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Strong communication between school staff and families is important in any school and has special relevance for schools committed to anti-bias education.

Communication built on misinformation, assumptions or stereotypes can create distance between schools, families and students. If handled with respect and cultural sensitivity, however, school-family communication provides an opportunity to live out the values of inclusiveness and equity, which are at the heart of anti-bias education. The following guidelines can help schools avoid communication pitfalls and support teacher-family relationships built on respect:

Assume good intentions, and approach all families as partners who want the best for their children.

Invite parents or guardians to share knowledge about their students' lives, interests, hopes and struggles.

Invite parents or guardians to share information about family cultures and traditions.

Recognize and respect differences in family structures.

Recognize the role that identity and background may play in shaping relationships between teachers and families.

Bring a sense of self-reflectiveness and cultural humility to all conversations and interactions.

View linguistic, cultural and family diversity as strengths.

In addition to setting a tone of respect and inclusivity, strong communication with families also offers teachers an opportunity to invite family involvement and share curricular goals, materials and resources.

Connection to Anti-bias Education

Attending to culturally sensitive communication supports two of the four anti-bias domains: Identity and Diversity. Culturally relevant family engagement strategies communicate to students that their family identities are understood and valued. It also demonstrates respect for families with a diverse range of backgrounds and structures.

Strategies

Inclusive Terminology and Materials

Positive communication can be as simple as using inclusive language when writing and speaking to families. For example, instead of sending home a note that opens, "Dear Parents," use a greeting such as "Dear Families." All communication should be checked for assumptions about household resources, family traditions, cultural practices, political affiliations or other life circumstances. For instance, instead of asking for "mother's name" and "father's name" on a form, have a space for "names of parents/guardians."

Recognition of Key Relationships

Teachers should make a point of learning the central figures in each student's life-including those who may not be legal parents or guardians-and involving them as appropriate. This may include welcoming stepparents, parental partners (regardless of gender) or extended family members.

Use of Home Languages

Because language plays a crucial role in families' lives, teachers should communicate with parents in their home languages as much as possible. Whenever possible, family materials should be provided in students' home languages. When translation is needed, a school-provided translator should be employed, as asking students to translate can put them in an awkward position.

Beginning-of-the-Year Questionnaires or Conversations

Teachers can gather valuable information about students by connecting with parents and guardians early in the school year. Asking family members about students' strengths, challenges and lives outside of school-as well as about their own hopes and fears- provides important background, sets a collaborative tone and allows classroom practice to reflect student identities.

Incorporating family and community knowledge enhances student learning. Students possess tremendous experiential wisdom on issues related to identity, culture, history and justice. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, cousins, neighbors and community leaders frequently have stories to share about their lives and perspectives.

Family and community wisdom can put a personal face on historical or sociological material and help demystify unfamiliar topics, such as LGBT identity or living with a disability. Hearing from real people who have lived through eras of change or participated in social justice movements can provide inspiration as well as information.

Students also carry knowledge of their families and communities inside themselves. Making room to share this knowledge supports the development of student identities.

Family assignments must be envisioned and explained in a culturally sensitive manner. A seemingly harmless activity, such as creating a family tree, can marginalize students whose biological relations are distant or unknown. Such assignments can be modified to recognize the key relationships in students' lives. Other ways to incorporate family and community wisdom into the curriculum include community surveys, student conversations with family members, interviews, guest speakers, video projects, art projects, memoir or other family-based writing, oral histories, learning from family members' professional experiences, and incorporating family or cultural perspectives into the analysis of texts.

Connection to Anti-bias Education

Drawing on students' family and community wisdom supports two of the four anti-bias domains: Identity and Diversity. By listening to the stories of their own families and communities, students can deepen their sense of self and make personal connections with historical, literary and sociological material. Hearing about different classmates' families and communities can also foster new perspectives on their own experiences and expand their understanding of other groups, cultures and communities.

Strategies

Family Interviews

Students can interview family members on a variety of issues such as historical events or eras, family experiences of justice or injustice, evolving cultural norms, social movements and identity. Interview format, questions and reporting practices should be customized based on grade level and educational goals.

Guest Speakers

Family and community members can visit the class to speak about a range of topics. Their connections to these issues may be personal, professional or both.

Community Research

Conducting community-based research can deepen students' understanding of social justice issues. This research might include opinion surveys or needs assessments, community interviews, visits to local sites or Internet research about community history.

As students learn and grow together over the course of weeks, months and years, parents and guardians can learn along with them. Strong connections give families the opportunity to support one another in nurturing their children's identities and values, adding richness to the work of anti-bias and social justice education.

There are lots of ways to bring families together, including in-school or community-based events, group email lists and social media. Teachers, school administrators, students, or parents and guardians can coordinate appropriate family connections based on the students' age and the composition of the community. Elementary school students, for example, may be more likely than high school students to enjoy attending events with their families. A given activity may resonate with some cultural communities more than others (though it might be good to offer "stretch" events as well). And some communities will have access to the technology and skills needed to support online interaction, while others will not.

Connection to Anti-bias Education

Building connections among families supports two of the four anti-bias domains: Identity and Diversity. This practice deepens students' awareness of the personal and cultural contexts that shape personal experience. It also provides a "learning lab" for introducing different family structures and traditions. Making the curriculum more visible to classroom families helps generate support for anti-bias education work and provides opportunities for families to work with their children on social justice issues. These connections can also foster diverse relationships that echo and strengthen key messages from the curriculum.

Strategies

Family Events

Events that bring students and families together include family potlucks or picnics; family affinity events (e.g., for families from a certain cultural or ethnic group, for LGBT families, for families of color, for adoptive families); showcases of student work; student or community performances; film nights; game nights; and cultural or multicultural events.

Parent/Guardian Education Programs

Educational programming supports community building and engages family members. Possible programs include films, speakers or discussions for parents and guardians on topics such as bullying prevention, identity development, racial experiences, gender expression, sexuality, learning differences and family diversity. Events may stand alone or be part of an ongoing series.

Family Service/Engagement Projects

Service projects can include family action days at the local food bank, working together on neighborhood political and social issues, attending community events such as Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations or LGBT Pride events, and fundraising projects for community causes.

Pooling Resources and Sharing Support

In addition to organizing or publicizing formal events, teachers can encourage families to connect informally to share information and resources and to support one another in times of need (e.g., the birth of a new baby or a death in the family). The school can foster this type of support by naming it as an explicit priority and creating a user-friendly contact list or online directory.

All local communities have valuable resources that can enhance teaching and learning on social justice topics, even if these resources are not always explicit or obvious. They include events, people, places and organizations.

Events. Cultural and community celebrations, commemorations, political actions, artistic events, performances, student conferences and community education events.

People. Elders, artists, musicians, researchers, community leaders, policymakers, journalists, advocates, local historians, cultural workers and everyday people who have experienced and worked on social justice issues.

Places. Museums, cultural centers, libraries, neighborhood landmarks, and sites of historical interest or struggle.

Organizations. Formal or informal groups engaged in relevant cultural, artistic, social or political projects.

Connection to Anti-bias Education

Drawing on local resources supports all four anti-bias domains: Identity, Diversity, Justice and Action. Witnessing marginalization, power dynamics and activism in their own communities strengthens personal connections with these curricular concepts. At a broader level, schools benefit from community connections and partnerships, and communities benefit when citizens are educated in matters of equity and justice.

Strategies

Classroom or School Presentations

Individuals or organizational representatives can be invited to speak about how their life or work experiences relate to social justice themes.

Neighborhood Explorations

Social-movement-based history and cultural knowledge often connect to specific cities and neighborhoods. For example, certain New York City neighborhoods offer windows into the lives of different immigrant groups during the 19th and 20th centuries. Montgomery, Ala., houses landmarks and monuments from the civil rights era. Visiting sites like these can add richness to students' curricular experiences. Neighborhood explorations can also be paired with classroom or school presentations.

Connecting with Community Organizations

Most cities and towns have local organizations that engage in cultural activities, community service efforts or social justice advocacy. Many of these organizations are happy to partner with schools, provide students with information and offer opportunities for students to participate in their projects.

