Looking Forward

Amanda Zullo

Amanda Zullo is the principal of J. William Leary Junior High School. She was previously in the classroom for 11 years teaching middle school science and chemistry. From her experience as an Associate at the New York State Education Department (NYSED) and on the NGSS Implementation team, she now actively supports policy and implementation efforts related to New York State’s P-12 Science Learning Standards and Computer Science and Digital Fluency standards. Amanda has been honored with numerous grants along with the 2020 Clarkson Woodstock Award, the 2018 Mayfield Wall of Dedication, the 2016 Empire State Excellence in Teaching Award, and the 2016 ASCD Emerging Leader recognition.

The pandemic has impacted classroom instruction. Challenges exist for families that were never an issue, thereby impacting their children and adding more stress to educators. The platitudes are accurate. There are numerous crises on many different levels and in leadership, especially for novices. These were new situations for everyone; circumstances that no administrator, principal, or teacher had previously experienced. But when all is considered, this pandemic simultaneously presents challenges and opportunities.

Addressing the impact required a strong focus on sustaining the mental health of all individuals in the school because everyone experienced various levels of trauma. The work included both stabilizing/surviving during the pandemic and then rebuilding the internal school community to support everyone. The path to start was evident; the administration had to get to know the needs and strengths of the educators and the community. Only after developing that knowledge could the processes start.

People

My path forward was clear; it was critical to develop relationships with the faculty and staff. Fullan (2020) states, “It is actually the relationships that make the difference” (p. 63). My first words on my first day to the faculty and staff were “My #1 goal is that my work supports your work.” In looking back at my career, regardless of the position, I had been more effective, happier, and worked harder when I knew the people I was working for.

I started with an email outlining the first faculty meeting and a request to schedule a 15-minute meeting with each staff member to get to know people. I was shocked when my first day filled up with meetings 3 hours after sending the email. The quick sign-ups indicated that everyone sought to be heard and were willing to engage.

Google Meet was the meeting platform due to a sudden rise in local COVID-19 cases and the need to adhere to local mandates. My goal was to listen and learn about everyone and the “know-how” that was present in the building (Bryk, p. 118, 2015). I had initially started with seven questions; after the first meeting, it was evident that three questions would be perfect: Tell me about yourself (personal and/or professional); how the year was going; and what I could do to support them. After 63 conversations, a theme emerged about the school’s emotional state and their established priorities (Donohoo, J.; Hattie, J.; Eells, R. 2018). It also became clear that continuing the connection and contact would be needed; these are amazing people! To maintain that connection, meaningful and personal conversations (beyond surface-level) are deliberately had at least every 2 to 3 weeks with each adult.

People and Process

In their book Turning High-Poverty Schools into HighPerforming Schools, Parrett and Budge (2020) share that “leadership-collaborative and distributed-served as the linchpin for success” (p.10). Two distinct groups were already in place to guide all decisions and processes within the school. To compliment this work, two other decision making groups were established:

• Academic Leadership Team; 60 minutes every other week

• Office staff; 60 minutes every other week

• Faculty; 60 minutes monthly

• Building Departments/Teams; weekly ~15-30 minutes

The Academic Leadership Team (ALT), is the “think tank” for the building. The 12 members consisted of educators from all departments, across grade levels, teams, and divisions within the building. Initially, the members discussed general concerns and items before shifting to the review of academic data and student grades every 5 weeks, as well as reviewing student engagement and attendance data (graph in the Communication section). With an intense focus on the future, this group detailed what used to be awesome, what was awesome now, and what we needed to look at. The first few sets of the PLC+ framework specifically focused on sharing individual identities and setting group norms/goals (Corwin, 2020). Simultaneously, at the district level, discussions about the strategic plan were taking place. Three members of ALT were members of that group. The members of both teams helped with ensuring alignment to district goals and priorities. The members also helped guide discussions around what would be best for our specific building to establish specific building goals and measures.

For the collectively developed building goals to be sustainable, enhance the capability to ground, guide, and implement agreed-upon initiatives all while creating coherence between the initiatives, current and previous (past three years) student data and staff surveys were used (Lawson et al., 2017, Mayne 2015 and Honig and Hatch, 2004). The group also engaged in a discussion around the 2021 schedule, gaining consensus around a drop-block, although a 42 minute period schedule best fit the current and projected COVID parameters.

