In Order to Improve. . . Schools Need to Understand HOW to Improve

School Improvement Begins with Principles before Principals: Paying It Forward

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Dear Colleagues,

Introduction

   In the midst of all the political, economic, medical, and social chaos around us, we still need to focus on what we can control, and what matters most to us.

   For some of us, at least on a professional level, this means using our experience and expertise to (continue to) serve our customers, clients, consumers, constituents, and colleagues with integrity and excellence. . . regardless of what we do.

   We also need to recognize. . . no matter how long we have been working, and (sometimes) how beaten and battered down we feel, that “the next level of excellence” comes from (a) planning and preparation, (b) training and consultation, (c) implementation and evaluation, and. . . most importantly, (d) commitment, collaboration, caring, optimism, and flexibility.

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Life Goes On

   While I am not suggesting that we unsympathetically ignore the real and varied international, national, state, local, and familial events around us, my Introduction above suggests that “Life does go on”. . . whether we actively or passively engage in it.

   Moreover, there are many around us who are actively engaging in their futures. . . especially those in our “younger” generations who will become our next leaders.

   Periodically, I receive e-mails from unknown colleagues who have read one or more of my Blogs, and are inspired to reach out. They often have a request, reflection, or revelation that they want to share, and I view their invitations to respond as opportunities to “pay it forward.”

   This week, I received one such e-mail from a school psychology graduate student who is just finishing up her internship in a large (80,000+ students) county school district.

   She wrote:

I saw the thread about school shootings and started looking at your corresponding blogs. Many of your comments resonated with me and I was wondering what advice you can offer to me as an early career school psychologist who also provides consultative services. This summer I plan to work on homing in on my expertise and interests and what I can competently offer schools. I hope to hear from you.

   While my personal advice to her attempted to summarize what I’ve learned as a consultant over the past 40+ years, I realized that my response really identified many of the underlying principles of how schools engage in the continuous improvement processes that help them to systematically move to “the next level of excellence.”

   Given this, and knowing that the Principal in every school across this country is dedicated to this “next level,” I would like to share these principles, hoping that these principles will help contribute to our Principals’ (and their staff and students’) success.

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Ten Principles of School Improvement and Success

   Below are the ten principles that I shared in the e-mail response to my school psychology colleague.

   While I could elaborate extensively on each principle, my fear is that the amplifications will detract from their interdependence, and from you considering whether and/or how they are meaningful to you.

   Thus, I will leave these principles to your individual self-reflections, and not “muddy the waters.”

   At the same time, please consider:

·       How are you acting on each of these principles? 

·       Is it working? 

·       What do you need to stop doing, start doing, or do more of?

·       How do you share these principles with your colleagues, encouraging them to embrace them, and guiding them collaboratively to the next level of excellence?

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   The Principles are:

   Principle 1. Keep abreast of the research and practice. Do not fall into bandwagons. Focus on student outcomes in everything that you do.

   Principle 2. Use data-based or data-driven problem-solving as much as possible. Look at the data and collect your own data to demonstrate that what you do works.

   Principle 3. Develop evidence-based blueprints that integrate science and practice. Apply these blueprints to the individual needs of your clients, but—as adjustments are needed—maintain your adherence to and the integrity of these blueprints.

   Principle 4. Don't try to be everything to everyone. If your orientation and approaches do not match a potential client, walk away.

   It is not about the money. It is about bringing students, staff, schools, and systems to the next level of excellence—regardless of where they are starting. Trust your gut, and don't accept consultations that have the potential of leaving the system worse off than when you started.

   Principle 5. Think outside the box. Often what clients say or think is the problem is really a symptom of an actual, more deep-seated problem.

   Principle 6. Recognize that the primary outcome of consultation and professional development is changing people's attitudes, beliefs, expectations. . . but most important, the consistent and long-term behavior and interactions of teachers, related services professionals, and administrators. 

   Do not fall into the Time Trap of only telling colleagues “what to do" during consultation and professional development sessions. Help them to also understand why they are doing it. . . even when they may be impatient and just “want the answer.”

   If colleagues do not understand why they are doing what you are initially guiding them to do, they will be unable to analyze, adapt, and make needed mid-course corrections on their own when things are not going well and you are unavailable.

   Principle 7. Remember that, to be successful, systems change or school-wide initiatives need the unwavering commitment of at least 80% of those implementing the different activities of the initiative.

   Assess this commitment before accepting the consultation. Or, at least, begin the consultation with all of the stakeholders understanding the goals and desired outcomes of an initiative, and then assess their commitment. If you have the 80%-plus, continue to the next consultation level or activity.