A core component of anti-bias education is learning to take action against exclusion, prejudice and discrimination; it can be especially powerful for students to do this in their own schools and local communities.

Consider the following tips for ensuring that community engagement efforts reflect anti-bias values:

Create a community action project that addresses real needs. Community organizations can help articulate these needs and suggest ways to maximize students' time and talents.

Draw on students' knowledge of and personal connection to the issues involved. The more specific the project, the better.

Include a strong research component that ensures students' efforts to increase their knowledge and understanding are not simply based on what they already know.

Incorporate reflection about student attitudes to ensure the project doesn't reinforce assumptions or stereotypes about specific people or communities.

Provide writing prompts to help students consider personal changes they can make to challenge bias, exclusion and injustice.

Study the broader social context surrounding the community problem. Intervene if students "blame the victim" for challenges beyond individual control.

Use texts to spark student reflection about community challenges and issues.

Work "with," not "for," individuals or groups the class wants to support.

Connection to Anti-bias Education

Expecting students to engage directly with community issues and problems supports two of the four anti-bias domains: Justice and Action.

Strategies

Personal Action Plan

After reading about prejudice or discrimination, the Personal Action Plan assignment asks students to reflect on these issues in their own surroundings and explore how they might help make their school and community more welcoming, inclusive and equitable. The Personal Action Plan can focus on one particular topic (e.g., name-calling and bullying, peer culture, diversity of gender expression or LGBT issues), or it can be more general. Plans should focus on acts of personal change, and students should share their plans with classmates to build accountability for implementation.

"Fighting for Fairness" Letters

The Fairness Letter Project (Live Oak School, San Francisco, Calif.) asks students to identify an instance of unfairness in their school or community, research the issue and write an advocacy letter to a person or organization with power to change the situation. In addition to developing issue-based analysis and critical writing skills, this project requires students to evaluate how change happens and where they can best channel their efforts for maximum impact.

Student-Designed Community Projects

Any social justice issue could inspire an individual or group project designed to support local people. Possible projects include designing a public service announcement, conducting a survey or opinion poll, providing direct service through a community agency, creating a workshop or event or hosting a justice-themed art show.

Ongoing Partnerships with Community Organizations

Semester- or year-long community partnerships offer students a chance to establish continuity and deeper connections with particular issues, populations or projects. A partnership spanning multiple years gives each class a chance to build on previous classes' work, multiplying the impact.

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Strong communication between school staff and families is important in any school and has special relevance for schools committed to anti-bias education. Communication built on misinformation, assumptions or stereotypes can create distance between schools, families and students.

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December 2000/January 2001 | Volume 58 | Number 4
The Changing Context of Education Pages 6-11

Harold Hodgkinson

Teachers are, unfortunately, rarely invited to participate in policy discussions affecting their schools-either by local or state boards of education or by various legislative bodies, from state legislatures to the United States Congress. Over the last two decades, the field of demographics has become vitally important to education policymakers at all levels. What are the key demographics affecting educational policy? How can teachers make good use of demographics in their daily practice?

Key Demographics

Nothing is distributed evenly across the United States. Not race, not religion, not age, not fertility, not wealth, and certainly not access to higher education. For example, only five states will have a 20 percent (or more) increase in school enrollments; most states will have smaller increases and about nine states will have declines. "Tidal Wave II," as U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley likes to call the new increases in enrollments, is a statistical fiction for the vast majority of states.

But what will happen where you work? That depends on your state and your location. About one-quarter of Americans live in big cities, half live in suburbs, and a quarter live in small towns or rural areas. If you live in a central city in the eastern half of the country, you can expect almost no enrollment increases and some decreases. Those who can, flee to the suburbs.

The inner suburban ring (where there is nothing between you and the city limits) will see a major increase in student diversity-more minorities, more immigrants, more students learning English as a second language (ESL), and more students from poverty. Teaching in an inner suburb will increasingly resemble teaching in an inner city. The second suburban ring (with one suburb between you and the city) will see some expansion in student enrollments, especially as you reach the beltway, which used to contain growth-like a belt-but is now the jumping-off place for growth. In these areas, parents do not commute to the central city; they live in one suburb and work in another.

Finally, enrollments in small towns or rural areas will be flat. But these places will have increasingly large percentages of elderly people. Older residents tend to "age in place," and whereas the young move away, some elderly do seek out small-town life.

Inner cities in the West tend to be economically flexible and porous whereas those in the East and Midwest rigidly segregate low-income people in the cities. Racial and economic segregation are almost the same thing in the East and Midwest, which have the 10 most racially segregated cities in the nation; none of the 10 most racially segregated cities is in the South.

Consider another kind of diversity: the percentage of youth who by age 19 have graduated from high school and have been admitted to a college. Attaining this status is, of course, the American Dream. Some states have 65 percent of their 19-year-olds in this category whereas others have 25 to 30 percent-a range that is far greater than any differences in scores between the United States and other nations.

One form of diversity that affects every teacher is transiency. Although about 3 million children are born each year, up to 40 million Americans move in that same time period, making mobility far more important than births in explaining population changes. Many teachers have 22 students in the fall and 22 in the following spring, but 20 out of the 22 are different students. Hospitals in these regions spend most of their time taking case histories from strangers. Each Sunday, ministers preach to congregations, a third of whose members are new. Transiency also relates to crime-knowing your neighbor will prevent you from stealing his lawnmower.

In addition, the states with the lowest rates of high school graduation and college admissions are the five most transient states in the United States. Most migration occurs within the same state, but about 6 to 8 million people move to another state each year. People in the New England, middle Atlantic, and midwestern states are moving to the Southeast and Southwest. In addition, a million immigrants each year are settling mainly in California, Texas, and Florida.

Percentage Change in Public School 9-12 Enrollment, Fall 1995-Fall 2007

Race Facts

The nature of race is changing. Fact one: About 65 percent of America's population growth in the next two decades will be "minority," particularly from Hispanic and Asian immigrants. These groups have higher fertility rates than Caucasians, whose fertility level is too low to even replace the current population.

Fact two: The 2000 Census allows you to check as many race boxes as you wish. As a result, Tiger Woods, who is a "Cablinasian," will be able to check Caucasian, Black, Indian, and Asian. But how do we score his four checks? Does he count as four people? Is each check mark exactly one-quarter of Tiger? Can he be counted as white for housing surveys and black for civil rights actions?

Fact three: Three million black Hispanics in the United States, mostly dark-skinned Spanish speakers from the Caribbean, have checked black on the census form because Hispanic is not a race. Although race is vitally important politically, economically, and historically, it remains scientific nonsense-Office of Management and Budget Directive 15, the guide for the census for more than 20 years, states that the racial categories in the census have no scientific validity.

Fact four: At least 40 percent of all Americans have had some racial mixing in the last three generations-including President Bill Clinton and Martin Luther King, Jr.-but only 2 to 4 percent will admit it on Census 2000. The blurring of racial identity will grow rapidly, however; children of Asian and Hispanic immigrants are marrying out of their parents' heritage at rates between 30 to 60 percent. In the 1900 immigration wave, an Italian's marriage to a German was called miscegenation, and the families would not speak to each other. Today, only 15 percent of European Americans are married to a spouse from the same country of origin, and we laugh about this outdated notion. Soon, Asians and Hispanics may do the same.

Diversity is increasingly unevenly distributed. In fact, the 65 percent increase in diverse populations will be absorbed by only about 230 of our 3,068 counties; California, Texas, and Florida will get about three-fifths of the increase. Remember that more than half of our entire population lives in only nine states-those three, plus New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, and New Jersey-yet only California, Texas, and Florida are growing so quickly; the other six seem to be "wealthy but tired." Forty-one states compete for the other half of the population. Although we talk of "minority majorities," this phenomenon is only possible in a handful of counties. Whites will become a minority of the U.S. population around 2050, and you will have retired before then.

