The Method to My Madness Rapid City Area Schools Administrative Retreat August 9, 2010

Communicate The Organization’s Purpose Leading a successful enterprise calls upon everyone to know the organization’s purpose. Public education has to be clear in its purpose if schools are to grow and prosper.

RCAS Mission Building a community of life long learners, one student at a time.

RCAS Vision All Rapid City Area School students will achieve to their full potential.

My Personal Vision To embrace learning rather than teaching as a school’s mission, to work collaboratively to help all students learn, to focus on results to foster continuous improvement and to assume individual responsibility to take steps to create such a school.

Balanced Leadership-Six Areas of Superintendent Responsibilities 1.Collaborative goal-setting process 2.Non-negotiable goals for achievement and instruction 3.Board alignment with and support of district goals 4.Use of resources to support the goals for achievement and instruction 5.Monitoring goals for achievement and instruction 6.Defined autonomy: Superintendent relationship with schools

Collaborative Goal Setting Researchers found that effective superintendents include all relevant stakeholders, including central office staff, building level administrators and board members, in establishing goals for their districts

Non-Negotiable Goals Effective superintendents ensure that the collaborative goal setting process results in non-negotiable goals in the areas of student achievement and classroom instruction

Board Alignment and Support The board of education must act in alignment with and supportive of the non-negotiable goals for achievement and instruction

Monitoring Goals Effective superintendents continually monitor district progress towards achievement of goals to ensure that these goals remain the driving force behind the district’s actions

Use of Resources Effective superintendents ensure that the necessary resources are allocated to accomplish district goals. This does mean cutting back on and dropping initiatives that are not aligned with district goals for achievement and instruction

Defined Autonomy Effective superintendents ensure clear, non-negotiable goals for learning and instruction are in place and provide school leadership teams with the responsibility and authority for determining how to meet those goals

Purposeful Community A purposeful community is one with the collective efficacy and capability to develop and use assets to accomplish purpose and produce outcomes that matter to all community members through agreed-upon process

Agreed-upon Processes Are the processes that lead to patterns of communication, relationships among community members, a sense of well- being, connections between the school and other institutions, shared leadership opportunities, and a sense of order and discipline

The Three C’s of Community Building Confront the Brutal Facts Communication (Effective) Collaboration

Confront the Brutal Facts Create a culture where the truth is heard! Includes four basic practices: Lead with questions, not answers Engage in dialogue and debate, not coercion Conduct autopsies, without blame Build red flag mechanisms that turn information into information that cannot be ignored

Communication “I wonder how many children’s lives would be saved if we educators disclosed what we knew to each other" Roland Barth (2001)

Communication Superintendent Website –Community Blog –Staff Blog –Twitter Feed –Streaming Video Presentation –Presentations –Links

Collaborative Culture “Successful schools are places where teams of teachers meet regularly to focus on student work through assessment and change their instructional strategies accordingly to get better results” Fullan

Collaborative Culture Five Ways to Build a Culture of Collaboration –Focus on Clear Outcomes –Expand Leadership Opportunities –Create Meaningful Opportunities for Work –Coordinate Efforts –Celebrate the Work of Others

Big Ideas #1-Focus on Learning: Are We Clear as to Our Purpose #2-Collaborative Culture: Staff Working Together Staff Working Together #3-Govern by Results

Building Capacity Fullan (2006) defined capacity building as an action based and powerful strategy that increases the collective efficacy of a group to improve student learning through new knowledge, enhanced resources and greater motivation on the part of people working individually and together

Building Capacity To create conditions for people to succeed by helping people find meaning, increase their skill development and their personal satisfaction while they make contributions that simultaneously fulfill their goals and the goals of the organization

Learning is Our Work “Educational change depends on what teachers do and think—it is as simple and complex as that” Fullan

Learning is Our Work The best way to improve a school or district is by developing the people within it!!

What does this all mean??? We need to implement a strategic approach to create an environment of high quality learning Critical Steps: Point to the Destination Script the Critical Moves Build New Habits

Final Thought When you have to make a tough decision it doesn’t matter what you decide, “Because you are WRONG!” So do what you think is RIGHT!