boy photo

Archive E-newsletters

 

 

 

 

OnPoint eNewsletter

 

 

April - June 2010

In this edition of OnPoint, we take a look at Pivot Learning Partners’ Executive Leadership Center (ELC), a series of professional development sessions designed for superintendents. Presented in association with the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA), these ELCs provide superintendents a rare chance to interact withcolleagues and explore the latest education research.

Steve Winlock and Rich Fischer
Steve Winlock (l) and Rich Fischer (r);
Pivot Learning Partners ELC Presenters

Rich Fischer is Pivot Learning’s Director of ELC, and he talks about what is an ELC and how California superintendents are using it now to help them raise achievement in their districts.

 

 

Executive Leadership Centers:
Coming Together Around Leadership

What do Jane Russo and Kathleen Daugherty have in common? They both have the toughest job in public education today—school district superintendent. At first glance it looks like Russo, superintendent of Santa Ana Unified School District with an enrollment of 54,000 students, would have little in common with Daugherty, who leads the Newcastle Union Elementary District with 348 students. But both are facing many of the same challenges, including declining revenue at a time of increasing expectations for student achievement.

At one time most of us agreed that the high school principal job was the toughest—long hours, high expectations, hard-to-please constituents, school dances and more, more, more. The job is still tough, but in these challenging times there’s no job tougher than being a school district superintendent. As Russo once said, “If we are going to affect student performance and academic achievement, then it has to start at the top.”

ELC participants discuss a topicBut Russo and Daugherty have another thing in common—along with 248 other California superintendents, they attend Pivot Learning Partners’ Executive Leadership Center (ELC) Seminar series in their region.

Four years ago a group of experienced superintendents joined Springboard Schools (now Pivot Learning Partners) to create a leadership development seminar series for superintendents, and to deliver this series in regions throughout the State. Today Regional ELC groups are meeting in 12 regions, from San Diego and Imperial Counties in Southern California to Shasta and Butte Counties in Northern California. Roughly based on the ACSA Annual ELC seminars that began in the late ‘80s, today’s Pivot Learning Regional ELCs have become a series of four seminars per year, offered at convenient locations and at no cost to the attending superintendents.

“The topics of discussion are relevant, and the substantive dialogues are very beneficial to my work in leading our school district.”
Sandra Thorstenson
Superintendent

The goal of each Regional ELC seminar is to help superintendents make student achievement their primary focus, and to introduce them to content, processes and interactions that they can use to inspire and support that student focus in their districts. Sandra Thorstenson, superintendent of Whittier Union High School District, keeps returning to ELCs because, “the quality of the leadership development is very high.” She says, “The topics of discussion are relevant, and the substantive dialogues are very beneficial to my work in leading our school district.” Designed by superintendents for superintendents, the program has several components, including great content, powerful research, useful protocols and activities to take home, quality interaction with peers and time for personal reflection and planning.

“I’ve participated in the Regional ELC for the last four years and have found it to be extremely valuable,” according to Casey D’Angelo, superintendent of Wright Elementary School District. “The position of superintendent can be very isolating, but the ELC has helped us form a Professional Learning Community for superintendents. We have opportunities to share the highs and lows of leading a district, as well as explore new research and strategies related to leadership that we can directly apply to our work. I often use the ELC materials with my own administrative team.”

Every superintendent that attends a Pivot Learning ELC has the same goal in mind: improve education for all their students. Working alongside peers in the same position is a powerful tool to achieve that goal.

Back to Top

A Look Inside the ELC: Brad's Story

“I was shocked. I wasn’t sure what to do, and I’m still not sure. I’d really like your help.”  And that’s how it started.

Brad*, a superintendent, had come up to me a few minutes before the start of our fourth Executive Leadership Center (ELC) Seminar session and asked if he could have a few minutes to talk to the group—he had a challenge he could really use some help with. My first reaction—unspoken—was to protect the time we had for the session. This unplanned challenge would blow a hole in my schedule. But there was also no way we wouldn’t help him with his issue.

After getting the group’s permission Brad told his story – a situation involving a board meeting that made a sharp departure from the expected outcome. He described how he had spent the previous meeting preparing the board for a serious decision that they’d need to make; how he was sure all of the necessary prep had been done. But it was his description about how the board behaved afterwards that caused jaws to drop around the room. New superintendents and seasoned veterans all had the same reaction I had when Brad first told me this story.