But the blurring of racial lines suggests the declining importance of race, and many people are lobbying for race data to be excluded from the next census because it tells many things that are not accurate. Most poor children in the United States are white, but a higher percentage of black and Hispanic kids are poor. Being black is no longer a universal handicap; over one-quarter of black households have a higher income than the white average, and rates of blacks who go to college and own homes continue to grow. But poverty is a universal handicap. If you have poor kids of diverse ethnicities as well as middle-class minorities in your classes, you know exactly what I mean.

Racial desegregation has not led to economic equality. Twenty percent of U.S. kids are below the poverty line today-exactly the same percentage as 15 years ago-even though most of the nation is less segregated and wealthier. This poverty rate is inexcusable in the wealthiest nation on earth. It is time to do what Kentucky has done-build an economic "floor" under every child in the state to equalize the investment in each child's education. That is economic desegregation, and many states are doing it. Our new understanding of the importance of children's preschool years has led many states to mandate a preschool program for all poverty-level children in the state, another attempt to equalize investment in every child and economically desegregate.

An Aging Population

We grow old. Although immigration and high minority fertility stall the trend, the U.S. population is steadily getting older, as are populations in other developed or industrialized nations. Census 2000 added an extra box for the state-your-age question because 57,000 Americans are now over 100 years of age, and 1.4 million are in their 90s. President Clinton, born in 1946 (a leading-edge baby boomer), will be 65 in 2011. By then, 65 will not be considered old-today, geriatrics defines middle age as 50 through 75 and old age as 75 and older. Of the baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, one in four will live past 85. Today, only one household in four has a child in the public schools.

President and Mrs. Clinton will soon have an empty nest when their daughter graduates from college and moves out. The question for schools: Will baby boomers (70 million of them) maintain their interest in public schools after their kids have left the educational system? Will they vote for bond issues for someone else's children? Or for raises for teachers to benefit someone else's children? The answer is key to the future of public school finance. Already, many school board meetings are dominated by today's much smaller group of citizens ages 65 and older who wish to be removed from the public school tax rolls. And remember the mantra from demographics to politics: As you get older, you vote more often. How will we convince seniors that their Social Security and Medicare trust funds will be replenished by today's high school students when they join the work force?

Differences in World Views

A final issue for teachers concerns the switch from race to national origin. This new category will tell much more about students and their parents. Knowing that students and parents are Hispanic tells very little-15 percent of California's Hispanics do not even speak Spanish. Knowing that they are Cuban or Panamanian tells lots more. The following is a collection of important differences in how people see the world.

The sense of time. Americans believe in the future as if it were a religion (except Californians, who seem to live in the eternal now). Many immigrants have a sophisticated sense of the past that puts us all to shame. Yet teachers usually motivate students on the grounds of a brighter future-when consistency with the past might be a better motivator for some students.

The sense of family. Whereas most Americans are only aware of their nuclear family (parents plus their children), some Americans are from extended families-for them, a loan to buy a house might come from an uncle; a medical problem might be solved by an aunt. The extended family provides comfort, stability, and many services that the U.S. government typically provides.

The sense of hierarchy. America is as "flat" as you can get on this score, but many newcomers are from rigidly structured societies in which children (and women) are considered inferior beings. Thus, the child enters school having been told by parents that teachers are authority figures. To show respect, they look at the floor when the teacher addresses them. Most teachers see this behavior as evasive and prefer students to look them straight in the eye, indicating honesty, trust, and interest in the class.

In many seminars, students are encouraged to disagree with their teachers to show their individuality. But in many nations and cultures, such behavior is called "putting yourself forward," often a major sin. Asian, Hispanic, and Native American kids seldom leap into the air, fists extended, saying "Yes! I'm wonderful!" Indeed, at one high school graduation I attended, the valedictorian downplayed her own talent and hard work, declaring that the award belonged to her entire family and that her family should be on the stage with her (they later joined her there). This behavior was not excessive modesty: The young lady truly believed that the honor was her family's achievement, not just her own.

Demographic Tips for Teachers

Some simple actions can help teachers work with the diverse students in their classrooms.

If a student is presented in records as "Hispanic," make sure you know what country that student's family is from, what language the family uses at home, and whether the parents also speak English and how well. If parents speak only Spanish and you speak none, try to get a colleague who is bilingual to be on the line during your first phone call home.

If a student won't look you in the eye during the first week of school, don't make a big deal of it in front of the class. Take a minute to ask the student about it privately.

Find out as soon as possible which of your students is new to the area and may need some help in getting settled. If half your students (or fellow teachers) are new in town, be prepared for some problems. Transiency often brings out the worst in people at any age.

Even though students may choose to sit with their racial or ethnic groups in the cafeteria or in other informal settings, your classroom must value all students. Rather than "color blind," your goal should be "culture fair."

Pay particular attention to your students who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches-they may need extra help and may not get enough to eat on weekends. (There should be no "Title I pullout program" that identifies low-income students in your classroom.)

If you have lots of diversity in your classroom, try to use as many different visual presentations as possible. Pictures can often convey meaning when words do not.

Some students may be genuinely confused about their ethnic ancestry. Several state courts have indicated that it is illegal to force a child to choose between the mother's and father's backgrounds. Although it's a sensitive issue, you can communicate clearly to your class that you value all children and that you expect them to do their best. The important thing is the understanding that we are all Americans, regardless of our backgrounds.

Make a list of student successes for any ethnic group in your school, whether in your class or not. It's the perfect defense against the student who says, "You just don't understand! No one from [country x] can do [math/English/science].

Some students may be the responsibility of grandparents-more than one million public school students are. If so, make sure that the grandparents get the same level of attention that you give to biological parents-they may need even more help.

The Importance of Demographics

We have only scratched the surface regarding the impact of demographics on education and on the president of the classroom-the teacher. All of these demographic changes are coming soon to a classroom near you.

Harold Hodgkinson is Director, Center for Demographic Policy, The Institute for Educational Leadership, Inc., 1001 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Ste. 310, Washington, DC 20036.

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Educational Demographics: What Teachers Should Know

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December 2000/January 2001 | Volume 58 | Number 4 The Changing Context of Education Pages 6-11 Harold Hodgkinson Teachers are, unfortunately, rarely invited to participate in policy discussions affecting their schools-either by local or state boards of education or by various legislative bodies, from state legislatures to the United States Congress.

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From Surviving to Thriving: Four Research‐Based Principles to Build Students' Reading Interest, The Reading Teacher | DeepDyve

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In an educational climate in which many teachers may feel the tension between achieving grade‐level literacy standards and creating lifelong readers, interest can be a powerful mediator that impacts students' cognitive and affective experiences with reading.

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Classroom Observation | Center for Educational Effectiveness

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Schedule your classroom observation near the beginning of the term to ensure that a CEE Specialist can attend your preferred class session. After you submit your request, a CEE Specialist will contact you to schedule a pre-classroom observation meeting and will then schedule your classroom observation and follow-up consultation dates.

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Rita Pierson, a teacher for 40 years, once heard a colleague say, “They don’t pay me to like the kids.” Her response: “Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.’” A rousing call to educators to believe in their students and actually connect with them on a real, human, personal level.

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Why Do Some People Become Great Leaders?

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Why do certain people become great leaders? Leadership theories seek to answer this question and usually fit into one of eight basic types.

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Seapoint Center for Collaborative Leadership

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Sometimes leaders make bad decisions or harm team morale by making autocratic decisions without involving others. And other times they waste their team's time by unnecessarily involving them.

How do you know when and how much to involve your team in decisions? Sometimes the answer is pretty obvious.

You don't need to call a team meeting to decide to order pencils for your office. On the other hand, if one of your direct reports has the authority to make decisions about office supplies, your taking over might not be appreciated.

Four Decision-Making Styles

You have four choices on how to make decisions and when to involve others.

1 Autocratic (Independent): You make the decision on your own without input from your team.

2 Consultative: You ask your team for information that would be helpful and for their opinions, either individually or as a group, but you make the final decision.

