When a parent walks into your school, they will be able
to tell what your school values by what is in your trophy case. Will they know what makes your school a great
place? Will they know what the hopes and dreams are for your students? We subconsciously communicate to our
community what our school values by what we choose to celebrate.
With all the noise of modern educational initiatives, it
is easy for our true values and vision to get lost in translation. Do we succumb to the ever present pull of
current initiatives and focus on TPEP, CCSS, STEM, evolving changing graduation
requirements, adequate funding, charter schools or, do we focus on our core
mission…ensuring the learning of every child?
At the heart of every learning community’s effort to meet its core purpose
endures the pressing challenge of establishing and holding true to its sense of
vision and mission—to make certain that ensuring high levels of learning for
each child does not become a hollow axiom.
In the White River School District, we acknowledge where
we need to grow, where we are good, and further acknowledge that being good is
the enemy of great. As much as
discussions and acknowledgement help unify and focus a staff, there exists a
need for purposeful and ongoing action.
The “expectation-acceptance gap” represents the difference between what
we say we expect and what we truly accept. The gap is caused by excuses, both stated and
unstated. If ensuring high levels of
learning for all students is our mission then, what are we willing to do about
it? We must realize that the challenge
is not that we do not know what to expect; the challenge is, all too often,
what we silently choose to accept.
In Eaker and Keating’s (2008) article “A Shift in
Culture,” they ask specific questions that uncover the importance of why we
must chose to unify around shared values:
What do we do when a student is not meeting standard? What do we do when a staff member is not
meeting standard? What are we willing to
promote, protect, and defend? What are
we willing to commit to and insist upon?
What are our core responsibilities? The answers establish our collective
commitments. Creating, upholding, and
celebrating written collective commitments as a staff, unifies and focuses a
team’s work around a shared vision.
The following are two examples of establishing collective
commitments in the White River School District: Mountain Meadow in 2009 and
Glacier Middle School in 2011.
Mountain
Meadow Elementary
As Mountain Meadow Elementary staff endeavored to breathe
life into their mission, they built shared knowledge and discovered there was
no one right way of creating collective commitments, but there were best
practices. In Revisiting Professional Learning Communities at Work, DuFour,
DuFour, and Eaker (2008) illustrated the following ideas:
·
Commitment
statements must link directly to the vision and mission statements.
·
Use
direct language.
·
Focus
on behavior statements, not belief statements.
What we truly value is reflected in
what we are committed
to do. We can control behavior, not
beliefs.
·
Commitments
must focus on one's self, rather than others.
·
Write
commitments in action-oriented “We will…” statements.
·
Regularly,
and publicly, memorialize and celebrate commitments.
The key to collective commitment fruition lay in building
the shared knowledge of a guiding coalition (the building leadership team),
seeking their guidance at implementation, memorializing the commitments, and
consistently revisiting our commitments through celebration of their attainment. During a Mountain Meadow team leader meeting,
they discussed how to share the collective commitments effectively with the
staff. The leadership team decided that
each team leader would meet with a mixed grade level team during the first part
of a staff meeting. During this time,
they built the shared knowledge of the staff; teaching their colleagues about
collective commitments and how the commitments bring life to the school’s
mission. Following this time, the team
leaders shared the working draft of the collective commitments and sought their
colleagues' input. The staff
wholeheartedly embraced the key ideas of the commitments, which follow.
The Mountain Meadow Learning Community will…
1. respectfully
collaborate around revising and informing our instruction based on learning data and standards
2. proactively and
intentionally work with all learners and provide extra time and support
3. make learning targets
clear to help each learner achieve standard and reach the target
4. model lifelong learning
and the commitment to quality work with continual growth
5. actively involve
parents and community in the learning process
Glacier
Middle School
Staff
was engaged in a back to school meeting in August where we focused on
developing a collective set of commitments that focused on individual adult
behaviors which fostered student learning. The first step was to develop shared
knowledge with staff by reading Eaker and Keating’s article (2008). Staff was
asked to reflect on how they would need to behave if they were going to become
the school they wanted to become. In a jigsaw, activity staff developed a
series of commitments that reflected professional dispositions that would
foster and support students at Glacier Middle School. In a group discussion,
they analyzed the work of the
group by asking the following questions:
a. What collective commitments did the group
feel were the most important? Why?
b. Were there any commitments that people
could not commit to? If so, why?
c. Are these commitments specific enough
about how we will behave as a group?
d. Are we leaving any commitments out that
need to be included?
