Friday, June 27th update

The last week of June is here and I wanted to say hello with this week's Friday update.
After starting the hiring process in April, we are just about done solidifying all of our new staff.
We will have 20 new staff members joining our Northstar family when all is said and done, Wow!

Our PSI (Personalized Summer Institute) offerings in August have now been posted and can be found at 
http://goo.gl/Rem2I7

It has been nice to keep in touch with many of you on my twitter feed @jlandish13. Talk about a wonderful, built-in professional learning network. I hope to see more of you joining in on the learning and connecting so you don't get completely "out of shape" this summer. After all, how else would we know that @juliekabitzke got a bling-ed out chicken coop or that our very own @dalevankeuren is now a Google Certified Teacher? Yes, both are true!

Enjoy the week and I will check in again on the 4th.

Scaling Up Excellence

How could I not I read this book? The title had me hook, line and sinker. Who wouldn't want to figure out how to scale excellence? 

Organizations that spread and sustain excellence are infused with a "relentless restlessness"- that often uncomfortable urge for constant innovation, driven by the nagging feeling that things are never quite good enough. I have come to the conclusion that I have this "RR" syndrome!

Scaling requires never leaving well enough alone. It means constantly seeking and implementing better ways of thinking and acting across all corners of the system. Scaling starts and ends with individuals- success depends on the will and skill of people at every level of an organization. Scaling requires leaders to find or develop pockets of excellence, connect people and teams, and ensure that excellence continues to flow through those ties.

Also, never forget, if you want a mindset to stick, you've got to pummel people with multiple messages and exposures to get people to remember, accept, and live it.

Friday Update- June 20th

As part of my weekly Friday updates, I thought I might as well put my thoughts to Blogger rather than an email. I am hoping this will not only model the use of blogging as a communication tool, but it will extend the reach of communication beyond the wonderful @WaukeshaNorth1 staff.

This was our first full week of not having school, not sure that it has set in for me yet.

I was in the Dells for 3 days with a district team from @Waukeshaschools learning from @joeschroeder23 in a School Administrators Institute for Leadership Transformation. We learned about an improvement process designed around a theory of action using a set of underlying assumptions about how we will move our organization from its current state to its desired future. These strategies and practices are high leverage for achievement and equity and are powerful enough to transform programs and practices seeing positive growth in student results.

Our draft theory of action looked something like this:

If administrators, coaches, and teachers are knowledgeable about intentional instructional practices that lead to high levels of literacy, and they participate in ongoing professional development and training, and regularly collect, analyze and act on data (student achievement and program data) and if teachers receive timely and effective coaching/feedback (EE) THEN... our system will have stronger sources of data (student achievement AND Program data: WT), teachers will increase their levels of self-efficacy and performance, and students will demonstrate higher levels of performance in literacy.  

A theory of action is all about a proposed strategy (if we do this...), then "X" will happen, and we will see this result in..."Y". Easier said than done!

We do know that when the quality and competence of our teachers improves, so does student achievement. Our July literacy training will start to develop and refine our literacy best instructional practices so that we can become a high-performing school. We are also excited to announce our new Reading specialist, @wienke_jennifer and are excited about her leadership and expertise!

More next week. Enjoy the weekend!

JL