3 Team: You pull your team together to discuss the situation and decide as a team. You facilitate their reaching consensus, where everyone agrees to support the decision. As a member of the group, you must be willing to support the decision as well.

4 Delegating: You are not part of the decision-making process. You might ask to be informed of the decision (or not), but you will not change the decision.

Communicate Which of the Decision-Making Styles Will Be Used

Outline a clear decision-making process, such as CRISP Decision-Making and be clear with your team about which decision-making style is being used. If people are going to be involved in a decision, make sure they know which of the decision-making styles you will be using - whether they are being asked to consult or if they have a real vote. When asked for an opinion, people often assume they have a vote and can feel misled if they discover later that is not the case.

When people know ahead of time what their role is in the decision-making process, they are less likely to resent or undermine a decision that doesn't go the way they wanted.

You might start out with one style and then decide to change styles. For example, you might want to make a team decision but discover there is too much conflict to achieve consensus. If you change the decision-making style, it is important to inform your team.

Four Questions to Know Which of the Decision-Making Styles to Use

1. Is this your decision to make?

Whose responsibility it is to make this decision? Does one of your direct reports or someone on a different team have authority to make this decision? If this is not your decision to make: Use a Delegating Style.

If you believe the person or team responsible for this decision is not capable of making a quality decision without your involvement, discuss it with them and determine what decision-making style is appropriate. If a decision is required and you don't have time to contact them or they are unavailable, you should get to them as soon as possible to explain why you went around them. Avoid taking back decision-making authority. If you do this on a regular basis, you will be viewed as a micro-manager and resentment will build.
2. Do you have access to the needed relevant information?
Do you know everything you need to know to make an intelligent decision? Do you have the necessary expertise?

If so, and if support for the decision is not needed or is guaranteed, use an Autocratic Style . It's not necessary to gather your team to discuss where to hang a picture in your office.

The danger is that sometimes we don't know what we don't know. If this is a mission-critical decision, it's worth using a Consultative Style to make sure you're not missing any important information that would affect the quality of your decision. (See question #4)

3. To what extent is acceptance necessary for successful implementation?

If successful implementation depends on the understanding and acceptance of others, it is to your advantage to involve them in the decision early on and use a even if you believe you already know the best decision.

Otherwise, you might save time during the decision-making process, but will pay the price during implementation. The more others are affected by the decision, the more they should be involved.

A good consensus process, where team members set their egos and personal needs aside and focus on the mission, will result in a higher quality decision. And as a result of the process, team members will develop a deeper understanding of the issues and great commitment to the decision, ensuring smoother and faster implementation.
4. How great is the impact of the decision on accomplishing the team's mission?
What is the complexity and scale of the impact of the decision? As complexity increases, the likelihood that you know everything needed to make a quality decision decreases. Use a . As the scale increases, the likelihood that acceptance of others is needed increases. Use a high-involvement style - Team if possible, and if not Consultative, with broad and deep input.

What About Urgency?

What if you don't have time for involvement? Shouldn't that be a consideration? Indeed, if the building is on fire and smoke is coming under the door, it doesn't make sense to call a group together to discuss options. However, most situations are not as urgent as they seem.

We have all had the experience of being in a hurry and making a decision we later regret. The same thing can happen with teams. It's important to be aware of the potential for bad decisions when under an intense deadline, and consider the short-term benefit of a quick decision vs. the long-term consequences of poor implementation and needing to redo work.

Photo credit: Jesse Lyn Stoner | Four Decision-Making Styles and When to Use Them

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Four Decision-Making Styles and When to Use Them | Jesse Lyn Stoner

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Sometimes leaders make bad decisions or harm team morale by making autocratic decisions without involving others. And other times they waste their team's time by unnecessarily involving them. How do you know when and how much to involve your team in decisions? Sometimes the answer is pretty obvious.

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by Charlotte Danielson

School organization" refers to how schools arrange the resources of time, space, and personnel for maximum effect on student learning. The school's organizational plan addresses those issues that affect the school as a whole, such as the master schedule, the location of staff in different rooms, and the assignment of aides to teachers or teams. (Matters that affect only individual teachers or teams-how to form reading groups for all 2nd graders, for example-are addressed in Chapter 11: Team Planning.)

Relationship to the Framework

How a school is organized is a matter for the staff to determine, and a school's organization should reflect the staff's commitment to the success of all students. Every aspect of the instructional program will convey the values and goals of the staff toward students and their learning.

High-Level Learning for All Students

Through a school's organizational patterns-whether the school is divided into teams or houses, for example, or whether it adopts a traditional or a block schedule-the staff can convey to both students and their parents that learning is important, that the business of the school is learning, and that the different elements of the school's organization are structured to support that learning. The master schedule, for example, is not established merely for the convenience of the transportation department, although bus schedules are important and must be accommodated. Nor are teams established only so that members of the faculty who are friends can work together. All arrangements must reflect an unwavering focus on student learning.

A Safe and Positive Environment

The wise deployment of space can go a long way toward ensuring a physically safe environment, particularly for young children. If classrooms, the art room, restrooms, and the library are all within easy walking distance, and if the paths to each are safe, children will feel secure going alone. In addition, a school's arrangement of teachers into teams, houses, and the like can contribute to a feeling of community, and therefore emotional safety, for students; they should feel part of a group small enough that their absence or illness would be noticed.

A Culture of Hard Work and Opportunities for Success

A focus on success is not a matter of spoon-feeding. A good school organization will offer students the optimal degree of challenge, stretching them while at the same time ensuring that they can succeed if they exert the necessary effort. Students need to know (and may need to be reminded) that it is up to them to exert the effort. For example, elementary-school teachers might let their students know that they are free to go to the computer lab or learning center once they've completed their work and mastered certain tasks; similarly, students in middle or high school could be told that if they are willing to commit to a heavy workload and fill any gaps in their understanding, they can enroll in Spanish II or an advanced placement course. Such opportunities should not constitute an exclusive club, open only to a few students; they should be open to any students willing to commit to them. The master schedule must be arranged to permit students to make these commitments and demonstrate their desire to participate in the most challenging opportunities the school has to offer.

When a school adopts a success orientation, it also commits itself to a flexible deployment of resources: nothing is carved in stone, and no one adopts a "take it or leave it" attitude. Students are assumed to be capable learners, and the school accepts its obligation to ensure successful learning by all students. Students should be able to get additional help when they need it, and to challenge the curriculum when they so choose; they should not be obliged to sit through a year of algebra if they can demonstrate, through a valid assessment, that they already understand the content. On the other hand, a student struggling with how to write a clear paragraph, for example, should be able to get help as needed.

School Organization

The research on school organization is clear: in general, small schools yield better results than large ones. This suggests that educators at large schools can help more students learn by creating subunits-schools within a school. Moreover, studies on teacher collaboration and teaming have shown that students benefit when teachers work together to promote student learning. Some schools in rural areas, of course, are too small, unable to provide a reasonable range of curricular or extracurricular offerings. But while educators in large schools can generally devise ways to break up into smaller units, those in small schools can't usually do much about their limited resources (although the Internet now provides students with learning opportunities that were not previously available).

Components of School Organization

Of course, most school staffs inherit a preexisting organizational structure. For many educators, certain aspects of the school's organization-such as the number of classes in the master schedule in a high school or the houses in a middle school-are part of the school's very identity. This reality can make altering the school's organization slow and difficult. Still, educators should consider the following aspects of the school to determine which ones, if any, should be changed.

At the elementary-school level, units are usually instructional teams or grade-level groups, in which teachers work with students from classes other than their own homerooms. For example, three 4th grade teachers might choose to work together to teach all 100 children in the grade. Many middle schools have houses in place, which might be led for instance by four teachers, each representing core curricular areas, working together with a group of 100-125 students. (When these are multi-age groups and students remain with the same teachers over several years, teachers and students grow to know one another particularly well.) Many high schools establish schools-within-a-school to create smaller and more personal learning communities. Some of these are grade-based, whereas others are organized around an instructional focus, such as technology or the arts.

