EDU 6600 Communication Collaboration Initial Reflection

I work at one of two middle schools in my district.  Unfortunately, one of the middle schools represents the higher income, newer homes in the area while the other represents the lower income, older homes and apartments.  I work in the later. We have often been told that expectations for our students should not be as high as the other school. But, as a staff, we haven’t believed that. We believe that we are here to help our students reach those higher expectations.  Our principal has lead us in this direction by insisting that In all of our decisions we put students in the middle. As a result this past year, our scores multiple test were close if not higher than those of the other school. We have been able to do this by having the belief that our students can meet the high expectations we have set and we have put in supports to help them get there.

We have two main teams that help us do this.  The first is our Instructional Leadership Team (ILT).  In our school district we have Instructional Leadership Teams (ILT) that were put in place with the intent of having a organizational-wide source of power and influence that is seen in Model 2 of distributed leadership described by Hilty in our reading.  Our ILT members are department heads. They are responsible for recommending leadership and activity budgets, school schedule, plans for professional development days. Before these decisions are made they get input from the people

who have been assigned to them on our “communication tree”.  Often our principal will go to them if he needs help problem solving as well. We have found the this helped all staff feel like they have influence without all of being in a room. In addition, ILT members facilitate training for their

departments.based on the training they received at district trainings. For the last two years it has been centered around formative assessment and planning lessons backwards.  By discussing these in department groups members are able to get ideas from others and see things from other perspectives as well as the support to try new things.

Our other team that is school-wide is our PBIS team.  This one acts more like Model 3 of distributed leadership which is a hybrid of Model 1 and Model 2.  For the most part this team is made up of people who are not on the ILT team. On this team each person signs up for a role or backups role such as a facilitator, reporter, analyst, etc.  By having backups we can ensure that we have people who can step in as needed or if someone leaves there is someone to step in and takeover the job as well as train others. Therefore, it is “providing some insurance that the functions would be performed if there were turnover in personnel or if particular individuals failed to do their part”.  (pg. 173) Additionally, it spreads the wealth making the jobs easier and by having a larger number of

teachers represented it is easier to sell our vision. This team also problem-solves how to make our school more friendly and how to teach expected behaviors by our students. For example, we are currently working on the following identified issues for Tier 2 students:  What activities will be offered to students when the weather turns bad? How do we make check in/checkout work more effectively? How can we set up a check and connect? How can we provide mentoring? How can we re-teach BEARS (Be Here, Excellent, Accepting, Respectful and Safe) behaviors? Additionally, we have brought in experts to helps us as a staff work with those Tier 2 students.  This is especially important with the emphasis on restorative justice. During this trainings our PBIS team spreads out throughout the room to not only influence others, but also to take notes of the private thoughts of others so they can be addressed.

Resources

Hirsch, S., & Hord, S. (2010, August). Building hope, giving Affirmations: learning communities that address social justice issues bring equity to the classroom.  (4), 10-17.

Smylie, M. A., Conley, S., & Marks, H. M. (n.d.). Exploring new approaches to teacher leadership for school improvement. In New Approaches to Teacher Leadership. (pp. 162- 188).