Friday, August 14, 2015

Champions Work When Others Rest



This is what the hard working staff of Socorro ISD do on their off day!!!

Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn...

  • Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
  • Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
  • Upcoming Presentations: Illinois ASCD Fall Conference (Multiple Presentations), Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association Fall AP Conference, The Fundamental 5 National Summit (Multiple Presentations) 
  • Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Thursday, August 13, 2015

A Reader Asks... Teacher Practice Targets

A LYS Principal asks the following:

SC,

When you last presented in our district, I recall a document that showed targeted observation frequencies for many of the practices that can be observed during a PowerWalk.  Would you mind sharing those targets again?

Thank you.

SC Response
No problem, but do remember that what I am about to share assumes that PowerWalks is being used correctly and there is above average inter-rater reliability among the observers.  It has been my experience that these are two huge assumptions.

When it comes to instructional practices, campuses always work back and forth along a quantity / quality continuum.

The campus should first work to get “quantity at a given quality” to a targeted level.  When those targeted levels are consistently met, the campus instructional team then redefines “quality” and begin the process anew. It is thru this process, that great campuses pursue targets that other campuses cannot imagine. They begin to play a game that requires a skill level beyond that of the rank and file campus. That is why site visits are such a powerful practice. When you visit an exemplar campus (defined as a campus that consistently outperforms its peers) you get to see in action a picture that your “reasonable” mind has told you is not possible.

This is also why comparing anything other than the observation total of campus based, self-reported walk-thru data is a waste of time for most outside observers. Because the seemingly objective data (cross campus) actually is not.

That being said, here are some recommended frequency targets for The Fundamental 5 instructional practices. 

Lesson Frame - 90%
Power Zone - 75%
Frequent Small Group Purposeful Talk - 35%
Recognize and Reinforce - 35%
Write Critically - 20%

Remember that these quantity targets are never met quickly.  One to three semesters is the norm. When a target is reached, the campus redefines the quality required to meet the new standard and moves forward.  This is why as a campus improves, to the uninitiated outsider it may look like the campus has plateaued or is moving backwards.  In fact, if this described data pattern is not observed, it is telltales sign that campus leadership and the PLC are shortchanging the walk-thru process.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

  • Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
  • Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
  • Upcoming Presentations: Illinois ASCD Fall Conference (Multiple Presentations), Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association Fall AP Conference, The Fundamental 5 National Summit (Multiple Presentations) 
  • Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

A Reader Asks... A Room Set-up Rubric

A LYS Principal asks the following:

SC,

Quick question... Do you have any examples of room set-up rubrics I could provide for my team as we prepare for the start of school? 

We are trying to make sure we don’t give away any student performance due to sub-par room set-up decisions.

Thanks.

SC Response
Kudos to you and your team for recognizing that the set-up of the classroom can either augment or impair student performance.  I don’t have a specific rubric for you but I can provide some guidelines for developing a rubric specific to your campus.  Which in my opinion is the optimal solution.

The rubric should define and be oriented towards "True North" in a classroom (for our southern hemisphere readers, use “True South”).  “True North” is the wall with the main display or white board, and usually is the direction that students face in that particular classroom.

Based on “True North,” line out how classroom items and decor should be situated.

Then line out what should be displayed and what should not be displayed.

Address what are allowable teacher furnishings and what would be considered excess furnishings.

Set base parameters for classroom clutter, organization, cleanliness and lighting.

And finally, use picture and diagram examples as much as possible.  After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn...

  • Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
  • Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
  • Upcoming Presentations: Illinois ASCD Fall Conference (Multiple Presentations), Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association Fall AP Conference, The Fundamental 5 National Summit (Multiple Presentations) 
  • Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

A Superintendent Writes... A Reader Doesn't Like the Perfect Storm - Part 1

In response to the 8/5/15 post, “A Reader Doesn’t Like... Observations From the Perfect Dysfunctional Storm,” a LYS Superintendent Writes: 

To My Central Office Brethren:

Offended? No offense was intended, but allow me to retort. First, full disclosure: I am the Principal who wrote the posts that Sean responded to. And yes, as an old school LYSer guessed, I am one of you. Indeed I go back to a time before LYS, back when Cain was the plumber for the state and I was one of the early Restructure & Redesign principals. That's been a while.