Master Schedule

The influence of the master schedule is hard to overstate. The schedule structures the pace of the interactions between students and teachers, and class length affects the nature of instruction and the depth to which students are able to go at any given time. At the elementary- and middle-school levels, the master schedule conveys the relative importance of different areas of study: for example, when language arts are allocated 90 minutes a day, and science is allocated 30 minutes twice a week, students and teachers receive powerful messages about the supposed value of each subject.

Alternatives to traditional scheduling practices at the middle- and high-school levels have been widely discussed in the educational literature under the general heading of "block scheduling." Although not a panacea, block scheduling can materially affect the quality of student-teacher interactions and the nature of teacher collaboration. The main characteristic of these approaches is that they organize instructional time into longer blocks than the traditional pattern, thus allowing teachers and students greater flexibility in how they use their time. With longer blocks of time, students can embark on projects that would be difficult to complete in only 43 minutes. Teachers accustomed to relying on lecturing find that they need to vary their approach under block scheduling, enabling students to engage in deeper and more sustained exploration of content.

Deployment of Instructional Personnel

Most elementary schools assign classroom teachers groups of 20-30 students, although there are usually other teachers available as well: specialists for subjects such as art, music, and physical education; state-funded remedial reading or math teachers; Title I teachers; and teachers funded through district or external funds to serve migrant students, ESL learners, or "gifted" students. In fact, some elementary schools have more "extra" teachers than they do regular ones! The situation is different at the middle- and high-school levels, where students rotate among content specialists. In schools committed to enhancing student learning, teachers go to considerable effort to integrate "special" subjects with more "academic" disciplines. Even when the schedule demands that a class of 3rd grade students goes to art class at, say, 11:00 a.m. on Thursdays, the art teacher and the home-room teacher work to ensure that what the students are learning in the two classes is not completely separate.

Many schools-particularly at the elementary level, and sometimes motivated by state statute or by the promise of additional funds-have created more classes with fewer students in each. These efforts have had mixed results, partly because when overall class sizes are reduced, other expenses are inevitably increased-for more classroom space and for additional content specialists (and the classroom space that they need). In addition, there are frequently not enough qualified teachers to teach the new classes, especially at very large schools, resulting in at least a short-term reduction in teaching quality.

Although the research on class size has been inconclusive, studies suggest that reductions in size don't have much of an effect on student achievement unless the classes consist of 15 students or fewer. In any case, it is not the size of the homerooms that matters, but the size of instructional groups; consequently, if the entire teaching staff can be deployed in a manner that greatly reduces the size of instructional groups, results are likely to improve. A school organizational structure that supports the use of all teaching staff (including those paid for by categorical funds) to provide basic instruction can result in much smaller instructional groups than are traditionally found in schools. (For more on this subject, see Chapter 12: Learning Support.)

Grouping Strategies

A school aiming to improve student performance must develop a reasoned approach, even a philosophy, toward the grouping of students for instruction. Such an approach should not include permanent tracking. When elementary-school students are clustered as "bluebirds" or "canaries" according to their real or perceived abilities, the groups often become permanent: those who are identified early on as particularly able tend to be the ones permitted to enroll in advanced courses in high school.

Permanent tracking harms all but the highest-performing students, who themselves gain only slightly from the practice. Short-term skill grouping, however, can be highly beneficial for all students. Students who do not understand, say, subtraction with regrouping should receive targeted instruction on the concept before moving on to a skill that depends upon it (such as division). But there is no reason for students who have already grasped subtraction with regrouping to spend any more time on the topic; they should instead be more productively engaged in other topics. Hence teachers need the flexibility to create skill groups when needed, particularly for concepts that are prerequisites for later lessons.

The school's approach to scheduling and deployment of staff must support the formation of short-term skill groups when needed. In addition, the school's organization must allow for skill groups to be formed quickly and changed frequently; flexibility, in other words, is the key.

Implications for Different Levels

I have discussed the above issues separately, as though educators addressed them one at a time. In reality, of course, the various aspects of a school's organizational structure are highly intertwined and tightly related to other aspects of the school, such as curriculum, student assessment, and learning support. Still, there are important differences among schools at different levels.

Elementary Schools

Teacher teams at the elementary-school level may comprise anywhere from two to eight teachers each; more than eight, however, can become unwieldy. These teams may be organized around a single grade level (a "2nd grade team") or as "family" teams of, for example, the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades. Each arrangement has its advantages and disadvantages. Students in single-grade teams, of course, tend to be closer to one another academically than are those in family teams. On the other hand, these same students must relearn the ropes each year with a different group of teachers, and the teachers must become acquainted with a large new group of students. Academic levels may vary in family teams, but students stay with the same group of teachers for several years, reducing the startup time required at the beginning of the school year.

Middle Schools

The "middle-school philosophy"-which recognizes that young adolescents learn best when given a fair degree of autonomy, while at the same time "belonging" to a relatively small group of teachers and other students-has become dominant in schools serving the 5th or 6th to 8th grades. Students at this period in their lives experience rapid physical, emotional, and intellectual growth, matched in scope only by the first three years of life; they are experiencing fast and sometimes confusing changes. Middle schools, therefore, must provide both stability and stimulation, respecting the students' age-related concerns.

I have already suggested the major recommendation for middle schools: teachers should work in small teams, composed typically of four teachers, representing the core subjects. Additional subjects should be offered as "exploratory" opportunities for students. In addition, time should be scheduled- and instruction provided. in long blocks, permitting teachers the maximum degree of flexibility to meet student needs (and to alter internal arrangements as these needs change). When the school organization allows for the integration of various . support. teachers. Title I, remedial, migrant, gifted, and so on. teachers within each team have the best opportunity to arrange a combination of core and supplementary instruction for each student.

High Schools

Some high schools institute schools-within-a-school (SWAS), often for their 9th grade students. This structure is designed to mirror (and hence ease the transition from) the middle-school experience. If they can be managed, SWAS are recommended, as they provide students with smaller instructional units and permit them to learn the ropes of the high school-by interacting with a greater number of students and teachers, not to mention abiding by typically more structured rules of conduct-without also having to learn how to find a classroom or juggle the multiple demands of too many different courses.

Scheduling is the main aspect of school organization at the high-school level. Many high schools have by now implemented some form of block scheduling, in which students attend three to four classes on any given day rather than seven to nine. There are two basic patterns for block scheduling: four-by-four and A/B. In four-by-four schedules, students complete four "yearlong" courses each semester in periods of about 90 minutes each day. In the A/B schedule, classes are held on alternate days over the entire year; students may still be carrying six to eight courses, but they attend only half of them on any given day.

In general, block scheduling is advantageous because it provides longer instructional time and more opportunities for engaged learning. When teachers must plan for 90-minute classes, they are likely to employ different approaches than when classes are limited to 40 minutes; they can engage students more deeply in investigations, and will probably vary their instruction more. On the other hand, if teachers don't plan their time effectively, much of it may be wasted; students might devote considerable class time to independent work, for example, that might otherwise be assigned as homework. But in general, block scheduling tends to improve the school climate, with fewer discipline referrals, fewer class changes each day, greater student commitment to the work, and the potential for more engaging instruction.

The two major approaches to high-school block scheduling carry different advantages and disadvantages. Before implementing one or the other, educators are well advised to consult one of the many excellent books that have been written on the subject.

Summary

A school's organizational structures can go a long way toward promoting student learning. At all instructional levels, the school's organizational pattern can materially affect the manner in which students and teachers interact. All of these schoolwide structures should be designed to maximize teacher and student flexibility, encourage in-depth teaching and learning, and integrate as many different resources as possible.

The chart on the following page is intended to help educators examine their own school's approach to school organization and determine whether changes should be made. I have provided a similar chart at the end of each subsequent chapter.

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by Charlotte Danielson School organization" refers to how schools arrange the resources of time, space, and personnel for maximum effect on student learning.

