A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Stories of Savvy and Persistence

Managing the school. Taking care of school business requires the ability to deal with the good news and the bad news regarding staff performance. Achieving academic excellence for students depends on achieving instructional excellence with teachers. For some teachers sometimes, excellence seems more distant a target than it should. As principal of Chinn Elementary School in Kansas City, Missouri, Jim Singer came to understand the role of empathy in correcting poor performance:

I discovered that whether I'm working with adults or kids, it's more important to have empathy than agreement--but that doesn't mean accepting poor performance. I've been evaluating teachers for 20 years. This year we had a teacher who dropped from peak performance to far below acceptable standards. As I shared ratings with her, I worked hard to demonstrate empathy, while at the same time referring to district expectations. She offered several excuses, but we focused on what could be done for improvement, to reclaim professional integrity. We stayed away from the negative aspects and she was able to accept the message, without being hostile to the messenger. She really bought in to the need for improvement, and expressed a sense of relief about going through the process. Eventually, she improved. Focusing on expectations allowed us to keep from dwelling on the negative activities.

One-on-one relationships are only part of the big picture in school leadership. Setting up manageable and productive structures to support the work of the whole staff is another key component of sustaining leadership. Darla Berry, now the principal of Merriam Elementary in Merriam, Kansas, explained how she facilitated shared decision making when she started at Edison Elementary in Kansas City, Kansas:

I joined the T. A. Edison staff after the mission and school improvement plan had already been set in place. However, various staff conversations indicated that teachers didn't feel ownership in the process; in fact, they were scared to death. In order for our school to achieve successful outcomes, I felt the ownership issue must be addressed.

So we started breaking the planning up into small steps and that's where shared decision making came in. I used our school site council as a sounding board for the staff committees to talk about their school improvement plans, as well as to involve the school site council in the staff development activities that would lead to successful completion of each outcome. Since the school site council consisted of parents, teachers, certified staff, and community persons, a cooperative and collaborative environment began to take shape. The school council kept meeting about what this new plan should look like, and I could feel them finally buying into the change. The committees truly began to shape their vision of each outcome. They met regularly, received feedback regularly from other staff members, and felt responsibility for the process. [Emphasis in original. ]

Early this year, the state department of education set March 1 as the date of its site visit. Its review procedure is quite an ordeal--a four-year process for developing a school profile, improvement plan, and staff development plan. We got plopped into the middle of this as a pilot program. The time came to plan our presentation--one day to show four years' work! The staff (and site council) met to determine the best way to show progress and attainment. I challenged them to make the presentation interesting, rather than statistical. I provided substitutes throughout the building (on a rotating schedule) in order that the whole committee could be present at their presentation. Because we were a pilot school, the staff decided to use 250 students to prove they were doing what they said they were doing. The state department thanked them for not showing them strictly statistics.

I've asked myself, "What would this have been like with a principal who didn't believe in shared decision making?" Some principals I've worked under made me think, "This isn't the way it should be." New teachers were struggling, and they weren't getting any help. So I decided that when I became an administrator, the kind of things I do will not be anything like what they did.

In several forums, participants discussed staff perceptions of their leadership. Many commented with resignation that they often felt misunderstood, even when, by reasonable objective measures, things were going well. One new administrator had the happy experience of seeing evidence that the faculty not only knew what she was trying to do, but thought it valuable enough to offer material support for her doing it. Speaking of her experience as assistant principal at Hixson High in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Cheri Dedmon related this tale:

As a new assistant principal this year, I was really worried about my credibility with the staff. I have been a teacher at Hixson for fourteen years and had been seen as a real "radical." In the past, I had chosen to be an irritant, hoping to get teachers out of their comfort levels as we tried to restructure our school along the lines of the nine common principles of the Coalition of Essential Schools. I really worked hard this fall to convey to faculty members the extent to which I valued their work and hoped to be seen by them as a "classroom-centered" collaborator. I wasn't sure how I would know whether I was making progress in this area, until one day before Thanksgiving. . .

