We then dig deeper: “Tell us a little more about what a focus on students looks like in your school.” This request is usually met with more looks of uncertainty until participants respond that the focus is on students—that every decision is based on what is best for them.
At this point, we ask for examples of actions that support this focus on students. This is where the conversation becomes more difficult. “How do you know for sure that students are a priority to school leaders?” Some participants are able to describe common messages they have heard about improving student achievement, while others are not sure if they can link leadership actions to a focus on students.
This line of questioning typically tells us all we need to know: the principal talks about the importance of test scores and his or her desire to see them improve, but he or she has not communicated an action plan or expectations for getting there. This uncertainty and inability to give focused examples are worrisome. When we see this scenario play out over and over again in the same school or district, it tells us that the school leader’s priorities and expectations are unclear.
Although the scenario we describe is what we most often experience in our work with schools, we have also walked into schools where teachers are crystal clear about the focus of the school. In these schools, teachers understand that the school is about learning, student growth, and achievement. Principals not only communicate the vision regularly but also give teachers time to meet in collaborative teams to focus on student results and create instructional plans based on student achievement data. They check in with teams often and are relentless when it comes to data and student achievement. In these schools, there are high expectations for all, and principals’ actions every single day reflect these expectations and priorities.
In this chapter, you will reflect on the intentionality of your actions and conversations as a school leader. What answers would your staff, students, and parents provide to the questions? Would they react with confusion, or would their responses be crystal clear? As a school leader, what you spend your time doing, what you focus on, speaks volumes to others about what is important. We seek to build common understanding of the importance of your ability to stay focused and intentional with daily practices in creating the school you want to lead.
We begin with a discussion about time and the difficulty leaders face in planning how to focus their limited amount of time. We follow with strategies for gaining focus and a discussion of how establishing loose and tight leadership can help you focus. Then, we discuss having a positive mindset, being in the right place, and adopting positive habits for spending time.
Time: The Struggle Is Real
It is Monday morning. You walk into your office, and three students are already there because of social media issues, two teachers want to spend time with you talking about supervision at the next football game, a parent is waiting to see you about his son’s grades, the parent-teacher organization president is on the phone waiting to talk about the upcoming meeting agenda, the superintendent left a message for you to call, an assistant principal reminded you that you are supposed to have a quick administrative meeting this morning about failing grades, and a teacher is waiting for you to do a preconference about the observation you are about to do. This is the life of a school leader.
Every day you start with a plan—with a list of things to do, people to talk to, and, most important, the work that will help you accomplish your goals and vision for the school. You may or may not get your coat off before your plan goes astray. As one principal said to us, “I always start my day with a plan, but sometimes I can’t get to my plan at all!” (S. Watkins, personal communication, March 2017). As a leader, you are well organized and thoughtful about what you have to do and understand the need to focus. You wake up every morning with that intention. Inevitably, something takes you off course.
There are twenty-four hours in a day. You control how you spend most of this time. School leaders need self-discipline both inside and outside the school walls. This is no easy task since distractors are a common obstacle. If an action doesn’t fit with your goals—if it isn’t necessary—it is a distractor. Indeed, the emails and texts you see when you roll over and check your phone at 4 a.m. and the problems that appear at your office doorstep can become the work of the day if you let them. Having an open-door policy is great, but only when you still control the way you manage your actions and time in daily practice. Focus requires aligning your actions with your daily goals.
For example, if you plan to walk through the building every morning to greet staff and students but find yourself drawn to your emails as soon as you arrive, what impact does this action have on your ability to build relationships and know your staff and students? Which is more important for you to stay focused—the walkthrough or your inbox? Leaving your devices behind as you spend time in hallways and classrooms helps truly connect you to what is happening in your school. The latest blog can help you reflect and think, but it may also take you off course. New learning and new ideas are enticing, and while continuous learning is important, it can take you off track and make it more difficult to keep the main thing the main thing.
Reflection
How do you determine your daily areas of focus? What are some distractors you struggle with on a daily basis?
Strategies for Gaining Focus
To gain focus, take time to consider what you want to focus on. Writing your goals down in a template or graphic organizer can be empowering as you struggle to keep the distractors from your day. Figure 1.1 is a template for reflecting on being intentional during your day. Begin by writing your intended focus. Next, write a distractor you faced. Then note what action you took.
FIGURE 1.1: Template for reflecting on intentionality during the day.
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/PLCbooks for a free reproducible version of this figure.
