"Go Out the Door You Came In"

My father-in-law is famously known within our family for his wise old sayings.  One of our favorite wise old saying is based on an old superstition--"You gotta go out the door you came in".  Usually he makes this statement as he's trying to figure out which door we entered.

This particular saying has had new meaning for me as I think about my  exit strategy, transitioning from one principalship to another.   In my post last week I wrote about the lack of writing about exit plans in contrast to the large amounts of writing about entry plans for leaders.

When I entered my principalship, four years ago, I started my entry plan four months before I even started the position with a focus on listening to students, teachers and parents as I learn about the culture of my new school.   This strategy paid major dividends as I learned about the culture, connected with many people in my new community and learned about the strengths and needs of the school.  My entry plan was a great strategy to help us connect as a school and help me integrate into the community and move forward.

Now as I think about exiting my principalship and setting the school in a place to continue to move forward, my father-in-law's saying has helped me to prioritize my focus for the exit plan--"You gotta go out the door you came in".   The most important thing that I can do as I transition is to exit the same way that I entered, to listen to the needs of students, teachers and parents.  Here are some ways that I can listen...

1.  Listen to the fears, uncertainty and concerns of folks about the transition of leadership
2.  Listen to what people and programs need in order to continue to be successful during the transition.
3.  Listen for the issues that people are worried will be forgotten during the transition.

My goals for exiting are to make sure people feel supported and to make sure the school is ready for a successful transition.  In order to accomplish these goals, I think I have to "go out the door I came in".

Exit Strategy

Last week I accepted the offer to become principal at Newton North High School beginning in July.   While I am excited for the opportunity transitioning into this new position, I will miss my students and colleagues in Bedford.  I owe it to my students and colleagues to first fmake sure that I leave Bedford in a great position for the next principal before I focus my attention on my new position. When I started to research effective strategies for leaders to transition out of their position, I found very little literature on the subject.  In comparison, there are some excellent resources about Entry Planning for new leaders, particularly by Barry Jentz.  Because of the lack of writing on Exit Plans, I feel like I am navigating this path blindly.  Surely, every leader leaves their position at some point, so are there particular issues that leaders must commonly worry about as they transition out of their school?   Based on this question, I have decided to blog my experience as I exit one school and transition to the next stage of my career.

The only quality resource that I found regarding leadership transition is described in   Andy Hargreaves and Dean Fink's Sustainable Leadership.  Hargreaves and Fink argue that leaders should plan for succession even at the beginning stages of their leadership.   Their general guidelines include identifying potential successors and managing changes to ensure that they are sustainable beyond your tenure.  Hargreaves and Fink provide an excellent resource to help leaders to create a school culture focused on sustainable improvement. While these general ideas are useful for leaders during their principalship, they still lack a clear guideline for the last few months before a principal exits in the same way that Jentz provides a framework for a principal's entry.

For exiting principals who care about the success of the future of their schools, it seems essential that the school culture remains strong when they transition into their new roles.  There are too many anecdotal stories of schools declining after the departure of a successful principal. I currently work in a fantastic school and I want to make sure that it remains fantastic as a new leader embarks on their own leadership journey.  Over the next few months I will use this blog to share the story of my exit.   Hopefully, this blog will create a forum for members of my Professional Learning Community to learn and share about the important steps of Exiting.

Generally here are the priority steps that I am currently thinking about regarding my exit.

1.  Take care of your people--People can find change unsettling and grow nervous with a change in leadership.   Therefore, whether they are sad, scared, angry or happy about my exit, my job is to make sure they feel supported and heard during my exit.

2.  Evaluate collaborative structures--This may be a personal endeavor since I spent my principalship developing and ensuring the sustainability of collaborative structures.  Hargreaves and Fink argue that collaborative structures help to ensure sustainable progress in schools.  As I transition out of Bedford, it seems pertinent to make sure that the foundations for these collaborative structures are healthy.  Surveying staff and interviewing a range of collaborative teams at BHS could be helpful strategies to assess these structures and provide helpful data for the next principal.

