Focus Staff on the Target
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Focus Staff on the Target |
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Staff learn what principals value by observing what they attend to. Paying attention to the core values and priority goals of the school is the most important way for leaders to communicate effectively. When a school devotes considerable time and effort to the continual assessment of a particular condition or outcome, it notifies all members that the condition or outcome is considered important. Conversely, inattention to monitoring a particular factor in a school indicates that it is less than essential, regardless of how often its importance is verbalized. Principals have numerous opportunities to pay attention to student achievement goals. Perhaps the most important way is to ensure that regularly scheduled time with staff (staff meetings, team meetings, inservice activities) reflects and reinforces the importance of the progress toward achievement goals. Agenda topics should include analyzing and sharing data, problem solving barriers and solutions, examining student work, recognizing efforts, celebrating successes, and sharing successful practices. Robert Eaker points out that "Modeling is the way leaders 'advertise' their personal values—and the central values around which the organization operates. All too often school officials espouse certain ideals and beliefs but then pay attention to other things. Students and faculty learn what is truly valued in a school by observing what school leaders pay attention to." Consequently, any assessment of a principal's effectiveness in communicating values should include the following questions:
Set expectations Monitor what you value Keep the focus Resources Set expectations In order to implement the game plan we are proposing to hit your AYP target, you will need to set three expectations preferably at the beginning of the school year, although it is better to set them in the middle of the year than to wait for the beginning of the next year. Staff need to be clear on the expectations as well as understand their relationship to the larger context — in this case, standards-based reform and NCLB. The first expectation that you need to set is that teachers are expected to teach and assess the state content standards. Standards-based reform has changed the way schools are held accountable, what teachers are expected to teach and to whom, and what students are expected to learn.
The state content standards identify what students are expected to know and be able to do. It is probably obvious, though not always practiced, that classroom instruction and assessment must be aligned with the state content standards if a school wishes to attain state standards. It is critical for staff to understand the state content standards, the state assessments used to measure AYP, and how to recognize proficient student work at their grade level if they are going to fully understand their target. In a NASSP Bulletin article, "The Principal's Leadership Role in Assessment," author Richard Stiggins asserts, "To assess student achievement accurately, teachers and administrators must understand the achievement targets their students are to master. They cannot assess (let alone teach) achievement that has not been defined. You may want to use part of a staff meeting to talk about standards—based reform, NCLB, AYP, state standards, and your expectations for what staff are expected to know and do with the standards. If you think they already have that knowledge, then you might use the following survey questions to test your assumption.
The second expectation you need to set is that staff will be responsible for monitoring progress on the state content standards at the indicator or objective level. You will need to be clear about why teachers are expected to monitor student progress, how it benefits students, what exactly you expect teachers to do, and how you will monitor this. The attached PowerPoint presentation on "Using Classroom Data to Monitor Student Progress" will provide you the key talking points for why this is important to do. The third expectation you will need to set is that teams of teachers will meet regularly to analyze the monitoring data, examine the student work behind the data, and identify instructional implications. Any expectation you give orally should also be followed up with a written note or memo. [top] Monitor what you value Principals set a lot of expectations for staff, but often are not consistent in how they monitor them. Teachers will soon be clear by what their principal monitors, what the priority expectations are. There are a number of critical times during the school day that principals need to be purposeful about communicating a clear and sharp focus on the student achievement target. These include the following:
You will need to monitor the plan and its use on different levels. You will need to make sure the data is being submitted and confront any teachers who are not complying with the expectation to submit their data in a timely way. The attached memo illustrates one way you can both reaffirm the importance of the process as well as remind staff of their assignment. You will need to monitor how frequently and how well they are able to analyze their data and use the results to modify their instruction. You will need to know if they are interpreting the data and can answer basic questions about student success including which students or what percent of their class have mastered an indicator. You will need to make sure that teams have reached consensus on proficiency on an indicator and have diagnosed student strengths and areas of need. Finally, you will need to monitor whether staff are using the performance data to self-assess and modify their instruction. You can model your expectations for how teams use the data through the questions you ask. For example, you might attend or lead a discussion with a team using the questions mentioned above. [top] Keep the focus Given the many competing agendas operating within and without schools, it is always difficult to keep staff focused on improving student achievement. One only has to look at the central office meeting agendas to get a clear idea of the number of issues that can pull schools off that focus. As principal, you have the primary role in keeping this focus at your school. It is you who determines how staff time is used, what is monitored, what is recognized, and how inservice time and resources are used. Therefore, paying careful attention to how you use regularly scheduled staff meeting time, what messages you give and what you recognize and monitor are critical aspects of focusing your staff on the target. You might want to self-assess your success in keeping your focus by answering the following questions:
The following list of strategies may give you some other ideas for how to keep a tight focus on your target. Strategies to focus staff on the target
Stakeholders also have a need to know how well the school is progressing toward meeting the school's student achievement goals. Principals need to develop a communication plan that will include periodic updates on school goals and progress toward meeting those goals. Results from data analysis should be shared. State assessment data is available to the public, often on public web sites. You will want to clearly communicate that your school analyzes that data and uses it to make improvements. No matter what your results are, the critical message to communicate is that you learn from your data and use them to determine what additional changes your school needs to make to improve the achievement of your students. You cannot afford to be defensive about your data. You cannot blame students or sub-groups of your students for your results; nor can you blame teachers for the results. You need to model how you use your data as feedback information about how you are doing so that you can determine what you might need to change to get better results. A useful strategy is the development of a communication plan for your stakeholders. Include in your plan when you will communicate results, student achievement goals, and progress toward those goals. Use your PTA newsletter, PTA board meetings and any other regularly scheduled time with parents to communicate progress. You will also want to consider how to share this information with volunteers in your building, business partners and other community members. Another communication strategy is to create a school bulletin board that focuses on your school goals and monitors progress toward the attainment of those goals. It should maximize the use of graphs, charts, and other visual displays and minimize the amount of text to tell your school's story. It should allow staff and stakeholders to quickly see where you are, where your are heading, and how the journey is going? School entryways are an important place to establish your priorities. What are the messages one receives from your entryway and hallway that leads to the main office? Use it to communicate your school priorities. Some schools have found success in creating an accountability event a public forum hosted by schools or districts that bring together the school faculty and a broad representation of parents and community members to examine data on school performance. But don't let any one-time event replace the more important need to communicate progress throughout the year. When communicating your priorities to stakeholders, you must also be aware that what you say will not be believed if it is also not what you act on. In a recent article in the Journal of Staff Development(JSD), Rick DuFour reminds us that "our real missions are communicated not by what we say, but by what we do." With "tongue in cheek humor," he hypothesizes what some of our missions would read if they were really aligned with "an accurate description of how we act in the "day-to-day functioning of our schools." He provides the following illustrations:
[top] Resources for Focusing Staff on the Target School Improvement in Maryland Web Site Aligning Efforts and Keeping Staff Focused on the Target is a workshop on the School Improvement in Maryland Web site for principals to develop strategies to keep their staff focused and to ensure good alignment of schools resources to attaining the target.  Communicating Purpose and Expectations is a workshop on the School Improvement in Maryland Web site that explores district expectations for principals and discusses how to communicate expectations to a school staff about monitoring student progress.  School Improvement in Maryland Web: Presentation for a staff meeting that facilitates a discussion about the ways that standards and accountability have changed expectations and teaching and what the principal expects of staff around standards (Acrobat 167k) School Improvement in Maryland Web: Jigsaw activity for department, team or staff meeting using selected readings about standards and accountability Online Articles DuFour, Rick, "That's Our Mission," in the Winter 2001 issue of JSD published by the National Staff Development Council. |
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| How Have States Designed Their Accountability Systems? |
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| How Do States Provide Technical Assistance to Districts and Schools? |
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