For example, figure 1.2 shows a completed template for a principal who wants to focus on visiting classrooms during the literacy block. This principal recognized the need to increase effective literacy instruction and has provided professional development and coaching to his staff. His collaborative teams have increased their focus on instructional strategies, and it is time for him to see if the professional learning and decisions are being implemented in the classroom. During the literacy block, the principal faced a distractor—a teacher who wanted to meet with him. The teacher explained that she was struggling with how best to communicate with a parent and wanted to brainstorm with him about what to do next. The principal responded by asking how urgent the meeting was and scheduled it for later when he determined it was not urgent.
FIGURE 1.2: Sample reflection on intentionality—teacher meeting.
Figure 1.3 shows a principal who has the intentional focus of creating and using an agenda that is data driven for guiding coalition discussions.
FIGURE 1.3: Sample reflection on intentionality—guiding coalition meeting.
This exercise may be useful for leaders when they are first faced with a conflict to examine what they know they should do and what is distracting them from intentionally remaining focused on the work. For example, some leaders find that by writing the intentional focus down as well as the distractor as soon as they are faced with a challenge, they are able to also think through the appropriate action to take.
Another exercise we often ask school leaders to engage in for reflection on intention is completion of a daily time log (figure 1.4, page 14). We start by asking leaders to reflect on their daily goals and then complete the log to see how effective they were at keeping their focus. The log helps leaders consider what they are spending time on, and, most important, if their actions align with their intentions. Many leaders find this template most helpful as a beginning- and end-of-day activity; for example, by stating intentional goals and writing them down at the beginning of the day and then taking the time to reflect on what was actually accomplished by the end of each day, the leader can make adjustmen
ts to how best to plan for the following days.
FIGURE 1.4: Sample daily time log template.
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/PLCbooks for a free reproducible version of this figure.
For example, in figure 1.4, the leader’s intentional focus was supposed to be on supporting, observing, and learning more about classroom practice. The principal feels that she is not spending enough time observing student work, interacting with students in the classroom, or observing classroom instructional practices; she would also like the collaborative team with which she is working to focus more on discussions of instruction. Despite the principal’s stated focus for day one, she did not spend her time aligned with this focus. What can she learn from this for the next day? By reflecting at the end of each day on where she spent her time, she can see quickly if her intentions are aligned to her goals. In our example (figure 1.4), it is clear that on day one, the principal did not meet her goal of spending the majority of her time in classrooms and with collaborative teams. By taking the time to reflect at the end of the day, the principal has the opportunity to make adjustments to her focus for day two or consider ways to create more opportunities to meet her goal. For example, as she sees how much time she has spent sitting at her desk responding to emails, she is able to intentionally move away from her desk and be in classrooms and meetings on day two. Without this type of personal accountability, intentions do not inform our practices. Using figure 1.4 (visit go.SolutionTree.com/PLCbooks to download the free reproducibles in this book), log what you spend your time on at school over two or three days. Consider the categories in figure 1.4 and add any additional task categories, such as data analysis, facility management, student activities (sports, arts, and other activities), family meetings and engagements, planning, telephone calls, and so on. Use whatever categories you feel represent where you spend your time, and then reflect on where you’ve spent time over several days.
What pattern do you see? Does how you used your time reflect what you prioritize as important work in your school? Are there items you could delegate or involve others in to help you create time for the important things? Have you established what is loose and tight to share leadership in your school?
Always remember, time is a variable, not a fixed asset. The U.S. Department of Defense Education Activity (2016) created an education activity focused on PLCs titled Professional Learning Communities: Guidance for Collaboration Time. This document provides guidance regarding the actions that principals and leadership teams can take to support the development, implementation, and evaluation of PLCs. The suggestions that table 1.1 outlines require an abundance of time and energy from leaders. These are only a sample of the leadership shifts required to ensure effective implementation of PLCs, but they offer a good place to start when analyzing your intentional use of time as a leader. Consider the way you spend your time currently. Is it focused on actions like those in table 1.1? If so, how can you enhance what you are currently doing? If not, what are you doing that you can stop doing to allow for more time to focus on moving your collaborative teams forward in their work aligned to the PLC tenets?
TABLE 1.1: Guidance for Collaboration Time
Stages and Purposes
Suggested Actions for the Principal and Guiding Coalition
Stage 1: Launching the PLC Work: Establish a Sense of Urgency
Purpose: To increase professional collaboration focused on instruction and student results
• Share schoolwide data highlighting any urgent areas in need of improvement.
• Facilitate teamwork to align school and district visions, and to ensure that school vision meets criteria for an effective vision.
• Communicate expectation for collaborative teams to maintain meeting minutes and share them with key leaders.
