United We Learn: Positive Relationships and Responsible Decisions

UNITED WE LEARN: POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS AND RESPONSIBLE DECISIONS

SBDM EXPERIENCED MEMBER TRAINING BACKGROUND

In November 2021, the Kentucky Department of Education released the United We Learn: Hearing Kentucky’s Voices on the Future of Education. The report shared themes from: educator surveys, the Commissioner’s Virtual Listening Tour, and interviews with stakeholders across the commonwealth about “where education can and should go in the future.” The themes shared in the report are listed below.

UNITED WE LEARN THEMES People are concerned about: ■ Communication and relationship-building; ■ Celebration of and attention to diversity, equity and inclusion of different cultures; ■ Partnerships, trusting relationships and engagement with families; ■ Connection with students and individualized and personalized learning experiences; ■ Mechanisms that proved timely and constructive feedback; and ■ Standardized testing.

The United We Learn Executive Summary outlines stakeholders’ views as the current state of education and a vision for the future of learning. In this training, we will focus on the first and third themes as we explore building and supporting positive relationships through shared and responsible decision-making.

We will consider what our part, as council members, can be to be part of the vision of a thriving education system through positive relationships and responsible decisions.

We hope you come away from this training with an understanding of: ❑ The importance of focusing on relationships ❑ How to improve relationships in your school ❑ How to make better, more responsible decisions for your school

©2022, KASC

Participant Booklet — United We Learn: Positive Relationships and Responsible Decisions

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PREPARING FOR LEARNING TOGETHER

ACTIVITY 1: JOB ASSIGNMENTS PURPOSE - to establish numbers for job assignments within cooperative learning groups. ❑ Make sure you are sitting in a group or 4 or 5. ❑ Quickly assign everyone in your group a number 1-4 (or 5, if applicable). ❑ Record names in the chart below.

Number 1

Name

2 3 4 5 We will use these numbers to define roles for the groups throughout the training.

RELATIONSHIPS “We don’t accomplish anything in this world alone...and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one’s life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that creates something.”

— Sandra Day O’Conner

LEVELS OF RELATIONSHIPS When referring to relationships in the context of schools, there are many we could discuss. We will start by taking a minute to brainstorm the many different relationships that are present in a school community.

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Participant Booklet — United We Learn: Positive Relationships and Responsible Decisions

©2022, KASC

ACTIVITY 2: CONTINUOUS ALLRECORD ROUNDROBIN (KAGAN, 2010)* PURPOSE - to recognize the multitude of relationships that exist in school communities.

On your facilitator’s signal you will take turns responding orally within your group. ❑ Your facilitator will indicate which number responds first. ❑ When your facilitator signals, each person names one relationship found within a school community. ❑ All group members write each person’s response in the booklet. ❑ Members continue sharing until all the spaces are filled.

Relationships between...

Students Students __________________ and _________________

__________________ and _________________

__________________ and _________________

__________________ and _________________

__________________ and _________________

__________________ and _________________

__________________ and _________________

__________________ and _________________

__________________ and _________________

__________________ and _________________

Classroom Relationships In this workshop we will focus on two relationships within the classroom--relationships between:

■ Students and the teacher ■ Students and each other (peer relationships)

Council Member Relationships Great leaders model the practices they promote, AND positive relationships between council members contribute to responsible decision-making. Therefore, relationship skills between adults will be woven throughout our session. See graphic 1.1. *THANK YOU, KAGAN! KASC obtained permission to use Kagan structures as instructional strategies for this session.

©2022, KASC

Graphic 1.1 KASC’s SBDM Council Proficiency Keys, which provide a guide for proficient council operations, highlight positive relationships in Key 4, POWERFUL TEAMWORK.

Participant Booklet — United We Learn: Positive Relationships and Responsible Decisions

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RELATIONSHIPS (CONTINUED) WHY RELATIONSHIPS MATTER

Classroom Relationships The school council’s mission is to improve student achievement. Each council must create an environment in their own school that will ensure students achieve at high levels. The law also holds each council accountable for how well they meet this responsibility. All policies and decisions made by a council must contribute to achievement of the overall mission. How do classroom relationships contribute to student achievement?

Researchers call the impact that factors that have on actions their “effect size.”

WHAT IS EFFECT SIZE? Effect size is used by researchers to help non-statisticians understand and visualize the effect, or impact, of an action, product, etc. Since almost any factor can have a positive effect, instead of asking ourselves if it “works,” effect size helps us determine how well an action works in a range of contexts. When determining how factors impact student achievement, we will look at effect size in terms of grade level growth.