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Volume 25, Number 3
May/June 2009

Principal Randall Lewis stood at the front of the school library, where members of his district's instructional rounds network had gathered for coffee, muffins, and conversation before the official start of the day's visit. "Welcome to Jefferson Middle School," he said. "We're excited to have you here today to help us with our problem of practice. We're also a little nervous, but that's okay. I've told the teachers that this is about my learning and the network's learning, and that we're going to get lots of good information from having so many eyes and ears in our classrooms."

Randall described the "problem of practice" on which he and the teachers had asked the visitors to focus: "Last spring, we rolled out a new literacy initiative that required a radical shift in teaching strategies for many of our teachers. A year later, we're trying to understand what we've learned and what we haven't, and whether it's translating into different kinds of learning for students." As participants greeted the other members of their observation team and gathered maps and papers for notes, there was a buzz of anticipation, much like a group of scientists about to embark on fieldwork for data collection.

Randall Lewis and his colleagues are about to spend the day doing something that most educators have never done: look at classroom instruction in a focused, systematic, purposeful, and collective way. Along with other principals, teachers, union leaders, and central office personnel, Randall is learning about improving instructional practice by participating in instructional rounds, an idea adapted from the medical rounds model that doctors use (see"Rx for a Profession"). A small but growing number of educators are using instructional rounds to look closely at what is happening in their schools' classrooms and to work together systematically to try to provide high-quality teaching and learning for all their children.

These teachers and school, district, and union leaders work in networks with one another and in consultation with our team of faculty and students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. They represent all types of educators: networks of superintendents in Connecticut and Iowa, principals in Massachusetts, and mixed teams (superintendents, chief academic officers, union leaders, teachers, and principals) in Ohio. They spend much of their time in classrooms, looking at instruction in fine detail. They learn to talk in new ways with each other about what they see, replacing vague or judgmental generalizations ("She did a great job of transitioning from the whole-class lesson to independent work time") with precise and nonevaluative language ("At the end of the lesson, the teacher asked students what materials they needed to get for their upcoming independent work. She took a few responses and released students to go to their desks four at a time").

Unlike many educators who call for "increased rigor" or "critical thinking skills," with only a vague idea of what these terms mean, network members work together to develop detailed lists of what those abstract ideas should look like in real classrooms. They come to agreement on what teachers and students would be saying and doing if critical thinking skills were being demonstrated, or what students would be working on if their tasks were really rigorous. And when they don't see these signs of critical thinking or rigor, they don't blame teachers, students, parents, or other external factors. Instead they look within the school and district to suggest new and powerful ways educators can work together to achieve the student-learning outcomes they desire.

Getting Started with Rounds

This focused and purposeful work takes some getting used to. Our team at HGSE frames the rounds work in four steps (see table "A Four-Step Process").

School identifies a problem of practice that:

* focuses on the instructional core.
* is directly observable.
*is actionable (is within the school/district's control and can be improved in real time).
* connects to a broader strategy of improvement (school, system).
* is high-leverage (if you acted on it, it would make a significant difference for student learning).

Newtork adopts the problem of practice as the focus for the network's learning.

Observation teams collect data that is:

* descriptive; not evaluative.
*specific.
*about the instructional core.
*related to the problem of practice.

Observation teams discuss the data in four steps:

* Describe what you saw.
* Analyze the descriptive evidence (What patterns do you see? How might you group the data?).
* Predict what students are learning. If you were a student in this class/school and you did everything the teacher told you to do, what would you know and be able to do?

Brainstorm the next level of work:

* Share district-level theory of action.
* Share district context, including resources, professional development, current initiatives.
* Brainstorm suggestions for school level and for district level.
* Tie suggestions to the district's (and school's) theory of action.

Before hosting one of the network's monthly visits, the host team identifies a problem of practice on which they ask members of the network to focus during classroom observations. The problem of practice is an instructional problem that the host team wants to solve in order to improve student learning. At the Jefferson School, Randall and his staff had spent a year's worth of professional development trying to weave literacy strategies into their classrooms and were wondering why students didn't seem to be benefiting from them.

The problem of practice is shared with the visitors at the start of the day and helps frame what is at the heart of any visit- observation of practice. Typically, groups of four or five visitors will observe in five or six classrooms for about 20 minutes each. The host site selects the classrooms to reflect the problem of practice. Because Jefferson's literacy strategies were supposed to be embedded in all classes, the visits covered a wide range of classrooms and grades. In another setting, a focus on mathematics might bring visitors to a narrower swath of classes. The observers are guided by the host school's problem of practice. They learn to take careful descriptive notes and to pay special attention to students and the tasks they are doing-not just what students are being asked to do, but what they are actually doing. At Jefferson, the observers were given a one-page summary of 14 literacy strategies that teachers had been trained to use and were asked to look for evidence and patterns of student use of these strategies.

The third step of the rounds process is the observation debrief, in which participants sift through the evidence they collected together. There are three stages in the debrief process: description, analysis, and prediction (see sidebar "Debriefing in Detail"). The description stage keeps the focus on a factual description of what visitors actually saw-not their reactions, judgments, or inferences. Only after sharing their observations and agreeing on a fine-grained, detailed description of what they saw does the group go on to the analysis stage of the debrief, looking for patterns within and across the classrooms they observed.

Groups then build on these patterns to move to the predictive stage of the debrief, where the goal is to connect teaching and learning. Participants ask themselves, "If you were a student at this school and you did everything you were expected to do, what would you know and be able to do?" By linking the task and the teacher's instruction directly to student learning, network members tackle the central question, "What causes the learning we want to see?" What specific teaching moves, what kinds of tasks, what forms of student engagement lead to powerful learning for students? This process ultimately helps identify potential areas for improvement and offers clues about how these areas could be improved, including the specific strategies and techniques that teachers could use and what the school or district could do to support them. Taken cumulatively, these debrief practices allow participants to describe the specific behaviors and structures they see that cause, enable, or at times constrain learning.

At Jefferson, the patterns that emerged in the analysis section of the debrief were clear and quite consistent across the dozens of classrooms visited. Visitors saw the teacher use one or more of the literacy strategies, but they saw almost no independent student use of the strategies. This led to the prediction that students in these classes would be able to follow directions in using specific literacy strategies when asked to do so by their teacher.

The final step of the rounds process is identifying the next level of work, when network members think together about what kinds of resources and supports teachers and administrators would need in order to move instruction to the next level. Here again, the more specific and precise the suggestions, the more helpful they are. At Jefferson, the visitors suggested that the school be more explicit with students about the goal of having them use these strategies in their own reading, writing, and thinking. Concrete suggestions included giving students a version of the one-page summary of 14 literacy strategies and having them track their own use of the strategies, combined with teaching students about metacognition and making explicit to students and teachers alike that the goal was that students, not just teachers, use the strategies.

Accelerating Instructional Improvement

Our goal in doing instructional rounds work is to help schools and districts develop effective and powerful teaching and learning on a large scale, not just isolated pockets of good teaching in the midst of mediocrity. Accordingly, the network's suggestions for the next level of work are not about "fixing" any one teacher or group of teachers. They are about developing clarity, about good instructional practice, and about the leadership and organizational practices needed to support this kind of instruction at scale. Suggestions for the next level of work are intended more for administrators and other leaders than for individual teachers.

People often ask us, "Will doing rounds lead to an increase in student learning? Will it raise test scores?" The short answer is: by itself, no. Although the rounds process is not a silver bullet that will single-handedly lead to better test scores or increased learning for students, it is a powerful accelerant of school and district improvement efforts. Its focus on what goes on in classrooms anchors improvement efforts in the instructional core-the complex relationships among teachers, students, and content. The rounds process provides a key source of data and a powerful feedback loop to tell educators whether their systemic improvement efforts are actually reaching students. And the collaborative learning approach used in rounds networks creates norms that support adult learning and make organizational learning possible.

As one deputy superintendent from Ohio puts it: "The 'next level of work' has become a very common phrase now in our district conversation. We are all thinking more deeply about the supports. Are the supports in place to help [teachers and students] make the transition [to the next level]? Rounds is helping give us that firsthand data and getting us to think more deeply about it."