   But if you have 60 to 79% commitment, decide if there is a commitment to “build” toward the 80+%. And if you have less than a 60% commitment, don’t take it personally. . . the system is just not ready to engage.

   Principle 8. Consistent with #7 above, begin with a Needs Assessment that strategically results in a one to three-year Action Plan that will guide the school improvement process. Then, if you are still the right person to guide the Plan's implementation, go—once again—to the next phase of the consultation.

   Principle 9. Practice within the scope of your expertise. Do not (consciously or subconsciously—but inaccurately) reframe the needs of your client to match your knowledge and skills. . . when your knowledge and skills actually are irrelevant to their needs.

   Principle 10. Know that your success is due to the sustained motivation, efforts, and implementation of those in the school with whom you are collaborating.

   If "it" is not working, evaluate and make mid-course corrections. If it is apparent still that it will “not work,” recommend someone else and walk away.

   And finally, never make a school and its staff dependent on you. Figuratively, as the saying goes: “Teach each of your consultees how to fish, so that they can eventually feed themselves.”

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Summary

   While I have focused this Blog discussion on the school and schooling process, I know that the ten principles above can easily be adapted to virtually any work setting.

   Moreover, these principles are applicable both for consultants who are helping organizations to improve from the “outside in,” and professionals who are facilitating change from within their organizations.

   The “Bottom Line” is that leaders are successful not because of their titles, but because of their principles and actions.

   Hence:

The potential for any organization to improve to the next level of excellence is based on the principles of leadership and change, and not on the “Principal” who has been put into a “seat of power.”

   For those of you who, like me, work as “outside in” consultants, I hope that these principles will facilitate an introspective self-evaluation process. Truly, if we all practice with these principles in mind, we will not only be successful as consultants, but our clients will also more successfully reach their desired goals and outcomes.

   For schools that are hiring or contracting with outside consultants, use these principles as questions. . . so that you have the highest probability of success.

   For schools. . . this means more successful student, staff, school, and district outcomes. This is something that we all desperately need for everyone during these challenging times.

Best,

Howie

[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]

Why School Shootings are Extreme Events along the Social-Emotional Learning Continuum. . .

 And Why Schools Need to Conduct SEL Audits and Needs Assessments to Decrease the Future Risks

[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]

Dear Colleagues,

Introduction: A Radio Realization

   Every few months, the host of Education Talk Radio, Larry Jacobs, is gracious enough to invite me onto his program to talk about a current topic in education.  As a school psychologist, I often bring psychology’s research-to-practice into the discussions which typically focus on school discipline, classroom management, social-emotional learning, and/or how to help students with challenging behaviors.

   But we also deal with only with contemporary issues that face our schools— including some of the most current, challenging situations and events.

   When preparing for our June 2nd show on How to Complete an SEL Needs Assessment, I began thinking about my last two Blogs, and then how all three topics were necessarily related.

May 14, 2022

Reconceptualizing Professional Development for the Coming School Year: Moving Away from Fly-by, “Spray and Pray,” and Awareness-Only Training

[CLICK HERE to link to this Blog]

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May 26, 2022

How Many More Children Need to be Gunned Down in our Schools and on our Streets? A Historical Plea to Protect our Children from the Politics of Polarization

[CLICK HERE to link to this Blog]

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   The result was an Education Talk Radio interview emphasizing that some of the most prevalent psychoeducational root causes of many school shootings have been:

·       Students who have been teased, bullied, rejected, or isolated by their peers in school and/or on social media;

·       School staff who are not fully trained, miss, ignore, or avoid addressing peer teasing and bullying, or individual students’ social, emotional, behavioral, or mental health “red flags”. . . 

or, Administrators who do the same thing even when staff correctly refer students to them;

·       Schools that are “doing” SEL. . . but what they are doing is not based on (a) objective, data-based Needs Assessments of their current status or needs, (b) approaches that have been objectively validated through sound and relevant research, and (c) strategies focused on student outcomes—that is, changing students’ interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional awareness, control, communication, and coping skills and behaviors; and

·       Faulty, incomplete, and/or poorly or under-staffed multi-tiered services, supports, strategies, and interventions that especially address students’ appropriate and inappropriate social interactions, and students who need strategic or intensive approaches to address their challenging behavior or mental health needs.

   The revelation (or integration) coalesced into today’s Blog. . . that literally:

·       School shootings are extreme events at the far end of the social-emotional learning continuum that often occur due to a combination of incomplete preventative practices at the front end, and ineffective responsive practices at the back end; and 

·       Schools need (right now!) to conduct comprehensive SEL Audits and Needs Assessments to decrease the risks of school shootings (as well as continued peer teasing, taunting, bullying, harassment, hazing, and physical aggression) in the coming school year.