Friday afternoon, sixth period, we were short on subs, and I volunteered to cover a class. The Spanish teacher walked into my office to vent about a problem student. I listened, offered some support and advice, then walked over to the secretary's desk to tell her I would be in Mr. Jones' class the rest of the period. The Spanish teacher overheard our conversation and replied, "No, Miss Cheri, you have very important work to do, let me cover Mr. Jones' class for thirty minutes or so, and then you can relieve me." Great! I was in shock - this teacher was willing to cover a sixth period class on Friday during a planning period without being asked. Later that same period, another teacher approached my door to discuss a problem she was having with some textbooks. Again, I got up to tell the secretary that I was off to Mr. Jones' class, and this teacher offered to take the second half of the class in my place. At that point the "light bulb" went off. The staff (or at least these two teachers) valued my contribution to the school. I had found credibility!

Crossing over from teaching faculty to administration brings with it new challenges to preserving relationships and maintaining organizational integrity. At few points is this more evident than when a collective bargaining unit goes on strike. Kip Anderson, principal at Shepherd Elementary School in Hayward, California, learned just how complicated and discouraging managing in the midst of dissention can be:

During the most recent teacher strike, my resolve and my leadership abilities were sorely tested, because during this walkout (as opposed to the one the year before) nine out of 14 teachers chose NOT to strike, and we had just added six brand new teachers to the staff the previous month. Additionally, the classified staff chose NOT to honor the strike, a sign of increased friction and factionalism between classified and certificated groups in the district and on site.

Each day at 6:00 a. m. as I arrived at school, the non-striking teachers and substitutes regaled me with tales of increasing harassment from the striking teachers, who had been joined by more militant teachers from other schools. During the first couple of days things were calm, and then, with each passing day, the incidence of name calling, verbal insults, and physical harassment increased. I reiterated my intention to allow each staff member the space to make an individual decision each day about whether or not to strike. A few came back on campus the third day of the strike. It seemed just possible to achieve the goal of keeping school open, students safe and learning, and not allowing the strike to destroy what all of us had worked so hard to accomplish. I spent a great deal of time talking with people on all sides and reassuring them of our goals and how we would work to be sure they were met.

One morning I was met by an irate parent, who told me that my attendance secretary, office manager, and cafeteria clerk had driven into the school parking lot and thrown at the strikers packages with teachers' names on the outside and crushed cornflakes on the inside. The teachers picked up the packages and were appalled by the remarks that were written on them. Examples included, for a resource teacher: "Why don't you just stay on the picket line, you don't teach anyway" and for a third-grade teacher: "Open this care package if you're not too stupid to figure it out." The fallout was incredible, and I went into high gear. I assured the parent this would be dealt with and began to investigate the incident. Later that morning, my office staff came to me by themselves and sheepishly informed me of what they had done--which they said was a joke. I made sure they understood the tremendous damage it had done and said that if they were sorry, they needed to find a way to communicate that to the teachers. I went out to reassure the striking teachers that the incident would be handled and let them know at the same time that I missed them and hoped the strike would end shortly, so we could begin the healing process.

Two days later, the strike ended. I met with all staff to set the groundwork for the return, emphasizing that we were not in a position to judge others, that things happen in a strike situation that are not normal, and that we needed to begin the healing process. On the advice of principals who had experienced a strike, I let several days pass in tenuous peace, with people basically avoiding each other, courteous and polite, but with no real communication happening to resolve the feelings. People kept complaining to me about others, and I reiterated again and again how critical it was for people to find a quiet, private place to air feelings. Nothing happened; more days went by, more people feeling as if they wanted to say something but did not know how. It was tremendously uncomfortable.

After consulting with several administrators and counselors, I suggested a format that would allow us to acknowledge feelings, to apologize if anybody wanted to (not insisting that it was necessary for us all to do so), and to begin to move on with our work. All classified and certificated staff were asked to be there; we set the structure and groundrules, and I refereed. What a difficult meeting! Hot tempers and hurt feelings--big time. Some people walked out--I had to facilitate more and so did the counselor who helped me. They came back, we finished our meeting, and the net result was that we had taken care of business. People were able to look each other in the eye again and move ahead with the school's ambitious agenda for change. We emerged stronger for having had the adversity, and the experience reaffirmed our belief that we must deal with problems honestly and openly before they become big issues that sabotage our goals.