Lee Teitel is lecturer on education and senior associate of the Executive Leadership Program for Educators at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is coauthor, with Elizabeth A. City, Richard F. Elmore, and Sarah E. Fiarman, of Instructional Rounds in Education: A Network Approach to Improving Teaching and Learning (Harvard Education Press, 2009).

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Volume 25, Number 3 May/June 2009 Principal Randall Lewis stood at the front of the school library, where members of his district's instructional rounds network had gathered for coffee, muffins, and conversation before the official start of the day's visit. "Welcome to Jefferson Middle School," he said.

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Our Theory of Action
A systems-based approach to change ensures that schools recognize their developmental stage and select developmentally appropriate interventions to support the school's organizational growth, change teacher behavior and increase student achievement.
The Antioch Center for School Renewal takes a developmental view of school improvement, building on the successful efforts of colleagues from a variety of agencies and programs, (including the Rural School and Community Trust, the School Reform Initiative, the QED Foundation, the Corporate Council for Critical Skills, and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills). Based upon Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, which views human development as a progression moving from most basic survival, through social and relational development and up to full self-awareness, the Hierarchy of School Needs (Smith & Sobel, 2010) aligns a school's needs with a professional development strategy to meet those needs. The Hierarchy of School Needs "emerged out of trying to make sense of where the school/ community change process worked well and where it met resistance! (It) suggests that physical space and social fabric needs precede the needs of comprehensive curriculum and community-based education approaches. Certainly, school works on many improvement fronts simultaneously, but without a focus on the most essential tasks, headway is difficult." (Smith & Sobel, 2010)

An accurate assessment of the needs of the school provides for intervention at the right time and maximizes the opportunity for powerful professional growth for teachers and principals. Developing internal capacity will allow schools to become learning organizations, ready and able to meet the emerging needs of their students while deepening the connection within and between the school, the home, and the community.

Research shows that school improvement is a process, not a single event. (Hall & Hord, 2001) Our approach is rooted in the knowledge that the key to sustainable, continuous school improvement lies in creating learning organizations (Senge, 1990) in which stakeholders are armed with the skills and processes necessary to recognize and meet emergent challenges. We begin our work by matching schools with specific interventions via a 360-degree administration of the School Change Readiness Tool (doc).

ACSR provides external school coaching for the duration of the project. We engage in an inquiry-driven process by which teachers and students will implement the intervention described and assess progress via re-administration of the readiness tool each spring. By modeling this process of implementation and assessment, we will train and coach cohorts of teachers on-site as internal coaches charged with supporting the work beyond the scope of the project.

Systemic reform "centers on a vision of all students as successful learners of ambitious learning outcomes, integrates curriculum, teaching, assessment and school organization towards a shared vision, attends to professional development, curriculum development and organizational development, has structures and mechanisms for cross-role collaboration, incorporates ongoing inquiry and reflection." (Education Commission of the States, 1992)(North Central Regional Education Laboratory, 1992) The Hierarchy of School Needs is based upon this conceptual model, with specific, effective interventions applied at each level.

School Change Research Report

Final Report on the Springfield, VT Professional Learning Project, 2009-2011

More Information

Visit our School Coaching page for more information about the ways that we support Schools and Districts in Need of Improvement, Instructional Improvement, Leadership Development, and Inquiry Driven (NECAP) Science efforts.

Download our School Change Readiness Tool and begin your own assessment of your schools' needs.

Contact us at ACSR@antiochne.edu or 603-283-2302 to create a free, customized service proposal for your school or district.

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A systems-based approach to change ensures that schools recognize their developmental stage and select developmentally appropriate interventions to support the school's organizational growth, change teacher behavior and increase student achievement.

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Campus Suite | School Websites, Notifications & Mobile Apps

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It's easy to recognize that great communication is at the heart of any great school. What's not so easy to grasp these days is identifying which communication channels to focus on, and when to use them to reach your audiences.

Although there is more technology than ever for connecting with parents, staff, students and the rest of your school community, there are questions and costs that come with learning how to make the most of using it.

Improving your school communications while being realistic about your resources might be the greatest challenge facing you and just about every other school communicator. By the time you factor in the tools, training, time, staffing and tech support, staying current with all these channels can be challenging if not cost prohibitive.

Nevertheless, in your school communications planning you need to focus on using and embracing technology and using all the channels at your disposal. I've identified the six key areas that you need to focus on to be a great school communicator and improve engagement for your school or district.

Granted, these channels are subject to technology advancements. And while it is impossible to predict what next big thing is around the corner, I can tell you these channels are critical for your school for now - your website, social media, notifications, a mobile app, emails and video.

Types of school communications

How and when to share school information has changed dramatically in recent years. What hasn't changed, really, are the kinds of information that need to be shared. Most of your school information you want to share falls into the following categories:

Promotion of school happenings and news (e.g., achievements, events, etc.)

Time-critical school information (e.g., school closings, policies, etc.)

PTO events and other important issues

Leadership and education improvement ideas (e.g., parent resources)

School levy and community outreach (including fundraising)

Stories and imagery of the school's impact on the community (cool human interest content, alumni, photos, videos)

Now we can ask, "How do I use today's channels for sharing this information?" While schools are not in the business of technology and communication, you still have to do your best and rely on providers that specialize in these channels. Hopefully, you can find partners who provide simple ways to communicate without having to hire multiple vendors to achieve success.

Key school communication channels

I've listed below a matrix that shows how to use each channel and discuss a little more in detail each of the areas.

There are plenty of options, and each channel is used differently and in some cases, at the same time. The goal here is to communicate continuously and while recognizing the purpose and limitations of each channel. When used properly, your parents, staff and students will appreciate it.

Not all channels are meant for every kind of communication from your school. While a text message to a parent is helpful when there's a one-hour weather delay, text messages about, say, the score of the Friday night football game, is hardly news that needs to be pushed via emergency notification.

The importance of understanding these channels and how to use them are critical for effective communication. I've list below each channel and the key purpose of each to help you better utilize them.

1. District and school websites

A website serves an important purpose for school districts and its schools: to be a self-service portal for all information for the school. Websites have changed over the years in how they are designed. A good one is accessible on mobile devices and serves as a hub for social media and other channels. This entails creating a website with responsive design featuring tools that make it easy to manage and share content.

The key to having a successful website that supports all other communication is that it is easy to use and shows all updates of communication that is being shared. For example, if you are promoting a big event, you should have it featured as a news announcement, homepage banner and even a calendar event. Depending on the degree of your CMS integration, it may automatically update, or you may have to update the website manually.

Many schools also use their websites to conduct e-commerce for a variety of payments. In addition, submission forms are used on school websites to gather information or conduct registration for events or enrollment.

2. Mobile app

Mobile apps are becoming a very popular method for schools to communicate. A mobile app can make it efficient to access common information like alerts, calendars, directories, news and lunch menus. Plus it can make it simple to integrate the phone, email and texting features into the app, making it even more useful. While the mobile app is not ready to replace the website, the website pages need to be accessible through the app.

The main benefit of the mobile app is going to be the push notifications. Do not overuse push notifications. Rather, save them for important, time-sensitive announcements and alerts.

There are other key features a school mobile app should have, but one of the most important is the ability to segment your notifications to the specific audience respectively. For example, if the middle school football game is canceled, you should not notify the elementary and high school parents.

3. Notifications and alerts

Critical emergency information and important reminders need to be communicated through a notification system that provides SMS (text), voice and email. There are many notification providers to choose from. These types of systems may or may not integrate with other channels but serve a purpose for time-critical messages. Parents typically have the ability to customize their preference and receive the preferred method of communication.

Schools need to be sensitive to how this type of messaging is utilized. Like alerts via mobile apps, you do not want to over use notifications. It is an extremely effective means of communication but can become annoying if you are getting voice messages about not-so important information.

A few notification facts:

Over 70% of K-12 parents age-group (25-54) have smartphones

Texting preferred over voice calls

For every 1 text message sent, 10 emails are sent

For every 1 text message sent, 12 voice calls are made

4. Email

The email channel is an oldie but goodie and a key channel for schools. We all love it because it is a great form of one-to-one personal communication. Most parents have email accounts, and it allows the school to provide information of all kinds, in detail if needed. Email also features a very high open rate, which translates into an informed community.