For confidentiality reasons, I cannot go into the details of Brad’s dilemma. An important part of our ELCs is that they are safe, focused places where education leaders can work to develop themselves and seek assistance without judgment. But the specifics of his problem are not what I am trying to highlight. It was how we came together to help him address it.

Many of the superintendents in this group had attended ELC Seminars for two or more years, and they didn’t need any prompting to know what to do next, implementing something we call an “Action Learning Lab.” When Brad finished his story this Professional Learning Community (PLC)of twenty-eight district leaders began asking clarifying questions, working to develop a deep understanding of the situation, and then brainstormed in small groups to decide what feedback Brad would find valuable.

An important part of our ELCs is that they are safe, focused places where education leaders can work to develop themselves and seek assistance without judgment.

In this case, feedback came to Brad in the form of questions, all designed to help him think more deeply about the situation. Every question carried a nugget that would add value to Brad’s search for the best way to deal with this challenge.

After the brainstorming was finished, and a couple of times during the rest of the session, Brad commented how he valued and appreciated the help he’d received, and during the two breaks in the session I saw other superintendents gathering around him to provide further input.

Brad’s situation is not unusual for a district leader, but he was fortunate to be part of a group of superintendents that operates as a professional learning community, a place where he can find and share advice and insights with peers. Our norms of honesty, collegiality and de-privatization were all put into play in that moment, as they are throughout all our ELCs. The content of an ELC is always relevant and powerful, but the content is always in service to the conversations and reflection that take place during each session.

Brad’s story illustrates the power of ELC and that, in spite of the careful preparation that goes into the content, processes and protocols of these meetings, the most important consideration is always given to the interaction between participants. We like to say that the content is the springboard into the conversation, and that conversation often takes unpredictable turns, as in Brad’s case. We ask our participants to evaluate each session they attend, and the item always getting the highest value rating is interaction with peers.

We are all wishing Brad the best, and if his issue is consistent with others before him, he’ll get several phone calls and e-mails from colleagues offering help and support.

*Name changed to protect confidentiality

Back to Top

Donor Spotlight
Our ELC Sponsors

Pivot Learning Partners would like to thank the following donors for their support of the Pivot Learning Executive Leadership Center seminar series for superintendents. Through their generous support, Pivot Learning has been able to offer this research-based and highly effective professional development series complimentary to California superintendents and administrators. Together we are working toward improving education for all students and raising achievement throughout the state.

Alliant Insurance Services
Anova Architects
BCA Architects
Blackboard Connect
The Boeing Company
CSU Bakersfield
Cisco Systems
Law Offices of David Girard
Paramount Farming
State Farm Insurance
TCG
University of San Diego

Back to Top

 

Other News

Pivot Learning Partners at Harvard

Merrill Vargo and team at Harvard Merrill Vargo with a Bay Area team of superintendants at Harvard University

Pivot Learning’s Executive Director Merrill Vargo, along with a team of superintendents from the Bay Area, recently attended the Harvard University training by Dr. Richard Elmore on Instructional Rounds. Instructional rounds—a practice adapted to education from the field of medicine—embodies a specific set of ideas about how practitioners can work together to solve common problems and improve their practice. This team will work in their own districts as well as together over the course of the next year to implement this practice in their schools. 

Back to Top

From the ELC: Education Literature

ELC participants go over materialsParticipants consistently comment on the value of the ELC content. Our planning team continually searches for the most current research, literature and audio-visual materials related to leadership and best practices. One long time participant in Fresno recently said it all, “You guys make me look so smart! I always take this stuff back to my district and use it with my management team, and sometimes even with my board. There’s no way I would have time to develop quality materials like this.”