WHAT IS A HIGH EFFECT SIZE? An effect size of: 0.50 = approximate improvement of 1 grade level 1.00 = approximate improvement of 2 grade levels

WHAT IS

EFFECT SIZE?

ACTIVITY 3: UNDERSTANDING EFFECT SIZE Materials needed: Effect Size Cards PURPOSE - to understand the impact of relationships on student achievement. ❑ Work with the group at your table and spread out all factor cards so that everyone can see them. (Some group members might want to stand up to have a better view.) ❑ Work with your group to put the cards in the order you think best represents the impact of that factor on instruction. LOWEST impact will be on top and HIGHEST on the bottom. ❑ After you are finished, look at the first page of the resource book to see the correct order of the factors. ❑ Check the order your group had against the order in the chart.

Zoom Session: In breakout rooms, one participant should go to this link: Flippity Effect Size Cards. The participant who goes to this link should share their screen with the other members of their group. Then follow the directions for ordering the cards.

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Participant Booklet — United We Learn: Positive Relationships and Responsible Decisions

©2022, KASC

ACTIVITY 4 : PAIR AND SHARE PURPOSE: to understand the importance of focusing on relationships.

Pair: ❑ Each group of 4 or 5 forms 2 partnerships. (One partnership might have a triad.) ❑ One partner will be A and one/two partners will be B in each partnership. ❑ Turn to pages two and three in the Resource Book ❑ Each group decides which partnership will read about studentteacher relationships (page 2), and which will read about positive peer relationships (page 3). ❑ Partner A silently reads one section of the text while partner B reads the other. ❑ Each person decides how they will summarize the reading for their partner. ❑ Each person teaches the other partner their section. Together, they decide how to summarize the whole text for the other partnership.

Share: ❑ Come back together in the group of 4 or 5. ❑ Take turns summarizing each reading. ❑ As a group, complete the phrase which follows.

It is important for a school council to consider its role in supporting positive peer and teacher-student relationships because...

RELATIONSHIP SKILLS While it may seem obvious, it important enough to state: to form positive relationships with others, individuals need relationship skills. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) defines relationship skills as a set of skills that enable one to “effectively navigate settings with diverse individuals and groups.”

Who is the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)?

CASEL is the global leader in promoting the importance and teaching of relationship skills as well as other areas of human growth and development. These areas make up CASEL’s fundamentals of Social Emotional Learning (SEL).

What is Social Emotional Learning (SEL)? SEL is the process of developing the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of human beings to thrive personally and academically. ©2022, KASC

Participant Booklet — United We Learn: Positive Relationships and Responsible Decisions

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RELATIONSHIP SKILLS (CONTINUED) Relationship skills are a specific set of skills that encompass more than being someone who is easy to work with and/or likable. These skills include more complex capacities like providing leadership and seeking or offering help when needed.

Relationship Skills allow us to:

a. Interact respectfully in various settings with diverse individuals and groups

c. Communicate clearly and caringly, including actively listening

d. Resolve conflict constructively for the common good e. Develop and maintain positive relationships

Source: CASEL

b. Stand up for the rights of others

ACTIVITY 5: THINK-WRITE-ROUNDROBIN (KAGAN, 2010) PURPOSE - to better understand relationship skills by linking to an example.

In your group of 4 or 5 you will individually choose a relationship skill from the preceding list and think of an example of that skill in action. ❑ One person writes the letters a,b,c,d, and e on individual slips of paper and turns them over so the letters are hidden. ❑ Each person chooses one letter. (It’s okay if there are letters not chosen.)

The facilitator provides think time ❑ Group members think of an example of the skill in action from their lives. ❑ Group members take turns sharing examples with each other. ❑ After each person shares, the others guess which skill best matches the example.

REFLECTION Which skill is your strongest?

Which skill needs the most improvement?

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Participant Booklet — United We Learn: Positive Relationships and Responsible Decisions

©2022, KASC

POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS & RESPONSIBLE DECISION-MAKING Where we’ve been...

Where we’re going...

When the council decides that an evidence-based practice, idea, strategy, or initiative needs to be a priority for the school’s culture, there are three key leadership responsibilities: ■ Setting the Expectation ■ Modeling ■ Supporting Implementation

RESPONSIBLE DECISION-MAKING For each leadership responsibility there is a relationship opportunity. If the council is intentional with your relationship opportunities, decision-making will be more responsible and responsive to your community.

