Speakers:
- Danny Torres
- Contann Dabney
Danny Torres:
Hello everyone and welcome to the third session of our Leading Together series. In these 30-minute virtual learning webinars, WestEd experts are sharing research and evidence-based practices that help bridge opportunity gaps, support positive outcomes for children and adults, and help build thriving communities.
Today’s topic, Strategic Leadership Actions to Ignite School Improvement. Presenting today is Contann Dabney, senior school and district improvement facilitator at WestEd. Thank you all very much for joining us. My name is Danny Torres. I’m associate director of events and digital media for WestEd. I’ll be your host.
Now, before we move into the contents of today’s webinar, I’d like to take a brief moment to introduce WestEd. WestEd is a nonpartisan, non-profit organization that aims to improve the lives of children and adults at all ages of learning and development. We do this by addressing challenges in education and human development, reducing opportunity gaps, and helping build communities where all can thrive. Now I’d like to pass the mic over to Contann. She’ll be leading the session today. Contann, take it away.
Contann Dabney:
Welcome, everyone, to today’s webinar, designed to empower school leaders like you with key strategies to kick off a strong academic year. In this session, we’ll focus on the importance of taking decisive actions early. Prioritizing these actions not only sets the tone but can also align with your year-long improvement goals. We’ll explore practical ways to provide just-in-time support, addressing challenges as they come, and ensuring that your steps towards improvement contribute to lasting success.
A big part of the success involves fostering a sense of urgency and strategically prioritizing actions so you can communicate these critical steps effectively to your leadership team and to your broader school community. By doing so, you can unite your entire school community around a shared goal, achieving results whether they are focused on academic outcomes or social–emotional supports. Finally, we’ll dive into some key techniques for maintaining momentum throughout the school year, such as monitoring progress regularly, making necessary adjustments, and celebrating small wins along the way. Ultimately, the goal is to give you practical insights to help you sustain improvement efforts and drive success from the start of the school year to the finish of the school year. I’m excited to get started.
So, I’ll share a little bit about myself before I begin. Like Danny mentioned, I am a senior school and district improvement facilitator with WestEd CSTI, Center for School Turnaround and Improvement. Prior to joining WestEd, I was an elementary school teacher, a principal, and my last position before joining WestEd was an associate superintendent of school leadership in Buffalo, New York. Currently, I work as a leadership coach, transformational specialist, working with SEA schools and with districts. And the picture you see on the side is my village, my four favorite people, my family. Before we begin, I would like to share access to a Thought Catcher that you can access through the link you see on the screen, wested.org/thought-catcher, or with the QR code. If you have a Google account, you’ll need to sign into your account.
Our agenda for today. We’ll start today going over prioritizing critical actions for early impact. We’ll then move into sustaining momentum and celebrating successes. There will be four opportunities today where you’ll have an opportunity to reflect on the current state of your school and self-reflect on the actions that may need to be taken. And then finally, we’ll end today’s session with a call to action and we’ll share additional materials you can use within your school this school year.
As we dive into today’s webinar, it’s important to ground our discussion in a framework that has proven effective in driving school improvement, the four domains for rapid school improvement. These four domains, Turnaround Leadership, Talent Development, Instructional Transformation, and Culture Shift, provide a comprehensive approach to addressing the key areas that contribute to a school’s success. Today we’ll be focusing specifically on two of those domains and two practices within that domain. We’ll focus on Turnaround Leadership, particularly prioritizing improvement and communicating urgency, which emphasizes the need for leaders to take decisive actions early and communicate their priorities effectively to drive improvement. Secondly, we’ll focus on Culture Shift, which is a focus on building a culture focused on student learning, which is creating an environment where every stakeholder is aligned and focused on student success.
So, action one, to ignite school improvement. The first thing that leaders can do is prioritize critical actions for early impact. This falls under prioritizing improvement and communicating urgency. And why does this early prioritization matter? It sets the tone for improvement, it addresses urgent needs, and it builds momentum quickly. Early in the school year is the most critical time to prioritize these actions with the biggest impact. The decisions we make now set the tone for the rest of our school year, and it establishes a clear path for improvement.
Leaders are most visible when we address our challenges head on. By identifying improvement goals early, we can quickly respond to academic, social–emotional, and staff training needs. It’s essential to communicate the urgency of these goals clearly to staff, students, and to the broader school community. And we can’t forget about building momentum quickly. Addressing immediate needs, whether it’s identifying learning needs, instructional gaps from the previous year, or providing early, targeted professional development, this all helps to build momentum. These early actions demonstrate to your school community that you as a leader are serious about improvements and you’re committed to making success and progress.
Here’s a quote by Michael Fullan, an educational reform expert. “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality. The actions of school leaders are crucial, as they set the tone and direction for the educational experience, impacting students and teachers alike.” This highlights the importance of school leaders’ actions in shaping the educational environment.
Here’s a few examples of some just-in-time supports. School leaders can engage in quick data analysis to identify immediate gaps, they can provide targeted support for students needing additional assistance, and they can also provide targeted and responsive professional development for teachers. You might use early assessment data to quickly identify who needs additional support in your student body. When doing so, please be mindful that these early interventions offer flexibility so that students do not remain in these same groups all year. Whether related to academics or social–emotional needs, addressing these challenges early prevents them from becoming larger problems later on. Targeted interventions are critical for giving students the support they need right away. And, for teachers and being responsive to their professional development needs, if there is a group of teachers who need immediate professional development in a specific instructional area, you can create targeted training sessions to provide that support. These just-in-time actions address emerging needs and help maintain momentum.
So this is our first opportunity. We’re going to take a moment to use the Thought Catcher we shared at the very beginning. If you did not have a chance to access it, we’ve shared it again here. Again, you can access that through wested.org/thought-catcher. And here’s our first reflection question. Identify an area where your early data indicates the need for immediate just-in-time support. I’ll give you about 30 seconds to think about what those early areas are. And if you weren’t able to access the Thought Catcher, you can just use a note, a sticky note, to make note of those early actions.
All right, that takes us to action two. It’s important that the school leaders align critical actions with long-term goals. This also falls under prioritizing improvement and communicating urgency. School leaders must consider how this just-in-time support contributes to their long-term goals. They must align their short-term actions with their long-term goals, ensure everyone knows the why behind their early actions, and set clear time-bound objectives. While addressing immediate needs is critical, it’s essential to ensure these short-term priorities align with your long-term improvement goals.
As leaders, we must consistently ask, how do these urgent actions contribute to the broader success of our school by the end of the year? Communicating the urgency is vital, and it’s not just about addressing the issue at the moment. You must, as school leaders, explain the why behind these actions. This helps to build a shared understanding across your school of how each step contributes to your overall improvement goals.
And finally, setting those clear time-bound objectives when launching interventions, whether for its social–emotional or academic need, connecting these early efforts sets the foundation for long-term success, ensuring that short-term actions don’t just stay short-term actions, they have time-bound objectives that help the school community see how it fits in individual steps towards your long-term goals.
And there are ways that you can communicate these actions. You can do so through weekly staff briefings that include the why, leadership team check-ins, and school community engagement. Regular staff briefings are a great way to keep everyone informed about what is happening and why. This helps reinforce the connection between critical just-in-time actions and long-term goals, ensuring alignment across the school. Consistent check-ins with your leadership team ensures everyone is on the same page and that ensures that everyone is reinforcing that same message across the school. These meetings help align leadership efforts with school goals and priorities. And finally, engaging that school community—engaging the broader school community through newsletters, parent meetings, or student assemblies to communicate school goals is a way to communicate those actions. This fosters a unified understanding of how the school’s short-term actions contribute to its long-term objectives.
So, we’re going to take another moment to pause, and reflect, and think about that just-in-time support you thought about earlier. And now, connecting that, how will your selected just-in-time support contribute to achieving your year-end goal? How will you communicate the why behind these actions to ensure your staff and school community understand their connection to the long-term goal? I’ll give you a few moments to think about it. Remember, if you’re thinking about some early actions, those early actions will need to be communicated, and that why becomes essential.
All right, we’re going to move ahead. Here’s a quote by Richard DuFour, an educator and author known for his work on professional learning communities. He states, “Creating a culture focused on student learning requires leaders to build relationships, foster collaboration, and sustain momentum through a shared responsibility and collective commitment to student success.” This quote emphasizes the importance of collaborative culture in education led by school leaders.
This actually takes us to our next action, which falls under domain four, Culture Shift, building a culture focused on student learning. And that action is school leaders need to continue to sustain momentum and engage in celebrating successes. And how do we sustain that momentum? School leaders can do that through regular progress monitoring, strategic adjustments based on data, and recognizing small wins.
Taking decisive actions early is critical, but sustaining momentum throughout the school year is just as important. Leaders must regularly monitor progress to ensure the school stays on track towards its goals. They can use school data, reviews, dashboards to track key metrics like student performance, attendance, behavioral trends, or the implementation of professional learning. School leaders can also schedule regular goal check-ins with leadership team or staff to review progress and make adjustments as needed. Regular progress monitoring allows for strategic adjustments to your approach when necessary. And that real-time data provides insights into where changes are needed to keep the momentum going and to keep your momentum strong.
And finally, we cannot forget about recognizing those small wins. Maintaining momentum is not just about tracking data, it’s also about celebrating progress no matter how small. And sometimes that can be difficult for leaders. Recognizing small wins keeps everyone motivated and reinforces that your actions are making a difference, which will be important for your school community.
And finally, what are some of those ways you can celebrate success? You can do so by recognizing both student and staff achievement and also creating an ongoing culture of recognition. Celebrating successes builds motivation and a positive school culture. Recognizing students and staff who make strides in improving student outcomes and celebrating successful collaboration within a team fosters a sense of accomplishment. And there are several methods you can use to celebrate and create a culture of recognition. You can give staff and team recognition. You can use staff as learning partners so that they have the opportunities to share best practices. You can also hold student effort ceremonies to recognize academic and behavioral improvements. You can have students track their own data to be celebrated, making them owners of their own learning. And you can also publicly highlight classroom successes.
These recognition practices help maintain momentum and show that everyone is working hard in making an impact. By regularly tracking progress, making strategic adjustments when needed, and celebrating small victories, you ensure that the momentum and energy that you have at this part of the school year continues through the end of the school year.
So we’re going to take another second and give you an opportunity to reflect on your current processes and your current practices. What tools, people, or processes do you have in place to consistently monitor progress? How can you celebrate the ongoing successes and efforts of both students and staff? So, school leaders, this may be a time where you take a moment to reflect on, is there something that’s happening right now that you may want to think about celebrating even if it’s a small achievement that’s moving you along towards your end of the year goals? I’ll give you a few minutes to think.
Now, we’re going to move on to our final action for today. Now, this spiral graph represents continuous learning. Action four is about maintaining a culture of that continuous learning. It also falls under building a culture focused on student learning. School leaders can embed reflection into the school’s culture. Embedding reflection into a school culture can be done by creating spaces for staff and students to reflect, using feedback to stay adaptable, and celebrating not just successes but also lessons learned from challenges. Embedding reflection into the school culture is critical for long-term growth. Reflection and adaptation should become everyday practice for both staff and students. A school focused on continuous improvement not only celebrates their successes, but it also reflects on the challenges and the lessons that are learned from them. This is key to sustaining long-term growth. As leaders, it is our role to create consistent opportunities for staff and students to engage in reflective practices. This promotes continuous adaptation and growth.
And reflection is not just about looking back, it’s also about using those lessons learned to adapt. Schools that regularly reflect can make strategic adjustments as the new challenges arise. And that celebration—that’s not just about the success but also about learning challenges—it’s important to recognize that not only achievement but also lessons learned from obstacles are just as important. Creating a culture where success and growth from challenges are celebrated fosters a learning-oriented environment.
And there are feedback mechanisms that you can engage in in order to capture some of this learning. One is surveys, another is leadership reflection sessions, and finally, there is opportunities for you to gather student and teacher feedback. Collecting surveys can be done in a variety of ways, from a formal survey, like our Four Domains for Rapid School Improvement call survey to simple tools like our ticket out the door prompts at faculty meetings to gather input from staff. Leaders can also have reflection sessions where they schedule regular leadership reflection to analyze progress and make strategic decisions based on feedback and data.
And finally, when we’re thinking about gathering student and teacher feedback, you can engage students and teachers in focus groups or informal feedback sessions to understand their perspective and their experience so that you gather insight to inform future decision. The key takeaway is that reflection and adaptation are essential for building a sustainable learning-focused culture. By making these practices regular and intentional, you ensure that improvement is an ongoing schoolwide effort and not just a one-time event.
That takes us to our final opportunity to reflect on our current state and our practices. Where can you build a space to foster continuous learning as a culture where reflection and adaptation become routine for both your students and your staff? How can you collect feedback that allows staff and students to continuously provide insights and make improvement for themselves and for the sake of your strategic plans and improvement priorities? So I’ll give you a few moments to think about your current state and where you can build space to foster continuous improvement.
Hopefully you’ve had a chance to think about it and make a quick note. As we come to the end of our session, let’s quickly recap the key takeaways from today’s webinar. I would like to recap our four key actions that school leaders can take to ignite school improvement. Action one, prioritize critical actions for early impact. Focus on essential actions during the first half of the school year to set a strong tone and drive impactful change. Taking early decisive actions is vital for building momentum and establishing a foundation for success.
Action two, remember to align critical actions with long-term goals. Communicate the urgency of these actions so your staff and your school community understand their significance and how they connect to your long-term school improvement goals. This alignment helps keep everyone motivated and focused on their broader objectives.
Action three, sustain momentum and celebrate successes. Foster a culture centered on student learning by monitoring progress and establishing systems to track outcomes. Regular check-ins and strategic adjustments will help maintain focus and ensure you’re making strides towards your goals.
And your final action, maintain a culture of continuous learning, where reflection and lessons learned are integrated into your school cultures. Recognizing and celebrating progress helps build and sustain momentum, keeping everyone motivated towards achieving long-term success. These four actions—prioritizing early impact, aligning with goals, sustaining momentum, and fostering continuous learning—are foundational for effective and lasting school improvement.
Now our call to action. As you continue into your new school year, I encourage you to identify your top priorities. What actions can you take immediately that will have the most impact? Think about specific challenges your school is facing right now and think about what just-in-time supports you can implement to address those. I also suggest you draft a simple action plan based on the strategies we discussed today, those four actions.
And lastly, remember the importance of regular check-in with your leadership team. Take time to reflect on progress and the progress that you’re making, celebrate small wins, and make adjustments needed to stay on track. By prioritizing those critical actions and maintaining clear communication, you’ll set your school up for a strong and successful school year. Let’s carry forward the commitment for impactful change.
So I want to thank you all for your attendance to today’s webinar. I’ve attached another QR code and a WestEd link to additional resources. So not only will you have access to today’s materials, but you’ll have access to resources from our CSTI website. And you can access all of our materials from there. If you have any need to contact me, my email is also there, and our csti.wested.org website is also there. I’ll turn it back over to Danny.
Danny Torres:
Well, thank you very much, Contann, for a great session. And thank you to all our participants for joining us. We really appreciate you being here. You can download resources from this webinar at wested.org/LT3-resources. Once again, that’s wested.org/LT3-resources. And feel free to reach out to Contann via email if you have questions about her work at WestEd Center for School Turnaround and Improvement. Finally, you can also sign up for our email newsletter to receive updates about research, publications, and new initiatives. Simply subscribe online at wested.org/subscribe. And with that, thank you all very much for being here. Have a great day. Be well.