Further disclosure, I wrote those posts a number of years ago. I was not sending Cain my criticisms. I was sending Cain my observations and asking for advice on how to make my new (at the time) school work for children. The dialogue those many years ago proved to be educational to me, and Cain knew that others could learn from them also. He just held off on sharing them with the LYS Nation to protect the district I was working for and to protect me.  Because at the time, anyone in the know could have easily figured out the district being described and from there identify who I was.  Again, further proof that this blog, its writers, and its readers are focused only on improving schools.  

I will say this, there is too often a disconnect between central office and campus life, and the higher one moves in school administration, the more likely that disconnect becomes. It's not intentional; it’s just that the jobs of campus principals and central office administrators move at different speeds. There is a constant sense of urgency on a campus that is doing the job right, and that sense of urgency is often missing in central office simply because central office leaders and staff do not work in the trenches. Central office is not doing the day-to-day, hand-to-hand work. For a superintendent, it is easy to lose almost all sense of urgency since things tend to move in 30-day increments from one board meeting to another.

This is obviously not the case for the campus principal, who is constantly faced with decisions that often have to be made within minutes.

Final disclosure, within a year of writing these posts from the perfect dysfunctional storm I became a Superintendent.  As a sitting and now veteran Superintendent of multiple district, I can promise you, the same issues with central office disengagement can exist in any size district, with any central office administrator, including the Superintendent. As Cain states, when schools fail adults are culpable, from the boardroom to the classroom.

In the perfect dysfunctional storm district that I wrote about, leadership it was rotten at the top and in many places in the middle. Were there bright spots in central office? Yes. But the bright spots were not able to pull the district out the perfect storm.

The lesson for central office administrators, especially superintendents, is this; LEAD YOUR DISTRICT, LEAD YOUR SCHOOLS.

1. Remove the rotten spots and deadweight.

2. Expect and insist that your campuses move at a faster speed and have greater urgency than central office.  

3. Push your central office to do their best to keep up.

Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn...

  • Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
  • Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
  • Upcoming Presentations: Illinois ASCD Fall Conference (Multiple Presentations), Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association Fall AP Conference, The Fundamental 5 National Summit (Multiple Presentations) 
  • Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Monday, August 10, 2015

Top LYS Tweets From the Week of August 7, 2015

If you are not following @LYSNation on Twitter, then you missed the Top 10 LYS Tweets from the week of August 7, 2015 when they were first posted.  And if you are on Twitter, you might want to check out the Tweeters who made this week’s list.

1. Congratulations to LYSer, Rite Pintavalle! She is the new principal at Brazosport HS!! Who will be next? (By @LYSNation)

2. Challenge to all Teachers for the first day of school: skip reviewing rules and classroom procedures and teach the best lesson of your life. (By @benking24)

3. Knowing what you are going to learn immediately increases what you learn. Sounds like The Fundamental 5. (By @8Amber8)

4. If a campus doesn't do the simple things (neat, clean, etc), there's no confidence in its ability to do the hard things (quality teaching). (By @LYSNation)

5. Brad Weston (A LYS Principal): “We are constantly looking for ways to improve by leveraging high-yield strategies that we know work!” (By @amyphdennes)

6. There’s plenty of school choice within the public school system. Any plan that locates school choice outside the public trust violates that trust. (By @pastors4txkids)

7. Picture books are 2-3 times as likely as parent-child conversations to include a word that isn’t among the 5,000 most common English words. (By @tgrierhisd)

8. If a PLC has spent 20-minutes on any topic, it's time for the PLC to take action. PLCs must be action-oriented. (By @stevebarkley)

9. Most of the obstacles to success in school districts are largely created by adults. (By @LYSNation)

10. The jury is in and the bi-partisan consensus is strong: Vouchers and privatization make awful public policy. (By @pastors4txkids)

Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn...

  • Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
  • Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
  • Upcoming Presentations: Illinois ASCD Fall Conference (Multiple Presentations), Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association Fall AP Conference, The Fundamental 5 National Summit (Multiple Presentations) 
  • Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook