(by Amber Dembowski)
Most schools already have their School Improvement Plans at-the-ready for the upcoming school year. And July is often a time when you put the bow on it. You get in the weeds to work through the details, and tidy it up before the teachers return in August.
So, I figured this was the perfect time to tell you something important.
I’ve been contemplating for days, trying to figure out how to ease into this topic, but you know what? We’re all grown-ups. We can handle it. We can admit some hard truths when it comes to what’s holding our school improvement efforts back.
So here it is: The way we approach school improvement sucks.
It’s true. I’m sorry. We spend so much time identifying the problem, analyzing the problem, creating an action plan, implementing an action plan, and then reflecting and revising the action plan – that along the way, we tend to miss some very critical pieces.
And it’s easy to do, because we’re all presented with this systematic way of approaching continuous improvement and our focus is crystal clear. It seems to naturally happen, and you feel good about life when you bring in a leadership team with shared beliefs, you gather school data, you set a goal and align your professional learning to meet that goal, and you communicate the plan out with the teachers and other stakeholders. Ta-da! Done! Booyah! Damn, we’re good.
But wait, there you were, being your adorable leader-self, and you realize, all too late, that the continuous plan of improvement is continuous, and it is a plan, but the improvement is lacking.
Listen up, it’s not your fault. You’ve been doing what was expected of you. There’s nothing wrong with that. And there’s nothing wrong with the current way of approaching school improvement. But that alone will not generate sustained improvement.
Let’s break this down a little further.
If you’re leading a team through school improvement, you are a project manager. A continuous improvement plan is a project. Taking on new projects are part of any individual or organizational growth plan. Projects are good.
All successful projects from doing laundry to restaining your deck to managing a school improvement plan must be meaningful and manageable. (Yes, even doing laundry.) And all successful project managers strategically think through these two ideas to meet the goal of the project.
Doing laundry is meaningful because then you won’t stink and you’ll be able to show up in clean clothes. It’s manageable because you can do small loads at a time, throw your clean clothes in a basket and fold them later while binge watching Ugly Betty. This same concept of projects being meaningful and manageable is true for all projects we take on in some shape or form. If they aren’t, we’re in trouble. Especially if they’re important projects – like school improvement.
A plan that’s not meaningful and manageable, lacks motivation to see it through completion. Hence, piles of dirty laundry covering your bedroom floor. Or, quite possibly, school improvement goals, not crossing the finish line.
Contrary to this could be neatly folded and stacked piles of clothes, and schools filled with motivated teachers and strong project management of school goals. Because strong improvement plans that include meaning in manageable ways will not only develop incredible teacher efficacy and belief in themselves and their capabilities, but will also improve school morale and deep loyalty to the school community as a whole.
To recap, work breakdown structures aren’t enough to get your team over the finish line. These things definitely help. But the best teams have something else in their favor — meaningful and manageable efforts that increase motivation.
“Operations keeps the lights on, strategy provides a light at the end of the tunnel, but project management is the train engine that moves the organization forward.” — Joy Gumz
Let’s dive in, starting with making it meaningful.
Making it Meaningful
#1: The Role of Stories in Shaping Meaning
School Improvement Plans are necessary, but we also want them to be compelling and beautiful. It’s hard to imagine, right?
Well, folks, here’s the secret …
… storytelling isn’t just for the kindergarten classroom. Stories speak to the heart and create context, connection, and … meaning.
As human beings we crave stories. Words create meaning and value when before there was nothing but a number and a plan to increase the number. With a story, that plan suddenly becomes a little girl starting her first day of school or a boy who learns to play the violin and cries with pride on stage. Projects become transformed into something that has meaning and value beyond just an improvement plan.
Anytime you want to see movement in a school improvement plan, you first have to move the hearts of those implementing it.
The little girl on her first day of school, was a picture of my daughter walking up to her kindergarten classroom, toting her Dora the Explorer backpack, and I shared with staff my hopes and dreams as her mom. At the time of sharing it, my daughter was much older than that picture, and she wasn’t going to school in our building, or even in our district. But I was able to share that moment in time, speak my truth from a parent perspective, and connect with the teachers’ hearts.
The boy crying on stage after playing the violin, received the golden buzzer on America’s Got Talent, and when asked on stage how he feels about getting the golden buzzer, through tears he says, “I feel very proud of myself.” Isn’t that how we want all students to feel? Proud of themselves. There wasn’t a dry eye when the teachers watched this video. The story was captivating and I was able to emphasize our ability as educators to be a catalyst for students walking out of their classrooms each day feeling proud of themselves too.
See, the stories aren’t about evidenced-based practices, and data driven decisions. That’s what the plan is about. The stories are the emotions that carry the weight of the plan. The stories give what we do as educators, meaning. It pulls teachers in to want to be a part of creating a new story with their students.