The use of email can range from reminders, policies, registration, newsletters and a variety of announcements. A majority of the content sent in email needs to exist on the website and be easily linked to. Email can be the messenger for your website content - still the hub of much of your school information.

Email needs to be a channel that is mastered by schools and utilized to its fullest. There are several best practices that can improve open rate and the overall readability. Most email blasting systems, which provide a higher degree of email security than one a school handles itself, enables important metrics that can help you improve your communication.

5. Social Media

These popular social media channels are driving how many businesses and organizations are sharing information. They need to be a big part of your communications mix as well. Understanding which social media to use and when to use it requires understanding the limits and life cycle of the content posted to each of these channels.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube are the key channels we're talking about here. There are other, but these are what your school should be using to reach the increasingly digital and mobile stakeholders your school serves. The beauty of social media is how easily the content can be linked to other social media channels, and how easily it can be shared with many people.

Regardless of which media you're utilizing, building a following and, in turn, encouraging sharing (see viral) is what it's all about. For a solid drill down on making the most of social media at your school, check out this article and a link to the Social Media Guide for Schools.

Whether you're Tweeting out 140-character messages several times a day, making daily Facebook pages or weekly blog posts, all these vehicles and others can be utilized at the right time to get your messages across.

6. Blog

A blog can be one of your school's best opportunities to engage parents and the community. Many schools prefer to position it as a superintendent's blog, which gives you a forum to reinforce the school brand, strengthen ties with media, and depict your school leadership precisely the way you want. You have total control of the messaging, and can use it to articulate, support and clarify policy, and spark dialogue. Note too that not all posts have to be serious. Some posts can be lighter than others. Simply sharing thoughts, photos, anecdotes, and other's content can all help personalize your school's leader.

If properly promoted, your superintendent's blog (or school blog) can deliver the messaging priorities that can boost public confidence in your entire district. Promote it on your website homepage, share it on your school's Facebook page and other social media, promote it through your non-digital school communications as well.

Check out Kathy Brant's article on how to launch a school blog.

6. Video

Videos and the favored channels to share them - Youtube, Vimeo, Vine, and Periscope - are becoming popular because we all love the medium. Like all the channels I've covered, however, there's a time and place for video.

Whether it's live streaming events or recording for posting at a later time, video is a crowd-pleasing way for schools to capture, chronicle and archive great school content.

When it comes to a how-to video, a personal message, highlights from an event, something humorous, touching or otherwise entertaining, video rules. Video is not, however, the best way to depict something time critical.

Some schools are even creating their own Youtube channels. using them to post everything from football highlights, to school productions, to superintendent's messages. Even if you don't have a Youtube channel, you can create video galleries and archives of your school events.

A word about non-digital communications

It's important when plugging your school content into the right channels that you not forget the non-digital parents. It may be hard to believe, but there are actually parents who have no email accounts nor smartphones, so it's important that you not overlook the old-school ways of getting messages to them.

Printed newsletters, the time-tested take-home packet that's jammed into kids' backpacks, solid media relations to get that school closing to the TV stations, school signage, posters, flyers. These are all areas that will not only help you continue to reach your tech-less parents, but can supplement your communications through digital channels.

Printed and other non-digital communications should be used to cross-promote your digital channels too. Place social media badges and icons on select printed media (like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, tune in our YouTube channel, etc.) to show all your audiences that you're doing all you can to reach them.

School content at the right place, time, and price

Over the years, I've answered questions from thousands of school administrators looking for new website designs or website hosting solutions. But of late, the questions are now including how to integrate website communications with all these other channels I've mentioned here.

Keeping up with communication trends these days does require a scorecard of sorts, and a way of figuring out how to use all these channels without breaking your school communications budget.

Whenever you have school content that needs to be shared, examine all your communications channels, and be sure you have the information queued up in the right channel at the right time. And be on the lookout for tools to help you manage the task of playing traffic cop for the growing amount of content traveling the avenues available in this digital age.

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As co-founder of Campus Suite, Steve believes behind every great school is great communication. His tech savvy and passion for design fuel his desire to help administrators understand, embrace and seize the power of web communications.

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6 Key School Communication Channels and How to Use Them

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It's easy to recognize that great communication is at the heart of any great school. What's not so easy to grasp these days is identifying which communication channels to focus on, and when to use them to reach your audiences.

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The survey was quite informative as to how, and what, school districts should communicate with communities (many of NSPRA's members are district communications officials). But I think one of the most valuable uses for this survey will be in helping teachers and principals develop individual communications strategies for reaching out to parents.

How Parents Want School News

Consider, for example, that the survey asked parents their preferred delivery method for school news. Internet communications clearly won. The top five answers:

E-mail from the district/school

Online parent portal

District/school e-newsletters

District/school website

Telephone/voice messaging system

As NSPRA President Ron Koehler points out, "Consumer needs are changing. The backpack folder is no longer the primary source of information for parents. They want and prefer instant electronic information. ... [T]he data demonstrates parents and non-parents alike turn to the web when they need information, and they want it now."

There is a twist, though: Social media (Facebook, Twitter and blogs) ranged near the bottom of communication preferences, below newspapers, television and attending school board meetings. More on this later.

What News They Want

A great feature of this survey is that it divided parental responses into "elementary" and "secondary" categories, acknowledging the differences between those schools and students, which are often lumped together. But it turns out that when you are talking about what information parents want from teachers, most communications priorities are the same:

Updates on their child's progress or insight on how they improve

Timely notice when performance is slipping

Information on what their child is expected to learn during this year

Homework and grading policies

Rounding out the top five for elementary students was information on behavior (including how their child gets along with others), while for secondary students it was how to best communicate with the teacher.

Parents also want much the same information from both elementary and secondary schools:

Curriculum descriptions and information on instructional programs

A calendar of events and meetings

Information on student safety (and quality of teaching, at the elementary level)

Educational program changes and updates (elementary level)/curriculum updates and changes in instructional programs (secondary level).

Rounding out the top five for elementary schools was information comparing their school's performance to others; for secondary, information on graduation and course requirements.

When They Want It

Many parents (47 percent) and most non-parents (59 percent) would like district updates as often as decisions are made. While the survey didn't further break down the frequency of communications to find a preference for school or teacher-level communications, I think that could be a guide for those entities as well. In addition to the 47 percent of parents wanting district updates as often as decisions are made, 36 percent of parents would like monthly updates and 13 percent would like quarterly. Less than 1 percent prefer less than quarterly (3 percent responded with "other").

What Does This Mean?

As NSPRA Executive Director Rich Bagin notes, while we know what the survey says, "each school district must complete its own research to see what its parents and other constituents prefer when it comes to communication."

I would expand that research to include the strengths and passions of those working in the district as well. And keeping that in mind, I think it is important to revisit the survey's finding on social media.

For all the attention that we in the education community have been putting on social media lately, I did think it was interesting how little parents (and other community members) as a group looked to it for school news. NSPRA leaders hypothesized that "social media may be seen as 'too social', lacking in credibility for official school information," or that "it is just too soon to make an impact for today's parents."

Yet just a couple weeks ago, I heard a very impassioned principal talk about the ways that he has effectively used social media including in communicating with both the school and greater community, which has responded well to his efforts. But the message he spread using those tools seemed to be the one that this survey found that parents want -- information on instructional programs, events and so on. My guess: He gets feedback through these tools on what parents (and others) want, and uses it to shape his message.

The example speaks to a broader point: Develop a communications strategy that meets the needs of your community. In doing so, make sure you take the time to learn what parents want to know. Otherwise, you'll have a hard time giving it to them. (Download the complete survey here).

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What Parents Want in School Communication

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The survey was quite informative as to how, and what, school districts should communicate with communities (many of NSPRA's members are district communications officials). But I think one of the most valuable uses for this survey will be in helping teachers and principals develop individual communications strategies for reaching out to parents.