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