Charles leaned back in his chair after a long week, feeling the weight of his school community’s needs. All things considered, the school has handled the pandemic well. He looks over at this year’s motto hanging on the wall, Stronger Together, and is reminded of how much they have overcome. He also knows that his teachers and staff are tired. The uncertainty in the world and in their community creates an intensity that makes one hour feel like two. 

He also sees it among his students. Their reactions to situations, or should he say, overreaction indicates frustration. A minor situation escalates fast, and students are on edge. Resilience and grit are needed now more than ever. Although the pandemic seems to be in our rearview mirror, the toll it has taken on many is significant. And some students are wrestling with how to move forward, which is evident in how easily they want to give up on things. 

Despite all of this, Charles is confident in his school and the great people with whom he works. He also realizes that as the school year winds down, they must finish strong. The next three months have to be incredible. Understanding Kahneman’s peak-end rule, Charles knows that a strong end to this school year will help start next year even stronger. Although there’s no easy answer, he understands that he has to connect with those he serves, hear from them, and truly listen so that he can build a culture of support. If he wants to lead better and support his community, he has to know what they are thinking and feeling.

Listening for Greater Support

Getting individuals to open up and be candid, requires a level of trust within the school culture. The upheaval and loss that the pandemic brought with it is hard to fathom and impossible to quantify. Effective principal leadership is needed more than ever, and it starts with listening to the individuals we are actually working to serve. 

• Teachers: Voices from the classroom
• What are teachers experiencing in the classroom?
• Probe to uncover insights about their experiences and their students’ needs.

• Support Personnel: Voices from the staff
• What are support staff experiencing?
• Probed to uncover insights about their experiences and their students.

• Students: Voices from the students
• What are students experiencing within the school?
• Probe to uncover insights about their experiences.

Figure: 1 Model for Voices to Hear

The intent to listen is to truly uncover the experiences that people are having. Great principal leaders use an inquiry-based approach to better understand what is occurring so that effective decisions can be made. There are a few ways to achieve this in schools. Although online surveys are efficient and effective, we suggest a couple different methods–from surveys to group discussions to one-on-one conversations. The purpose of each is to gather as much accurate and real data as possible to focus the work at the most granular level. This is what will drive support because school leaders will know what to prioritize based on the data. Without the information from surveys and conversations, we become susceptible to working hard but working on the wrong stuff. 

For example, Charles may decide to leverage group discussions with the support staff, school counselors, nurses, deans, etc. to gain a clear account from what they are experiencing and what they are also seeing in their students. This valuable information can provide insight that can support the social and emotional efforts in the school. Leveraging incredible resources like CASEL is vital, but only if it is aligned to needs within the school. We think of this process–identifying trends and key points of information–similar to what we find in the medical field. General practitioners are invaluable and treat the everyday needs of the community, but if our issues are no longer cured with that approach, we need a specialist–someone who is able to take an acute approach.

We’ve generated 5 key areas that need to be considered in every conversation. The goal is to transform the conversations into useful, actionable next steps for school leaders. 

Every Voice Heard in Every Conversation

One of the initial fundamental aspects of great conversations is informative and open dialogue. Above all else, school leaders need to welcome ideas and suggestions. That’s why it’s our first principle of the five. 

#1. Welcome ideas and suggestions from everyone

Unfortunately, this doesn’t come naturally to all school leaders. To complicate matters, creating dialogue among staff is a skill that many educators haven’t formally developed. This results in many group conversations defaulting to those who are willing to talk or those who somehow feel obligated to represent the group. This is why our conversations require norms. We’re not talking about the typical meeting norms but rather ones that are designed to create conversation, respect, and openness. 

Conversation Norms

1. Don’t interrupt–Allow individuals to complete their thoughts.
2. Focus on experiences–Using “I” is encouraged.
3. Accept non-closure examples–Uncertainty is ok.
4. Suspend judgment–Avoid value statements.
5. Honor confidentially–Support and require privacy.

These norms are crucial because not only will they establish ground rules, they will also build a culture of rapport. This is crucial for idea sharing and hearing suggestions. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of putting up barriers and finding a reason to say, “yeah, but.” This is to be avoided so that the group can learn how to rumble. 

This brings us to our second key principle, which is being comfortable with discussing uncomfortable ideas and topics, even those that may be taboo. School leaders have to welcome the discomfort that comes from hearing something that isn’t ideal. 

#2. Feeling comfortable sharing difficult issues 

Difficult issues are just that, difficult. Difficult to discuss, explain, and understand. This is only compounded by our natural human hesitancy to deal with conflict. To start creating a level of comfort, we encourage teams to use the 2 Ts:

• Trust and Truth

Trust and truth are imperative for open dialogue and getting to the core of situations. It’s easy to meet and easy to have conversations, but digging into the core of an issue is challenging. Communicating in a spirit of trust allows people to have confidence in one another, while the truth ensures that people are going to express how they feel and share their thoughts and ideas. Trust and truth come from our ability to be candid with one another. Candor is a skill; honesty is about our character. Everyone can learn to be more candid to support a level of comfort with difficult issues, but it takes practice. 

To build an environment that is supportive of the two Ts school leaders must provide time and space. 

#3. Providing time and space to listen

Have you ever compared the game of baseball to basketball? One is a game of space and the other time. The fast paced, high octane nature of basketball, brought on by the shot clock, could not be any different than a sport with no time frame, just rules that determine the beginning and end. Great meetings with open dialogue do both. The meeting length provides ample time to meet the agenda items while there is no pressure to get through all of them.  

The root of frustration in many meetings is due to the need to meet only to have enough time to go over cursory information or force decisions. Getting through the agenda doesn’t mean that any of the items get resolved. One antidote to this, as Joel Garfinkle writes, is to, “focus on what you’re hearing, not what you’re saying. People who shy away from conflict often spend a huge amount of time mentally rewording their thoughts.”

Schools that have a culture of support almost always report a sense of feeling like everyone is on the same team.

#4. Feeling like we’re on a team

The power of a great team is found in their centralized focus on a clear goal. That goal is supported by core values that guide and remind everyone of #2 and #3 from above. What we also love about teams is that they know how to celebrate. Could you imagine the culture and atmosphere of schools if the high five became as prevalent in schools as it did on the athletic field? What a difference that would make for feeling like we’re playing on a team. 

Without going into too much baseball history, it is believed that the first high five occurred between Dusty Baker and Glenn Burke of the L.A. Dodgers after Baker hit his 30th home run in the final game of the season. This was the first time in baseball history that 4 players ended the season with at least 30 home runs in a single season. We can learn a great deal from sports and the one thing that requires zero training, no degree, and no talent is celebrating others at work. Encourage conversation, thank people for their contribution, recognize when someone is out of their comfort zone, and praise as often as possible.

The fifth component is the linchpin, making sure that people have the resources they need to do their jobs well.

#5. Ensuring people have the resources to do their jobs well

This is the part of the conversation where school leaders simply need to be up front and ask people if they have what they need to do their jobs well. Asking is the easy part, listening and acting on the information presents the challenges. Do teachers have the following?  

• Classroom resources to support the curriculum 
• Technology to enhance instruction 
• Instructional materials that promote student academic success
• Assessments that are aligned to standards
• Time in PLCs to discuss student achievement 

These areas represent fundamental needs for staff to thrive in their working environment. In her book, If You Don’t Feed the Teachers They Eat the Students!: Guide to Success for Administrators and Teachers, which is filled with stories and valuable insight, Dr. Neila Connors shares practical ways to support teachers and build an incredible school culture. 

Measuring the Feeling of Support in Schools

One way to know if people feel supported in general is to ask. Great leaders go beyond asking and they measure. We always talk about measuring what matters, but few leaders measure whether or not the culture is one that can be described as supportive.  

That’s why REPSS has an entire section dedicated to support, and all of the questions are about the five principles from above. The support section questions are below, and you can get the whole survey in our Building a Winning Team book. 

As always, let us know what you think of this with a like, a follow, or a comment. Find us on Twitter, YouTube, iTunes, Facebook, & SoundCloud. And, again, if you want one simple model for leading better and growing faster per month, follow this blog by entering your email at the top right of the screen.

TheSchoolHouse302 is about getting to simple by maximizing effective research-based strategies that empower individuals to lead better and grow faster.

Joe & T.J. 

Accountability in Schools

If you want to hear a great sigh in any faculty meeting, start it off by talking about your systems for accountability. It doesn’t matter if you’re addressing standardized tests or the teacher evaluation systems, people liken any conversation on accountability to that of medieval torture. This isn’t because educators don’t want to be held accountable; that’s the furthest from the truth. Rather, we have found that teachers and school leaders see a disconnect with how policies play out in schools and what is actually happening in their classrooms. 

Certain aspects of accountability, like state assessments, also require a ton of additional work that many teachers and school leaders believe takes away from other important work. Not necessarily more important, but certainly just as important. If you’ve sat in an office late into the evening double counting every completed test packet, filling out security documents, and cross-checking attendance lists, then you know what we mean. 

Ironically, accountability can usurp the autonomy and the independence of school teachers and school leaders. Although accountability works to improve schools, offer much needed support, and even provide funding in needs-based scenarios, the top-down approach often comes in conflict with other initiatives that school leaders may feel are better suited to support student learning than testing and evaluation.  

It may sound like we dislike or discredit accountability systems in schools. Candidly, just the opposite. Joe was a Director of Assessment and Accountability for 6 years with a true belief that accountability can drive change in the right direction; T.J. served for many years on a committee to review the evaluation system for teachers and school leaders. We both feel that accountability is at the heart of achievement, regardless of the industry or person. However, if we ignore how people feel about accountability, or at least some forms of it, our school improvement efforts, including accountability, will fall short. 

Rethinking School Accountability with Two Primary Tools for School Leaders 

The truth is that great school leaders take ownership of accountability regardless of the system in which they work. They certainly use the system to the best of their ability, but they also adapt systems and create school-based accountability measures that the staff can see as valuable and necessary for progress. There are two areas that great school leaders place their attention when it comes to accountability, and we’ve found them to be universal among the school leaders we interview, coach, and learn from. Using these two methods of accountability shifts the thinking about it from one of skepticism to that of progress. 

First, every great school leader focuses on clear and measurable goals. They create and communicate school level goals for both the school as a whole and each individual person and department within it. Second, every great school leader puts a ton of emphasis on a culture of feedback. They anchor feedback using the school and individual goals that are set in both formal and informal settings. Let’s dig into this further to both tools in terms of how they can be used effectively by school leaders. 

Tool #1: Clear and Measurable Goals for School Accountability 

School accountability should be representative of the many facets of schooling that drive whether or not students are learning. Take, for example, buildings and grounds as a department. Great school leaders understand that the way the school looks, smells, and feels has an impact on how well teachers can operate and what students believe about their school. That also means that great school leaders set clear and measurable goals for the look and function of the facilities. As such, each function below would have specific goals associated with it and key metrics to determine how well the department or service is functioning. 

Figure 1: Key Functions of a School

Even though you need metrics for each area, we want to tease out a curriculum, instruction, and assessment to speak directly to teaching and learning and the clear and measurable goals that all school leaders should set to determine the viability and effectiveness of our classroom practices. 

School Leadership Learning Prompt #1:

Setting Clear and Measurable Goals Using Internal Assessment Data 

If you take a look at the 17 functions, you’ll notice we did not lump curriculum, instruction, and assessment altogether. Although all three work together to make up our guaranteed and viable program of work, they need to be viewed interrelated but independently. Since these three are at the crux of student achievement, let’s look at them through our accountability lens. Curriculum and instruction receive a lot of attention, but assessment has yet to be given the consideration it deserves. That’s for another blog post, though.  

Once a viable curriculum is established, it must look and sound a certain way in the classroom. This begins with the teachers fully understanding it–that it is being implemented with fidelity and that there is a communication mechanism in place to identify challenges along the way. One thing we know about the curriculum is that it does not remain stagnant. It’s constantly under review. 

The same should also be true of assessments. Assessments should be designed to inform teachers about student progress throughout lessons and units. Formative assessments, those designed to inform the teacher about progress, should be used frequently and intentionally. Summative assessments should be implemented as ways to see if students understand the concepts fully at the end of a unit. These assessments should be aligned to standards that are tested within the larger context of state standardized tests and national assessments, like the SAT, ACT, and AP exams. 

This is the place where schools have the total power and authority to set goals for the school and for individual departments within the school. We often miss the mark, though, when it comes to goals, setting them regarding the accountability measure–standardized tests–rather than at the curriculum level with internal summative assessment data. The internal measures always mean more to the teachers anyway, which doesn’t bring the same level of skepticism and ambiguity that state- and district-level accountability does. Schools that have this level of clear and measurable goals not only see greater accountability for staff, they achieve at a faster rate and staff are more closely connected to the vision of the school leader. It also allows for our feedback to be anchored in something tangible, which is the second more important accountability tool that we have as school leaders. 

School Leadership Learning Prompt #2:

Tool #2: Formal and Informal Feedback for School Accountability 

School accountability is grounded in the candid and compassionate conversations that we have with one another about the work that we’re doing. When feedback is at the heart of the culture, we drive each other to get better faster. And this is also the basis for trust, which is often counterintuitive for school leaders. The bottom line is that formal and informal feedback cycles and models for giving and receiving feedback are what hold teachers and leaders accountable in schools, not outside measures of achievement that are typically implemented using a top-down approach. 

Consider a culture of complete candor where everyone says what they think, ready to debate using research and evidence to back their claims. In this type of culture, people expect to be challenged by others. The unfortunate truth is that too many schools don’t have expectations of feedback toward change and accountability but, instead, accept the status quo. Even the ones that are set up for informal and formal feedback conversations, often suffer from school leaders and other staff who simply hold back. 

School Leadership Learning Prompt #3:

Using Specific Praise and Corrective Action to Help Teachers Grow Professionally

There are three forms of feedback that matter most in schools. The first is praise, which is still an untapped resource for leaders despite its effectiveness for building morale by celebrating success. We know that over 70% of leaders are skeptical about how, when, and why to use praise, and it’s a form of feedback that garners immediate and tangible results. Praise instills both pride and the desire to repeat behaviors; a social phenomenon that every leader should want to take advantage of. When leaders use praise well, it’s also a retention strategy. Here’s a model we developed based on research in social and behavioral psychology. 

The second feedback strategy that can be used informally and formally is what feedback gurus call “corrective action.” Effective corrective action (CA) provides sufficient details so that the receivers of CA know exactly how to improve practice and feel empowered to do so. These range from minor tweaks that people should make to their practice to replacement strategies in terms of our expectation that someone will try something that they’ve likely never done before. High accountability schools demonstrate a commitment to giving feedback in every direction to improve teacher (and other staff) effectiveness. This comes from coaches, peers, supervisors, and others, all intended to make adjustments for continuous improvement. 

The final, and often overlooked, method of accountability in schools when it comes to feedback is the use of professional dialogue. Leaders who are adept at asking questions create a learning culture that is inquisitive and thought provoking. This is not to say that we use questions to get people to reflect about what they should be doing differently or that we bait people into believing that they did something wrong. We’ve seen models of questioning techniques that lure teachers into thinking something that the leader already knows to be true. That type of manipulation always backfires. Rather, we’re proposing a culture of accountability that supports thinking as everyone learns to question each other about the things that we don’t see, the aspects of our work–including thought processes–that aren’t visible. 

Measuring Accountability in Schools

Creating a culture of accountability requires that we measure how well we hold people accountable as we’re trying to implement the systems intended to do so. That’s why REPSS has an entire section dedicated just to accountability, and all of the questions are about clear and measurable goals as well as the feedback cycles that we use in our schools. 

As always, let us know what you think of this with a like, a follow, or a comment. Find us on Twitter, YouTube, iTunes, Facebook, & SoundCloud. And, again, if you want one simple model for leading better and growing faster per month, follow this blog by entering your email at the top right of the screen.

TheSchoolHouse302 is about getting to simple by maximizing effective research-based strategies that empower individuals to lead better and grow faster.

Joe & T.J. 

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