• Share the school vision with the full school community once the statement is approved.
• Provide research and readings that highlight the way teams work and their potential impact on instruction. Establish a common purpose for the work of teams.
• Design a master instructional schedule (with feedback from all staff) to provide adequate meeting time for teams. Set consistent “sacred” time for these meeting sessions.
• Ensure that teams set norms that enable their work to be productive and unfold in a nonthreatening environment.
• Ensure that team members know that data analysis is for the purpose of improving student performance.
• Assist teams in setting agendas initially, gradually releasing this responsibility to the team.
• Lead discussions on characteristics of high-performing teams and how they increase student achievement.
Stage 2: Analyzing Data and Setting Targets
Purpose: To develop a culture of data-based instructional decision making and continuous evaluation of progress across the cycle of learning and working together
• Lead the guiding coalition in setting schoolwide improvement targets and preparing charts, graphs, and tables of data to be used at team meetings.
• Ensure that team performance targets are aligned with continuous school improvement goals (not separate targets).
• Present approved schoolwide targets to teams.
• Provide necessary professional development in effective data analysis.
• Review each list of targets to be certain that targeted percentages and numeric increases are sufficient to make progress and are aligned with schoolwide targets. Provide data for grade levels, subjects, and courses.
• Lead a review of each list of targets to be certain that targeted increases are sufficient for the school to make progress to achieve schoolwide goals.
• Coordinate integration of specialists and support staff into team work.
Stage 3: Developing Focus and a Process for Monitoring Progress
Purpose: To identify skills, conceptual understanding, and problem-solving needs and set appropriate targets
• Ensure that teachers understand the benefit of monitoring individual student progress.
• Establish a process for charting and monitoring class, grade, subject-area, and course performance data on a monthly basis to determine progress toward meeting targets.
Stage 4: Building and Sharing Standards-Based Lessons
Purpose: To ensure that teachers have the instructional resources necessary to address prioritized areas of need
• Advocate for any necessary adjustments to curriculum, pacing guides, and instructional materials that are highlighted through the work of teams.
• Provide professional learning on building and implementing common formative assessments.
• Develop or provide standards-based unit and lesson-design protocols and train teachers in their use. (Protocols should include specification of standards, assessments for learning, and methods of differentiation of instruction, rubrics, and materials.)
• Support development of collaboratively designed standards-based lessons that address specific student needs.
Stage 5: Implementing Collaboratively Designed Lessons and Monitoring Progress
Purpose: To ensure that the taught curriculum is well-planned, data based, and targeted to student needs
• Support teachers in researching strategies that improve student performance, particularly in areas of greatest need.
• Ensure that collaborative teams have access to protocols for scoring student work.
• Implement a process for collecting, charting, and monitoring classroom, grade, subject-area, and course performance data on a regular basis to determine progress toward meeting targets.
• Assist teams in problem solving around barriers to adjusting instruction to meet student needs.
• Create a schoolwide system of interventions and time for interventions in the school day.
• Allocate resources to support interventions.
• Ensure that there is a process by which counselors, students with disabilities, English learners, intervention spe
cialists, and parents regularly collaborate.
• Ensure that staff who provide interventions are qualified for the level of intervention needed.
Stage 6: Celebrating Success and Reviewing Progress of Collaborative Work
Purpose: To note small wins and use them as a platform from which to achieve greater gains
• Within the school, publicly celebrate examples of lessons that have helped students meet targets.
• Facilitate a process for communicating students’ progress from grade to grade.
• Coordinate gatherings of parents and, at these gatherings, make student work and changes to instruction public. Develop a public relations plan to guide the process for sharing instructional successes with the broader community.
Source: Adapted from U. S. Department of Defense Education Activity, 2016.
Loose and Tight Leadership
In his bestseller, Leading With Focus, former administrator Mike Schmoker (2016) reminds us there is a need for simplicity. He states, “Simplicity demands that leaders incessantly clarify and reinforce these priorities…. Focused, straightforward efforts can enable leaders to achieve significant, transformative improvements within one or two school years” (p. 5). According to DuFour (2007), one way to ensure expectations are clear, but also offer some autonomy, is through simultaneously loose and tight leadership.
According to DuFour et al. (2016), the PLC process empowers educators to make important decisions and encourages their creativity and innovation in the pursuit of improving student and adult learning. Aspects of teaching and learning in which educators are empowered to make important decisions are said to be loose. Elements of the PLC process that are tight are non-negotiables; everyone in the school is required to adhere to those elements.
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