Upon concluding this conversation, they were able to
narrow their commitments to a handful, which are listed below.
GMS
Collective Commitments
1. We commit to modeling PROFESSIONALISM. This means bringing our best each day, engaging in
school-wide collaboration, and celebrating!
2. We commit to setting nothing less than High
expectations. This
means setting high standards, holding students accountable for learning,
expecting all students to do their personal best every day, and inspiring all
students to be in control of their own education.
3. We commit to the use of RIGOR in our lessons. This means seeking opportunities to implement
higher level thinking skills: analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
4. We commit to using effective teaching STRATEGIES. This means will implement
and share a variety of teaching strategies with team and in our classroom.
5. We commit to using LEARNING TARGETS. This means providing student friendly learning
targets with checks for understanding & providing clear learning targets
for each lesson.
6. We commit to having a unified RESPONSE TO INTERVENTION. This means identifying students most in
need, approaching formative assessment with a commitment to address student
misconceptions (skill gap), frequently checking student progress and respond
accordingly, using data from quick check for planning and enrichment
activities, and using assessment scores to drive teaching practices
7. We commit to establishing RESPECTFUL RELATIONSHIPS. This means treating all students dignity
respect, building empowering relationships with positive interaction with
students, believing in every student, creating a caring culture by greeting
students with a smile and enthusiasm ‘I-Can’ mentality, and engaging each
student before class.
8. We commit to showing COMPASSION to all of our students. This means each student receives
a clean slate every day and promoting and model a culture of acceptance and
compassion.
9. We commit to keeping our students SAFE. This means speaking positively in all environments with all
student staff and parents, empowering students with social skills that will
create a positive environment, building physical and emotional safety, and
creating and maintaining an environment where students and staff feel safe and
valued.
Memorializing & Sustaining Collective
Commitments
The collaborative
creation of collective commitments will bolster the shared vision of one’s
learning community. If teams stop at the
creation of collective commitments, the shared vision will erode over time. Both Mountain Meadow and Glacier regularly
revisit their commitments. Both teams
memorialized their commitments through art.
The Mountain Meadow staff created and installed a mural in the school’s
main hallway, while the Glacier staff collaboratively created a visual
representation of each commitment, which is prominently displayed in their
library. Each school’s principal makes a
concerted effort to publicize how an individual or team has personified one of
the school’s commitments each week in the staff bulletin. Moreover, they regularly honor teams and
individuals whose efforts are enduring exemplars of their commitments through
Collective Commitment Awards. For
example, Mountain Meadow’s first award recognized staff members who mentored a
struggling reader. This student formerly
qualified for special services and went on to obtain the highest score in the
school on the state’s fifth grade reading assessment.
What’s
in Your Trophy Case?
Eaker and Keating wrote, “The challenge of changing
culture is the challenge of changing behavior, of persuading people to act in
new ways.” Though a noble goal, working
to ensure the learning of all students cannot come to realization without a
clear shared vision, an articulated mission, and collective commitments to
act. Collaboratively creating and
sustaining a schools vision, mission, and collective commitments creates and
sustains powerful unified action.
Adam Uhler, Principal
Mountain
Meadow Elementary
360-829-6046
Greg Borgerding Ed.D., Principal
Glacier
Middle School
360-829-6158
References:
DuFour,
R., Eaker, R., & DuFour, R. (2008). Revisiting professional learning communities
at work: New insights for improving schools. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.
Earker,
R. & Keating, J. (2008). A Shift in
Culture: Collective commitments focus on change that benefits student
learning. Journal of Staff Development,
29 (3), 14-17.