3.  Address potential pitfalls  for the next principal--Hargreaves and Fink argue that a principal does not work in a vacuum, but as a part of a continuum of their predecessor and successor.  In keeping with this perspective, there were difficult situations that were left over from the previous principal and there will be difficult situations that my successor will have to handle.  Nevertheless, I should try to minimize the immediate crises that my predecessor inherits.

4.  Help others develop their own transition plans--A common comment overheard about leadership change is "the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know".  One way to help to address the kind of anxiety within this statement is to help others develop a transition plan so that they are prepared for the next "devil" or principal.

I will write more about these ideas in the coming weeks.  I invite others to share their ideas of Exit strategies.  

Give Teachers Options

A few weeks back we had a full day professional day for teachers and staff that was focused on providing a more inclusive school for all students.  The professional day focused on four topics:  Social and Emotional Learning, Student learning about Race, English Language Learners and Supporting Transgender and gender questioning students.   The key questions around these topics were: what is one action that we can take "tomorrow' in response to these issues? and 2. What is a longer term action that we can take as an institution to support students around these issues?

The format of the day was to have a presentation on each topic by a pair of teachers and then provide an opportunity for faculty members to process the information further.  The presenter provided a 40 minute presentation, which included student perspectives on the topic.

Teachers had opportunities to choose their own way to process for a half-hour after each presentation. The options to process included:

1.  Go for a walk and process on you own.

2.  Have informal conversations with colleagues

3.  Participate in a facilitated discussion for people who feel like beginners on this topic

4.  Participate in a facilitated discussion for people who feel like experts on this topic

It was a risk for us to take on four very heavy topics in one day, but I think it worked because we gave so much time to process and various opportunities to process.  Additionally, teachers were very appreciative of the different opportunities.  Having observed the beginner and expert discussions, these discussions helped to further learning for all by scaffolding.  During the beginner session the facilitator answered questions and provided basic steps in creating a safe learning environment.  The advanced sessions allowed veteran teachers to further their understanding on each topic and discuss strategies that can be used to help our school move forward.  During the expert race discussiojn, for example,  teachers discussed strategies to empower students to be leaders in addressing issues of race in our school.  

Allowing teachers different options to process allowed us to scaffold learning and teachers were able to choose the option that worked best for their learning style.  Furthermore, one of the positive bits of feedback for the day was that teachers felt respected in having their own way to process.  Many teachers participated in the different discussions.  

Small Changes Can Make a Big Impact

We are taking on so many big challenges in education, such as closing achievement gaps, integrating technology and addressing the increasing complexity of our students needs, that we can easily become overwhelmed and believe that a big challenge requires a big change.  Too often schools take on big changes and instantly recognize how unwieldy and problematic the big change has become.  Too often we see these attempts at big change in schools and too often we hear from veteran staff members that if they wait out the change long enough it will just go away.

 John Kotter was one of the foundational authors during my training to become a school leader.  In the program we spoke endlessly about transformative change and making big changes permanent--2nd order change.  Kotter focused on the leader's role in leading these big changes, including creating a vision and gaining buy in from staff.  Recently I have more questions about  Kotter's ideas about transformation and wonder if small shifts can lead to more sustainable transformation than a large overwhelming change.  Where large changes require a major overhaul of culture and practice, small changes all for teachers to focus and take their time as they make sense of the change.  Ultimately, this small shift allows educators time to adapt to the change and implement the change in their classrooms.  Small changes helps staff build energy to take on other small changes.

A few months a go, president Obama was interviewed on Mark Maron's "WTF", in which he compared change to a boat making a 1 degree turn.  With the analogy he described that while you may not see the immediate impact of the change as you move further out into see you will realize that you landed in a different place because of that turn.  Granted, the U.S. government is much larger and more complex than a school.  However, with our complexity this analogy may hold true for schools as well.

Questions I'm still pondering--

Can small changes make big impacts?
Are a lot of small changes more significant than one large change in a school?
If we focused on making small changes in our practice would we be able to address the needs of more students?
If we focused on making small changes in our practice would we feel more empowered to take risks with our teaching practice?