Managing relations with the district. No matter how independent schools may be, how reliant on shared decision making and site-based management, they are usually part of a larger administrative unit, a district or subdistrict, that makes demands of its own. Protecting school-based educators from unreasonable central office demands plays a significant role in some leaders' jobs, but most leaders render unto Caesar his due. Their success is in recognizing what is fair for superordinate organizational structures to ask and how to articulate the missions of schools with other units. Skill in this area takes time to develop. Vicki Foreman, now principal of Kimball Elementary in Seattle, Washington, explained how she got started:

When I was a new principal, our district made a top-down decision to implement a reading program that required significant paper/pencil testing of even the very youngest learners. The teachers did not support the program and the parents did not understand it, but we had to do it.

During the first round of testing in the fall, I was in a kindergarten class watching the teacher, who was patiently encouraging the children to do their best and explaining that she could not help them. Most of the children filled in the bubbles and crossed out pictures by thought or guesswork, trying to comply with the teacher's request. One little girl just sat there, arms folded, pencil down. Several times the teacher encouraged her to give it a try, but she continued to just sit. When she was asked again to pick up her pencil, she responded with total exasperation, "Don't you know, I can't read, that's why I'm here. "

Now I could comment on my story with many thoughts on the purpose of assessment and the appropriate connections between expected outcomes, teaching strategies, student understanding of the expectations, and authentic ways to demonstrate learning, but that's for another time.

Since then, I have often thought about the principal's leadership role in dealing with other people's agendas and district imperatives. I think we need to deal with them from our perspective as "keepers of the collective dream." I didn't know then how to help the staff figure out where the district-imposed reading program matched our school goals and how to "turn a sow's ear into a silk purse." We just moved along, crabby and negative, and it's unlikely that our efforts contributed to student learning.

I think principals need to give staff the chance to vent, rant, and rave, and then to model for them how to use someone else's agenda to further our goals. Often it is possible. We need to help teachers ask questions like, "Why are we doing this? Where does the purpose match ours? How can we view this as a resource to further our agenda? What's in it for the school community?" We need to be careful not to join in the naysayers, the "burned out," the negative thinkers. But we also need to stand up and be counted when a program or initiative is just not okay. While we try to bend a program to our own purposes, we need to pull out the research and best practice evidence and try to be a positive force for change within the community, district, and school. If teachers have been allowed and encouraged to develop their own leadership and knowledge base, they can be a powerful force for change, in partnership with principals.

All of our schools operate within the context of a district, local, state, and federal government, and many community advocacy groups. They all have an agenda for our schools. Some match, some don't. Some help greatly, some don't. Principals need to exercise their leadership to help their school community thread its way through this sea of expectations toward the vision, the dreams of the school. And most important, to focus on the students and their dreams. Like the kindergartner, they all came to learn. Don't you know?

At one level, no matter how cordial school/district relations may be, schools sometimes view the district as simply another "outsider" segment of the community to which schools must relate. The last group of stories describes some of the ways sustaining leaders establish and nurture connections with other elements of the communities that send their children to school.

Managing relations with the community. Although reform conversations generally center on the substance of education, many practitioners identify poor public relations as the shoals upon which strong efforts founder, and good public relations as the protection they need from intrusion. Patty Schumacher, the principal of William Southern Elementary School in Independence, Missouri, described one brick in the edifice of her public relations support:

My story is about building relationships. Success is built on relationships among staff, students, administration, parents and the community.

As an example, yesterday a parent of a former William Southern student called me to express a concern that was on its way to becoming a neighborhood issue. She was having a difficult time with her daughter, a teacher, and the administration. She said, "I need some guidance. I know you don't have my children at William Southern anymore, but you know me and my children, and we trust you to give us sound advice."

Normally, parents have this network--they all call each other and soon a whole neighborhood is in an uproar about a certain teacher. In this case, because of the relationship we had, parent to principal, she didn't go to her neighbors; she came to me. I advised her on what course I thought she should take. She said she had already talked to the teacher and had called the principal five times; the calls were not returned. Everything she said was very rational, and her irritation seemed justified.