So, as a strong project manager, you speak to the heart through stories and share the improvement plan. Yet, the story that you share at the beginning of the school year won’t sustain meaning forever. You need to come up with a plan for on-going meaning-making as well.
#2: The Power of Intentional and On-Going Feedback
You must be very intentional in your meaning making. I call it the Mighty Ninety, because you’ll need to commit to 90 minutes in the classrooms, providing impact statements, every week. This is what keeps the improvement plan alive.
The impact statements are strengths-based feedback that focuses on one skill or instructional move that aligns with your school improvement plan. The feedback reminds teachers of how meaningful their work is and nurtures school improvement.
This type of feedback follows a simple C.O.I.R. format, adapted from Kathy Kennedy: Cushion statement, Observed action, Impact on learning, Recognition
To better understand this format, you can download a guide to C.O.I.R HERE.
So, what about making it manageable? To be clear, I’m not talking about your time and headspace. You need to figure out you, Boo. I’m talking about making it manageable for the ones implementing it. You’re the project manager, remember? You’re in charge of the project, including managing all of the moving pieces of it. In other words, you’re adapting and problem solving all of the variables that come with working with humans, and supporting them to ensure they feel the goals set in the improvement plan are achievable. No small task. But you’ve got this.
Making it Manageable
There’s actually lots of things to consider when making a school improvement plan more manageable for the teachers.
Emotional Intelligence: Understanding and managing the emotions of the individual teachers as they navigate the demands of the job. Building trust and resolving issues in a positive way.
Problem-Solving: Recognizing that each teacher and classroom will bring their own perspective and experiences to the table, which may not necessarily align with the action plan of the project you’re managing. Being able to think on your feet, while remaining flexible and open-minded.
Time-Management: Prioritizing and breaking down the extensive improvement plan into bite-size nuggets, easy for the teachers to digest.
Effective-Communication: Keeping everyone focused and updated with clear and direct expectations.
Risk Management: Identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) in the plan.
But, the one I’m going to share about today is …
Agency: Developing ownership in the plan.
Agency is really a two-headed animal, because it creates meaning for the teacher, and also makes it more manageable. Double whammy, baby! We’ll take it!
Agency is a sense of control. It’s teacher efficacy. It’s the capacity to influence what’s around you. Your strong sense of agency makes you feel more stable. Which is exactly what we want in our classrooms, and from someone implementing the action steps in our school improvement plan.
School Improvement Plans generally share the ‘how’ of meeting the goal: Collaboration, Intentional Planning, Strengthened Core Instruction. Your job as the project manager is for the teachers to chunk it and connect with the ‘why’ and the ‘personalized how’ of the goal, which makes it more manageable to them.
If the schoolwide goal is to increase student achievement in the area of Math by 10% by the end of the school year, then the teachers’ goal needs to also be to increase the achievement of the students in their classroom in the area of Math by 10%.
But wait. Hold your nostril-flaring, tail-swishing horses. This isn’t their goal. They have no ownership of this. No sense of agency.
After intimately getting to know their students through their data, the teacher can then make more personalized goals that make sense for their students and classroom, that (trumpets blare) aligns with the schoolwide goal.
By the end of 1st quarter I will increase the achievement in the area of Math by 3% by focusing on (this lagging skill).
Or, by the end of 2nd quarter I will increase the achievement in the area of Math by 7% by increasing targeted instruction for (these specific students).
Then, and this is the cherry on top, make sure they know their ‘why’ and ‘personalized how’. They can arrive at the answer on their own, but you need to create the space for it.
Teacher: My goal is to increase student achievement in the area of Math by 3% by the end of 1st quarter.
Inquiring mind: Why are you focusing on all students?
Teacher: Because 74% of my students are underperforming.
Inquiring mind: Why are so many struggling?
Teacher: Because they don’t understand place value and number sense.
Inquiring mind: Why not?
Teacher: Because it’s assumed in the curriculum that it’s a mastered skill by third grade and not revisited, but they can’t do more substantial problems without this understanding.
Inquiring mind: So, if it’s no longer taught in the curriculum, how will you address it?
Teacher: I was thinking about starting each day with morning work that includes a number sense activity. I might need some help figuring out the best way to do it so that I can easily monitor their progress and reteach as needed.
Inquiring mind: How will you figure it out?
Teacher: I don’t know. Trial and error at first, with some help from the instructional coach.
This, of course, was not an actual conversation – nor does it need to be. The inquiring mind could be the teacher’s internal sense of agency. Creating the space and the expectation for teachers to work through this process, after you’ve set the stage with your meaning-filled narrative and overarching school goal, is all that’s needed for this to be successful. Sprinkle in some collaboration with other teachers about their chunked and personalized goals, and you’ve created a recipe for teacher agency, making everything more manageable.
Boom! Your school is going to thrive, baby! And I can’t wait to see it happen!
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