Learning From The Field

Please consider contributing to this regular column on the Learning Forward Colorado website. Send your essays about learning and professional learning to Joan Watson at watsonj2@comcast.net.

Implementing an Instruction(al) Leadership Team
Horizon High School - Adams 12 Five Star Schools
An Interview of Kim Brady and Steve Lash by Joan Watson

Implementing an Instructional Leadership Team can be a daunting task, but consider accomplishing this in a large comprehensive high school, which, since its opening, didn't even have Department Chairs. This was the work taken on at Horizon High School in the Adams 12 School District. Principal Pam Smiley entrusted this restructuring to two talented educators: Kim Brady, Assistant Principal, responsible for assessment, accountability, and professional development; and Steve Lash, part time Student Achievement Coach (SAC) and Instructional Leadership Team Coordinator.

In the past at Horizon, department chair duties were shared by a variety of teachers from each department working on committees, e.g., the Curriculum Committee, the Budget Committee, the Technology Committee. With this dispersion of labor, the decision-making sometimes resembled the stalemate of our present congress! Consequently, in May 2010, this school designed a new model focused on eight Instructional Leaders. What follows is a brief description of how school administrators implemented this new model, some of the challenges they encountered, and their ongoing evaluation and adjustments.

Beyond a cleaner decision-making model, the more important goals of implementing Instructional Leaders (IL's) were building leadership capacity among staff members as well as having more eyes and ears gathering real data about teaching and learning and student engagement at Horizon High School.

How did these folks proceed? Kim and Steve planned backwards. They delineated clearly stated outcomes, determined how to measure whether the outcomes were being achieved, and outlined what strategies were needed to achieve the outcomes. (Sounds like DuFour? SBE? Teaching/Learning cycle?) They spent a lot of time collaborating with each other, consulting other schools that had IL Teams in place, and talking with Adams 12 Professional Development Coach, Lisa Wolford. Although the Horizon teaching staff knew this change was coming, Kim and Steve waited until they had a fairly "concrete" plan before they took it to the instructional staff, which includes approximately 100 classroom teachers, to begin the IL selection process, which occurred in May 2010 for implementation in the fall of 2010.

With the IL Team in place, the first order of business was to establish norms with the team concerning how they would operate together. Then they offered training during the summer in facilitation and coaching. When I talked with them, Kim and Steve felt that their most successful coaches were the folks who took the training seriously and used their learning in their Instructional Leader positions. These ILs didn't assume trust in their relationships with peers. They consciously and conscientiously worked to build and maintain the mutual trust needed for deep analysis of teaching and learning.

In the fall and throughout the first semester, although focused on what they wanted to accomplish, my sense was that Kim and Steve also remained totally cognizant of the human reaction to change. They modeled sensitivity and receptivity in their conversations with Instructional Leaders as well as all staff members so that everyone felt honored and cared for as they progressed through this change. Consequently, folks were not only honest in their conversations, but also in their responses to surveys and data from classroom walk throughs. (Please contact Steve or Kim for documents concerning IL Team norms and meeting minutes, surveys and results, and Classroom Walk Through forms.)

From a staff survey given at the beginning of the 2010 school year, student engagement emerged as the focus that teachers wanted to measure and improve. The staff had previously been introduced to the concepts of motivation and engagement presented in Clockwatchers by Stevi Quate and John McDermott, and they were ready to have their IL's take a look at what they saw happening in their classrooms and have honest discussions about how they could change their practice to engage all students, every class period. (Hmm . . . sounds like Madeline Hunter. Phew! I am old!)

When I interviewed Kim and Steve early in November, Steve stated that it was hard to distinguish between what they had accomplished through their work and what was happening in the natural evolution of a school populated by concerned, dedicated educators. Kim thought that there seemed to be a growing attitude among staff of wanting to be on the cutting edge in instruction. Wow! Complacency is waning and excellent instruction for all students in on the rise. This is exciting!

Once again, giving educators an opportunity to talk about the work they are doing allows them to verbalize and thus realize their own results. It allows them to say "Look at what we are accomplishing for teaching and learning and student achievement for every student everyday." Kim and Steve and their Instructional Leaders deserve to be proud of their work even as they refine and adjust to be more effective in the future.