   To emphasize these points, please invest 36-minutes and listen to my Education Talk Radio interview from a few weeks ago:

[CLICK HERE to link to:

June 2, 2022   How to Complete an SEL Needs Assessment

Education Talk Radio hosted by Larry Jacobs

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How One Webpage of Education Week Validates Today’s Thesis

   As I prepared to write this Blog, I also reviewed some of the relevant stories over the past two weeks in Education Week.

   On one Education Week browser page, I found the following titles:

·       “School Shootings this Year: How Many and Where” 

·       “After Uvalde Shooting, Build Up Current School Mental Health Efforts, Groups Urge Congress” 

·       “Strengthening Social-Emotional Learning Practices for Students and Staff” 

·       “7 Ways to Cultivate a Climate of Belonging”

·       “A Seat at the Table: Staffing Issues Are Not New. What Do We Do for Next Year?”

·       “How Much Time Should Schools Spend on Social-Emotional Learning?”

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   Critically. . . at least to me, the confluence of these stories on one page validated my thesis in the first section above.

   At the same time, beyond the fact that (a) schools are not conceptualizing the prevention of school shootings as linked to their SEL approaches, and that (b) most schools’ SEL approaches are not based on identified student needs or demonstrated outcomes, I have two additional concerns:

·       Even though they have the money to hire them, many schools are struggling with recruiting, hiring, and retaining well-trained counselors, school psychologists, and clinical social workers whose roles can be prioritized to focus on students’ social, emotional, and mental health needs; and 

·       Schools are still “pigeon-holing” their SEL approaches to a time of the day (week, or month), an on-line curriculum, or a theme or monthly assembly.

   Indeed, as in the last May 22, 2022 Education Week article above, the following quotes appeared:

In interviews with Education Week, social-emotional learning experts said that spending some classroom time explicitly teaching social-emotional skills is important, but what matters even more is effectively integrating the skills—such as time management, collaboration skills, and responsible decision-making—into everything that students are learning in school and in after-school programs.

 

School district leaders also recognize that social-emotional learning needs to not only be taught explicitly at times but also be embedded throughout the school day. And some even said an hour a day would be excellent.

 

“Well, if we had an hour a day to explicitly support SEL, that’d be amazing,” said Jill Bryant, assistant director of social-emotional learning for the Portland Public Schools in Oregon. “But then I would just go a step beyond that. It really needs to be woven into the fabric of everything we do all day, even after-school programs as well.”

 

“There isn’t a time limit for it,” said Juany Valdespino-Gaytán, executive director of engagement services for the Dallas Independent School District. “When we talk about social-emotional learning in Dallas, we’re not talking about SEL happening at one time of the day. SEL has to be taught and embedded throughout the entire day in order for students to really have the opportunity to develop those skills and apply these skills to everyday life.”

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The SEL Needs Assessment Process

   Putting all of this together, especially as districts and schools close out the current school year and prepare for the “hard” opening of the new school year in August or September, it only makes sense to:

·       Analyze student, staff, and schools’ social, emotional, and behavioral progress, outcomes, and status from this past school year; 

·       Identify the approaches, activities, and initiatives that are working and need to be maintained or extended;

·       Identify the approaches, activities, and initiatives that are not working and need to be phased out, retired, or discontinued;

·       Identify the service, support, and intervention gaps that are resulting in unmet student needs. . . determine their root causes, and research and link proactive, strategic, or intensive actions to address those causes and needs; and

·       Complete an audit to determine how to best align the curricular, intervention, technological, and staffing resources in a district and its schools to meet as many student needs as possible (while identifying the resource and staffing gaps that simultaneously need to be successfully addressed and closed).

   This requires a formal or informal needs assessment, resource analysis, and strategic planning process.

   Moreover, while this process could focus largely on student, staff, and schools’ multi-tiered social, emotional, behavioral, and mental health needs, students’ academic learning and mastery—through curriculum and instruction—also should be included as an interdependent domain.

   To guide this complex, multi-stage process, we have developed a research-based blueprint in our Monograph:

Strategic Planning and Continuous School Improvement: Needs Assessments and Resource Analyses. Completing Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat (SWOT) Assessments

[CLICK HERE for Description and Purchase Information]

   The Monograph discusses the science-to-practice components of an effective multi-tiered (a) academic instruction and student learning support system; and (b) social-emotional learning and positive behavioral support system.

   It also provides a step-by-step description of (a) the phases of an effective Strategic Planning process; and (b) how to conduct a Needs Assessment, and a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT/Resource) Analysis.