Here is a partial list of some of the works we’ve shared with participants and encouraged them to delve deeper into in their own districts:

  •  “The Leadership Lessons of FDR”, excerpted from the writings of authors Adam Cohen, Jonathan Alter, and Doris Kearns Goodwin
  • Six Secrets of Change, Michael Fullan
  • “Millenials in K-12 Schools: Educational Strategies for A New Generation”, Neil Howe and William Strauss
  • “Blue Ocean Strategies—How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant”, W. Chan Kim and Renee Maugorgne

Back to Top

From the ELC: Student Observation
Each year our team searches high and low to find the most effective processes, protocols and activities that we can use in our seminars and encourage participants to use in their districts. A long time favorite has been the Action Learning Lab mentioned in Brad’s story about his board, but in every seminar we try to introduce an activity or protocol that we haven’t used before. For example, this year we encouraged superintendents to include student observations in their classroom visits. Seminar designer Carolyn Bainer developed the “3 by 3 Protocol for Student Observations” which provided leaders a system they could use while observing students. Most of our participants are accustomed to doing walk-throughs of classrooms and many do teacher observations, but we wanted them to look at their schools through the eyes of students.

We introduced student observations in our first seminar of the year and had participants report out on their experience in seminars two and three. We were really encouraged when so many superintendents got so deeply into the experience, and Paul Chounet, superintendent of Wasco Unified School District, epitomized the commitment that we saw in so many when he became so engrossed in observing his student that he committed time for several observations. Chounet commented, “I learned more about my district from my student observation than in the past year and a half as superintendent.”

Back to Top

Teacher Leader Pilot Series Takes Off

Highly skilled and effective teacher leaders can have a powerful influence on the instruction and educational practices at their schools. Pivot Learning Partners has created a workshop series to help teacher leaders refine and reinforce the skills, identified through research, as being the most significant in bringing about positive change for students.

Four of our current District Partners (Covina Valley, Corcoran Joint Unified, Wasco Union Elementary and Wasco Union High) have selected teacher leaders to participate in this professional development program through a pilot grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation. We are pleased to have elementary and secondary districts statewide represented.

During six half-day sessions, teacher leaders (along with the district and site leaders who support them) meet as a Professional Learning Community to explore the roles of teacher leaders, learn how to plan and lead meetings, establish a classroom Cycle of Inquiry, and use data about student achievement and teacher practice to improve instruction and outcomes for all.

The program, set in the context of district or site improvement goals, is receiving very positive reviews. Teacher leaders are noting that “learning the importance of the roles of others and sharing our experiences in a professional manner” is a cornerstone of the work of Professional Learning Communities. Participants can then extend that understanding to “talking to my fellow teachers and the principal about effective and non-effective classroom practices” as a way of improving teaching and learning.

We are currently scheduling dates for this training beginning in summer and into the fall. In addition to the six seminar sessions facilitated by a Pivot Learning presenter, two days will be allocated for a Pivot Learning coach to work with participants at the district or site level to help with implementation of this work.

For more information about the pilot program or summer and fall training dates and pricing, please contact Claudia Carbonell-Bensley

Pivot Learning Partners offers other Teacher Programs, such as Balanced Math and Balanced ELA.
Learn more about Teacher Programs.

Back to Top

Turn to Pivot Learning Partners to Obtain School Improvement Grant (SIG) Funds and Help Transform Your Schools

We at Pivot Learning Partners believe that when a school is identified as “persistently low achieving” it is a call for the entire school community to think in more creative and ambitious ways about serving their students.

With over fifteen years of experience, we know that “school transformation” is an achievable goal. We also know from the research that it is almost impossible without outside help. But despite the new challenges and substantial new requirements this discouraging designation brings, there is a silver lining in the significant resources that become available as well.

Pivot Learning Partners can serve as a school district’s “school turnaround partner,” providing expert consulting, technical assistance, professional development, coaching, and even grant writing and fundraising support. We approach every step with the goal of providing the most cost-effective possible support.

Right now, Pivot Learning Partners is assisting ten districts with Phase One of the SIG funding process: completing a needs analysis and preparing the SIG application. With a June 1, 2010 deadline for submitting the application, many of our Partner Districts have chosen to apply for funding with a Pivot Learning Project Lead at their sides throughout this first stage of the process.

After submission, districts can expect Pivot Learning to support them throughout the summer in getting ready to open their schools’ doors and continuing on through the implementation phase.

We will be there every step of the way, according to their needs and yours. If you would like to learn more about our SIG work, please contact: Karen Rowe or Cathy Townsley.

Back to Top

If you wish to unsubscribe from the newsletter, please send an email with the subject "UNSUBSCRIBE" to: unsubscribe@pivotlearningpartners.org