I Believe in You

During of the first days of school in my 7th grade math class  I experienced an important moment when a teacher told me how much he believed in me.  During that Math class I remember my previous year's Math teacher, Mr. Kaplan, pull me out of the class and ask me "why" I was sitting in this class. I must have had a confused look on my face because he quickly responded "you're in the wrong class, you're supposed to be in pre-Algebra, I know you can do it".  Whether it was a scheduling era or a some other mistake, he was telling me that I was supposed to be in the higher level math class instead of the class that I was currently sitting in.  Immediately he told me that he was placing me in the pre-Algebra section.  This could have easily been a scheduling error, but I also could have been sitting in a lower level class the entire year if he had not pulled me out.  To me this is less of a story about Math leveling in 7th grade, but more about my teacher telling me that he believed in me.  I never forgot this story and in many ways I became a more serious student after he raised the bar of expectations for me.

As we move into the first days of school, here's to all of the wonderful teachers who set the bar high for their students and know that they will jump over the bar.  Setting these high expectations is the way to closing all achievement gaps.   To reinforce this message watch Dalton Sherman's message to the teachers of Dallas USD on the first day of school.

Creating more upstanders

This past week the district principals and central office administrators met with the teachers involved in the District Equity and Diversity Committee to discuss next steps in moving our district forward around Cultural Proficiency.   

Through the organization of this committee, over the past three years educators throughout the district have worked together  to discuss and learn about creating a culture that is physically and emotionally safe for all students by standing up to hateful acts and addressing acts that can be viewed as insensitive or offensive.  Over this time we have learned about important teaching strategies, such as "assuming good intentions" and "asking a curious question" when potentially insulting comments are made.  For example, if someone makes a stereotyping or potentially hurtful comment, to respond by asking "what did you mean by that" and "why do you think someone may find that comment offensive" instead of making an immediate judgement and shutting the student down.  

As a response to this professional development and due to the strong culture already existing in our school,  I have seen teachers take courageous risks and incorporate these strategies in their classrooms and in the hallways.  Through these courageous conversations, they engage with students around the topic of difference and use student comments to serve as launching pads to help kids grow and become more culturally aware.  While these responses by teachers have been impressive, we need to continue to model to our students and empower them to stand up when they hear comments when they are with their friends.  

One way to empower students is to encourage them to be upstanders in their school and address these comments and acts in the same way that the Equity and Diversity Committee has been encouraging educators to respond to comments. As one of our teachers said, we need to provide PD for our students on how to become more culturally proficient.

Being an upstander around issues of difference is no different that being an upstander in a bully free zone.  Upstanders in a culturally proficient school and in a bully free zone are:

*  Willing to step in and stop a bullying or hate incident

*  Willing to ask a curious question

*  Willing to be an ally to a victim or target

*  Willing to tell a teacher or administrator about a situation

*  Willing to promote a school culture that celebrates differences

Please feel free to add additional actions in the comments section

If you are interested in understanding more about students are standing up to hateful comments and bullying,  check out the "Not in My Schools" Organization 

How do we create more upstanders in schools?

EdCamp Leadership--Bring in the Disconnected!!

Last week, Bedford High School was one of 16 sites around the world that participated in EdCamp Leadership.  This was an amazing event of learning and sharing between educators.  One of the major accomplishments of EdCamp Leadership Boston was the large number of participants who have never participated in an EdCamp or are not connected to social media as a professional learning tool.

While EdCamps are popular among the connected educators, we should be looking to pull in educators who may not regularly participate in social media.  One of the challenges of connected education, is the large amount of agreement happening on social media.  Learning happens when we are challenged.  Therefore, the more diverse opinions that connect to social media the more improved learning we will experience.

The diversity of opinion that was present at EdCamp Leadership Boston helped make the event an exceptional learning experience for all of the participants.  Digital converts learned from folks who are skeptical of the digital change as much as the skeptics learned from the converts.  Diversity of opinion is the power of learning and the power of EdCamp.