SETTING THE EXPECTATION

Learning & Sharing

MODELING

Collaborating

SUPPORTING IMPLEMENTATION

Listening & Understanding

Regardless of the initiative, the way the council makes decisions and communicates can either strengthen or weaken relationships.

©2022, KASC

Participant Booklet — United We Learn: Positive Relationships and Responsible Decisions

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How will these responsibilities and opportunities work with a focus on relationships? When considering relationships as a leadership focus, there are two distinctions that might be helpful to keep in mind. First, the council might decide to focus on STRENGTHENING RELATIONSHIPS within the school (peer relationships and those between students and the teacher) AND/OR to focus on teaching students RELATIONSHIP SKILLS.

1. SETTING THE EXPECTATION - LEARNING AND SHARING Think back to the research on the importance of positive teacher-student and student-student relationships.

Imagine your council decided to focus on STRENGTHENING RELATIONSHIPS.

SETTING THE EXPECATION Learning & Sharing

Ask yourself: ■ How would your council set that expectation?

(Leadership Responsibility) ■ What would the council need to learn and share with others to form the foundation? (Relationship Opportunity)

SUPPORTING IMPLEMENTATION Listening & Understanding

MODELING Collaborating

ACTIVITY 6: WEIGHTING THE INFORMATION PURPOSE: to understand what the council needs to learn and share about relationships. ❑ Individually, each person reads the list of what councils should learn/share about relationships on the next page. ❑ Each person decides on their own which of the eight are the most important and assigns a ranking to each item 1-8: 8 = Most important 1 = Least important ❑ Pairs go through each item in the list. ❑ Pairs add the score for each one. ❑ The group of 4-5 compares the highest and lowest scores.

There are no right or wrong answers. Do not overthink; rank these to reflect your opinion of your school’s needs.

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Participant Booklet — United We Learn: Positive Relationships and Responsible Decisions

©2022, KASC

What Councils Should Learn/Share about Relationships

My Priority Level

Pair Score

What kinds of relationships are important to students What strategies are useful for building relationships What strategies our teachers use to build relationships in their classrooms How positive relationships affect student achievement What teachers’ perceptions are about relationships within the school What parents’ perceptions are about relationships within the school What students’ perceptions are about relationships within the school What current initiatives are already present within the school Discuss with your group: A. How might a council learn about what perceptions and practices are already present at the school?

B. Why is it important to learn about current perceptions and practices?

REFLECTION How will learning and sharing the information in the list strengthen relationships in the school?

©2022, KASC

Participant Booklet — United We Learn: Positive Relationships and Responsible Decisions

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1. SETTING THE EXPECTATION - LEARNING AND SHARING (CONTINUED)

Kinds of relationships important to students at each level

Grade Levels

Foundation Students need to know they are cared about and supported.

K-12th (5-19 years old)

Peer affiliation Student need social interaction and belonging.

3rd-12th (8-19 years old)

Status building Students need recognition and status among their peers.

6th-12th (11-19 years old)

Based on Eric Jensen, Game Changers Brain-Based Teaching for Change Agents

ACTIVITY 7: CLASSIFYING STRATEGIES - ALLRECORD CONSENSUS (KAGAN, 2010) PURPOSE: to learn new strategies for building relationships. ❑ With your small group, take turns reading Strategies for Building Relationships on page 4 of the resource booklet and coming to consensus on which kind(s) of relationships could be strengthened by each strategy.

2. MODELING - COLLABORATION Relationships are the foundation for building effective teamwork in schools, but effective teams need something else — goals and results. Collaboration for relationships’ sake isn’t effective.

The teams have to be working toward clear goals and positive results for students.

“The foundation of every great team is a direction that energizes, orients, and engages its members. Teams cannot be inspired if they don’t know what they’re working toward and don’t have explicit goals.”

SETTING THE EXPECATION Learning & Sharing

SUPPORTING IMPLEMENTATION Listening & Understanding

MODELING Collaborating

The Secrets of Great Teamwork by Martine Haas and Mark Mortensen, Harvard Business Review, 2016

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Participant Booklet — United We Learn: Positive Relationships and Responsible Decisions

©2022, KASC

ACTIVITY 8: GOALS IN RESPONSIBLE DECISION-MAKING ❑ Work with one other person at your table. ❑ Read the page of research below about teamwork and as you come to a summary point, work with your partner to summarize the main message in that section.

Excerpts based on information from Results: The Key to Continuous School Improvement by ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development)

Evidence for the benefits of collaboration is overwhelming. The nature of the complex work of teaching “cannot be accomplished by even the most knowledgeable individuals working alone.” The Wisdom of Teams (1993) by Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith states, “It is obvious that teams outperform individuals…”. Teams “bring together complementary skills and experiences that, by definition, exceed those of any individual on the team…bringing multiple capabilities to bear on difficult issues.”

Summary

Goals give teamwork meaning. Generally what people enjoy most is pursuing a clear, doable goal that they value. Only such goals will allow us to analyze, monitor, and adjust practice toward improvement.

The introduction of specific, measurable goals is among the most promising yet underused strategies we can introduce into school improvement efforts. Far too many teams casually accept goals that are neither demanding, precise, realistic, nor actually held in common.

Summary

The lack of common goals actually promotes isolation from colleagues and may make teachers perceive their problems are unique. This idea parallels findings that teachers working in isolation also don’t want to seek help from each other. This contributes to a negative cycle — isolation thwarts common direction, which in turn promotes a deeper sense of isolation as teachers grow further and further apart in what they think and do and in how they pursue the school’s goals.

Summary

©2022, KASC

Participant Booklet — United We Learn: Positive Relationships and Responsible Decisions

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3. SUPPORTING IMPLEMENTATION - LISTENING AND UNDERSTANDING

SETTING THE EXPECATION Learning & Sharing

A key component of SUPPORTING IMPLEMENTATION of any initiative is having a continual process of LISTENING AND UNDERSTANDING.

SUPPORTING IMPLEMENTATION Listening & Understanding

MODELING Collaborating

Whether a council is discussing the need for more instructional resources, working on the school’s instructional practices policy, or analyzing student achievement data, LISTENING to those closest to the issue and UNDERSTANDING what they are communicating is foundational to making responsible decisions.

Relationship Skills and Responsible DecisionMaking are two of CASEL’s five components of social emotional learning.

Source: CASEL

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Participant Booklet — United We Learn: Positive Relationships and Responsible Decisions

©2022, KASC

ACTIVITY 9: CONNECTING PURPOSE- to see how listening and understanding is a foundation of responsible decision-making. ❑ Individually, read through the skills based on CASEL components of Responsible Decision-Making.

❑ Underline any skills that are supported/strengthened by listening and understanding.

Responsible Decision-Making skills allow us to: a. Look at issues from various perspectives b. Consider standards/values — ethical, moral, social, personal, and safety issues c. Analyze data, objective information, and facts d. Apply critical thinking strategies

e. Consider both benefits and consequences f. Evaluate personal, team, community, and larger society impact g. Determine the causes of issues/problems before looking for solutions

“None of us is as smart as all of us.”

— Kenneth H. Blanchard

©2022, KASC

Participant Booklet — United We Learn: Positive Relationships and Responsible Decisions

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ACTIVITY 10: RESPONSIBLE DECISION-MAKING SKILLS PURPOSE: to generate examples of responsible decision-making ❑ As a group, you will break down the skills below and discuss examples of what you would expect to see and/or hear of the council. ❑ Record your examples in the right-hand column.

SBDM Law 160.345 (2)(i) The school council shall adopt a policy that shall be consistent with local board policy and shall be implemented by the principal in the following additional areas: ...6. Planning and resolution of issues regarding instructional practices;...

Responsible Decision-Making Skills

1. Determine the causes of issues/problems before looking for solutions

What would you expect to see/hear on the council and/or applicable committee?

One example could be: Asking questions like —What

does our data say about the needs our students have? Do students spend most of their time in whole or small group instruction?

2. Look at issues from various perspectives

3. Consider standards/values — ethical, moral, social, personal, and safety issues

4. Analyze data, objective information, and facts

One example could be: What does our policy say about the use of evidence-based strategies?

5. Apply critical thinking strategies

6. Consider both benefits and consequences

7. Evaluate personal, team, community, and larger society impact Source: CASEL 14

Participant Booklet — United We Learn: Positive Relationships and Responsible Decisions

©2022, KASC

NEXT STEPS

COMMITMENT TO ACTION

List one idea that you would like to share with others at your school from SETTING THE EXPECTATION LEARNING AND SHARING.

List one practice you commit to model in your leadership role from MODELING - COLLABORATION.

List one way you commit to developing a better understanding of your school’s issues from SUPPORTING IMPLEMENTATION - LISTENING AND UNDERSTANDING.

©2022, KASC

Participant Booklet — United We Learn: Positive Relationships and Responsible Decisions

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