team Interventions
Week 9 –
formerly National Educational Service
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Leading and Following
Through Change
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Leading and Following through
Change
• What are the implications for leaders?
What should we be doing?
• What are the implications for followers?
What should they be doing?
• What are the implications for the system?
What gets in the way of moving forward?
formerly National Educational Service
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Myth vs. Realities of Change
• Myth – Everyone wants to embrace change because the
organization wants to change
• Realities
– Most people act first in their own self interest, not in the interest
of the organization
– Most people do not want to understand the What and Why of
organizational change
– Most people engage in organizational change because of their
own pain, not because of the merits of change
» Jerry Patterson, Coming Even Clearer About Organizational Change
formerly National Educational Service
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Leading through Change
All my life, I assumed that
somebody, somewhere knew the
answer to the problem. I thought
politicians knew but refused to do it
… but now I realize that nobody
knows the answer. (Senge, 1990)
formerly National Educational Service
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How has the concept of our
leadership practice changed?
formerly National Educational Service
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How has the leadership model
changed?
• From hierarchical leadership-decisions are
best made at the top
to
• distributive leadership-enlisting more of
the professional staff to assume
leadership roles
• servant leadership-a sincere desire to
work in service to the needs of others
• stewardship-holding in trust the authority
and responsibilities we have been given
formerly National Educational Service
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What did Jim Collins find in their five year
research project on great organizations?
• Any system is designed to produce
exactly what it produces.
• To change performance, we must change
the system, and this requires new
approaches to leadership.
• Good is the enemy of great!
formerly National Educational Service
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What did Jim Collins find in their five year
research project on great organizations?
• The good to great organizations did not
focus principally on what to do; they
focused equally on what not to do and
what to stop doing.
• They created a culture of discipline where
disciplined people meant less hierarchy,
bureaucracy, control.
formerly National Educational Service
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What did Jim Collins find in their five year
research project on great organizations?
• They had leadership that was a blend of
humility and professional will.
• They believed that you first had to get the right
people on the bus, the wrong people off the
bus, and the right people in the right seats and
then figure out where to drive.
• They realized that the concept of “good is the
enemy of great” is not just an organizational
problem – it is a human problem.
formerly National Educational Service
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What did Jim Collins find in their five year
research project on great organizations?
• They put their best people on their biggest
opportunities, not their biggest problems.
• They created a climate where truth was
heard through questions, dialogue,
autopsies not blame, and red flags.
• They created from complexity a single
organizing idea that unified and guided
everything.
formerly National Educational Service
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Michael Fullan’s lessons for leading
complex change?
• Give up the idea that the pace of change will
slow down
• Coherence making is a never-ending
proposition and is everyone’s responsibility
• Changing context is the focus
• Premature clarity is a dangerous thing
formerly National Educational Service
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Michael Fullan’s - lessons for
leading complex change?
• The public’s thirst for transparency is
irreversible
• You can’t get large-scale reform through
bottom-up strategies – but beware of the trap
• Mobilize the social attractors – moral purpose,
quality relationships, quality knowledge
• Charismatic leadership is negatively associated
with sustainability
formerly National Educational Service
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What is the overriding theme
present in all research on
improving student and teacher
success and in reforming our
schools to help all students
learn?
Leadership!!!
formerly National Educational Service
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Having thought about these
attributes of great leaders and
understood that leaders are made
“more by themselves than any
external means”, what is the
evolution of your professional
practice at this point in your career?
How would you characterize your
current practice?
formerly National Educational Service
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Change is Complex!
• Any significant
innovation, if it is to
result in true
change, requires
individual
implementers to
work out their own
meaning.
Michael Fullan
formerly National Educational Service
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PLC School Improvement
Knowing
Doing
Being
formerly National Educational Service
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What we know today does
not make yesterday
wrong,
it makes tomorrow
better.
Carol Commodore
formerly National Educational Service
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