I said,"Give the principal one more call. If that doesn't work, here's the number for the director of secondary schools." She did what I suggested and called me back that afternoon. She had reached the people she wanted to talk to and felt her concerns had been heard. In the fifty minutes it took to listen, respond, and encourage her she could work it out, I had a number of phone calls to return, students to see, teachers to observe, and parents in the office waiting to see me. Instead, I took the time to talk to a junior high school parent--a parent who knew me and trusted me--and, as a result, I felt as if I had quelled a public rebellion.

When I think of building relationships, I'm standing in the hallway and kids are coming up to me for their daily hugs. In the lunch room, students with mashed potatoes and gravy on their faces, hands, and clothes, give me a big hug on their way out to the playground. I learned a long time ago, a cleaning bill is a small price to pay for those lasting relationships.

Martha Jones, principal of Miller Middle School in Macon, Georgia, paved the way for a program to succeed by matching the aggressiveness of her public relations campaign to the aggressiveness of her campaign against school violence:

Perhaps my most radical reform has been the effort to eliminate violence in a middle school with 1,350 students and 84 teachers. In our socially and culturally divided community, the middle school I inherited 3 years ago was the established leader, academically and in every other measure. However, the 22 percent of Macon students who enroll in private schools are said to do so because they fear the violence in public schools.

So I began the preliminaries to put in place a policy of zero tolerance for violence and prepared for the flood of criticism that would certainly be heard from the parents of children who got caught. I became the chief cheerleader, enlisted the opinions and support of my superiors, teachers, parents, and students; we were off. Every 20 feet, I posted signs with the diagonal slash mark across the word "violence" written in letters dripping blood-red paint. Campus police were enlisted for random searches of lockers and bookbags. Alternatives to violence were promoted through peer mediation and closed circuit t. v. announcements. Students at Miller are suspended automatically if they (1) exchange blows; (2) promote acts of violence with their words or actions--even to the point of spreading word of impending violence; or (3) threaten violence of any kind. Those with weapons are either suspended or sent to an alternative school.

Now non-violence has become the norm. Although there have been repercussions in the form of numerous appeals, incidents of violence have decreased almost to the point of nonexistence.

Selling a community on positive programs that require its support can be as demanding as selling it on prevention. Nancy Savory, a principal in Bellevue, Washington, showed her management knowledge and skill in winning approval and support for adoption of a program that she knew was good for her students.

Volunteers in the Bellevue Education System--VIBES--was organized four years ago as an effective and well-executed mentor program for students. VIBES' price tag was $11,000--the cost of a VIBES coordinator to work directly in the school training community mentors, coordinating with classroom teachers, and identifying students who would best benefit from the nurturing assistance of their own mentor.

I knew we had to have VIBES for my middle school because of our diverse population, increasing and intense needs of students, and low test scores, and for the recognition our school would receive as the first and only middle school committed to VIBES.

Thus the journey began: inform staff, parents, and students about VIBES; clarify why we needed VIBES; assist everyone in seeing the benefits; provide for discussion, questions, thinking time; coordinate the related budget picture to show how we could afford VIBES and what might have to be sacrificed otherwise; and take the VIBES proposal through the school's official decision making group.

We completed all of the steps. There were reservations. There were budget concerns. We modified where we could, incorporating people's ideas. We reached consensus as a school that we would proceed with VIBES.

VIBES is now in its third year at school. Dozens of students have benefited. VIBES mentors came from retired citizens, a software company, a sporting goods company, the newspaper, students at neighboring universities, and numerous other areas. They have ranged in age from 20 to 65 years. I have found ways to supplement the budget with grant money and other sources, to replace the money spent on VIBES. The unexpected development was how much staff have personally valued the interaction between themselves and another adult in their classroom.

An unexpected development of the story telling segment of the leadership forums was the extent to which participants learned about the richness of their own experience by selecting well-remembered events and shaping them into stories to share. Out of the seeming chaos of days filled with hundreds of occurrences and interactions, they found streams of meaning that added up to lessons about practice. In the discussions that followed the story telling, participants elaborated on the lessons. They seldom came up with simple prescriptions, such as "Do what I did." Instead, they rediscovered the importance of having an ample store of professional knowledge and skills and applying it with good judgment to the situation at hand.
-###-

[Stories of Knowledge and Daring]

[Chapter 3 References]