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AND. . . through July 10th, this Monograph—and ALL other Electronic Monographs, On-Line Courses, and Stop & Think Social Skills Program materials are 25% OFF as an End-of-Year Celebration.

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   As noted above, the Strategic Planning Monograph describes the five phases of an effective strategic planning process. These are:

·       Phase 1.  Assessing the Organizational Readiness of the School for Strategic Planning/Conducting Needs Assessments and Audits 

·       Phase 2.  Writing the School Improvement Plan

·       Phase 3.  Establishing the Infrastructure to Implement the Plan

·       Phase 4.  Implementing, Monitoring, and Evaluating the Plan 

·       Phase 5.  Reviewing, Retooling, and Renewing the Plan

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   As also outlined in the Monograph, the entire process is designed to answer six fundamental questions:

·       How do districts and schools design and deliver an evidence-based academic and instruction system that successfully addresses the differentiated needs of all students while improving their rates of learning such that they progress through the grade levels and graduate from high school with the applied skills needed for college and/or career success? 

·       How do districts and schools create a functional assessment and progress monitoring continuum that is curriculum-based, that can track students’ learning and mastery over time, while also guiding the development of successful, strategic or intensive interventions when students do not respond to effective instruction?

·       How do districts and schools design and deliver an evidence-based school discipline, classroom management, and student self-management (or positive behavioral support system) that increases all students’ interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional control and coping skills; that creates safe and connected classroom and school environments; and that maximizes students’ motivation and their academic engagement, independence, and confidence?

·       How do districts and schools create functional assessment and progress monitoring approaches to track students’ social, emotional, and behavioral learning, progress, and mastery that are ecologically-based and culturally-sensitive; that can evaluate student, classroom, and school outcomes; that can facilitate the development of successful strategic and/or intensive interventions when students do not respond?

·       How do districts and schools increase our parent outreach and involvement so that all parents are motivated, capable, and involved in activities that support and reinforce the education of all students?  To complement this, how do we increase our community outreach and involvement so that real interagency and community collaboration occurs—resulting in effective, efficient, and integrated services to all students at needed prevention, strategic intervention, and intensive service levels?

·       Finally, how do districts and schools design and deliver these activities as an integrated, unified educational system through a strategic planning and organizational development process that braids data-based functional assessment and problem-solving to guide decision-making with ongoing formative and summative evaluation?  Moreover, how do we institutionalize this process such that it becomes self-generating, self-replicating, and responsive to current and future student, staff, and school needs?

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   If districts and schools can answer these questions and meet these needs, they will not only improve their chances of maximizing students’ academic and social, emotional, and behavioral success, but they will also help to prevent the next school shooting.

   This latter goal can be facilitated if district and schools add a school safety audit to the strategic planning process.

[CLICK HERE to Review or Purchase our 25% Off Monograph:

The School Safety Audit and Emergency/Crisis Prevention Process

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Summary

   I know that I can’t provide all of the information needed to fully address the issues that I write about in these Blogs. And yet, I always try to provide evidence-based blueprints to help guide your analyses and actions.

   Over the years, once they read a specific Blog, many administrators, supervisors, program directors, and others contact me, asking for the more personal, consultative support needed to apply and implemented the things that I discuss.

   I love when this happens. . . because I love to work, personally and collaboratively, with colleagues to help them to solve their significant, persistent, or systemic challenges.

   And to “give back” to those who contact me, I always provide the first consultation—individually or with a selected team of professionals—for free.

   While we need political and practical solutions toward preventing future Uvaldes (and Sandy Hooks. . . and Columbines. . . and so many others), districts and schools need to still take the actions that they can.

   While we are all ready for the summer break, I hope that our educational leaders still recognize that the “next leg” of our students’ “educational marathon” begins in a few short months.

   We need to recognize that school shootings—and other, related horrendous and extreme calamitous and crisis-oriented events—are part of the SEL continuum. Many of these events can be prevented by creating systems that:

·       Build positive school and classroom climates, and reinforce prosocial and meaningful relationships;

·       Teach all students interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional awareness, control, communication, and coping skills;

·       Decrease or eliminate peer (and staff) teasing, taunting, bullying, harassment, hazing, and physical aggression;

·       Provide multi-tiered services, supports, strategies, and interventions for students with social, emotional, behavioral, and mental health challenges; and

·       Recognize and respond to the early warning indicators that sometimes lead to anti-social interactions, violence, and injury/loss of life.

   If I can help you, your colleagues, and/or your school, district, or professional setting to address your students’ social, emotional, or behavioral challenges through a Needs Assessment or Implementation Process, send me an email and let’s set up a time to talk.

Best,

Howie

[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]