The Office staff group consists of two secretaries, two counselors, a school nurse, a school psychologist, a dean of students, a support for Native students advisor and a support services staff member. This group serves to support the general functioning of the building and connect to other initiatives. As a natural outgrowth, the group integrates social constructs that institutionalize the activity, hopefully leading to its sustainability (Honig and Hatch, 2004). The significant priority here has been coordinating daily student health screenings (guided by data around who was completing the screening each day) and then ensuring accurate student attendance/increasing student attendance. Members of the office group are also involved in ALT and join the faculty meetings.

The faculty group works with the shared members of the ALT to regularly communicate at the monthly faculty meetings. Initial sharing was about practices in the Google Classroom, with the second monthly meeting progressing towards sharing “Goals for today’s students to prepare them for tomorrow’s opportunities” (MCSD vision statement). These goals were shared at Academic Leadership, contributing to the building-level goals created by ALT. Subsequent faculty meetings will center around framing expectations of student work and strategies other than finals (ALT unanimously voted to get rid of final exams for 2021) for assessing what students know and can do.

The English, Math, Science, Social Studies, and Special Education staff meet as department and/or grade groups for grades 7 and 8 weekly. Foreign Language, Music, Physical Education, and Technology meet P-12 weekly. Additionally, there are two grade 7 teams and two grade 8 teams that meet weekly. Within department and team meetings, information from academic leadership is shared and discussed, as is each department’s overall operations, supporting continuous, purposeful interaction that is both horizontal and vertical (Fullan, 2020, chapter 6). As the building administrator, I sit and observe the group conversations, only contributing if necessary. The department chairs and academic leadership representatives compile composite information that they share with the broader leadership team. By letting each department chair carry out the work, trust is developed that will serve as “social glue” during the implementation of initiatives (Lawson, 2017). For example, there was a discussion in one department about their struggling to meet the current students’ diverse needs. Collaboratively, the department decided to structure the class differently through a 5-week pilot that continues to this day. When there was a discussion about finals, one department shared a graded project that could supplement a quarter average and would be a better indicator of student achievement in the subject. Collectively the department proposed a project idea, rating rubric and shared the documents with the leadership team.

Communication/Follow Up

My predecessor sent a weekly Monday Morning Email that outlined the meetings and general information for everyone. Recognizing the importance of communication helps insights and identify problems. Monday Morning Emails continue as an effective communication tool (Fullan, 2020; Parrett and Budge, 2020). Through the Monday Morning Emails a framework for discussing student attendance and engagement was shared. This framework became the common language when discussing the 430 students the school serves.

25 Week Engagement vs. Attendance-note, 1 blue dot may overlap with additional dots

Generalizations about the types of students in each identified category included:

• High Engagement and High Attendance: These kids were present/online and doing their work and ultimately performed well. The key was to continue challenging these students.

• High Attendance and Low Engagement: These kids are probably the most at-risk in the graphic. These are kids that we have an opportunity to reach because they are here, but for whatever reason, they are not doing their work consistently (or at all).

• Low Attendance and Low Engagement: These students are not connected for whatever reason. The concern is both behavioral and academic.

• High Engagement and Low Attendance: These students are maddening as they don’t come to class as often as they should, but they are getting their work done, or another individual is completing their work. This group holds the potential to have distinct gaps for missing instruction and not having transferable knowledge.

In the earlier graph, the passing of the four core classes is the unit of analysis. All students take English Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies classes. Patterns on the restricted lists indicate for 95% of students that if they are not passing a core class, they are not passing at least one other course.

Attendance trends have shifted from 60.4% chronic absenteeism in the Fall to ~22.0% chronic absenteeism. For the most severe absenteeism cases (~30 children) collaboration with outside agencies has occurred.

Information shared through ALT or general overarching themes raised during the previous week is circled back within the emails. For example, after a survey was sent out about Parent-Teacher Conferences, the survey data was shared back to the group. The same circling back on data happens after faculty meetings as faculty are asked to complete a survey following the meetings. Several staff members have shared that the ongoing sharing has helped keep them “in the loop”; others have mentioned that they “figured they would ask…” because they did not see it in an update.

Weekly updates are shared with faculty and staff on Fridays and then out to families on Saturday mornings through email and the J.W.Leary JR High School News Facebook group. The purpose of the updates are to share pertinent information and to highlight the awesome work happening in classrooms.

Outcomes

At this point, there have been four main goals accomplished thus far:

• Increase in student attendance: 39.4% Fall attendance to 78% in the Spring.

• The establishment of agreed-upon building goals. The goals brought no faculty push back, and there is concrete action in every classroom towards accomplishing them. The goals have served as anchors as we look forward toward 2021-2022.

• The retraction of 2021 finals in each course. Universally agreed upon by all educators, this has provided the opportunity to think broadly about how we gauge student learning and the data we can collect to help guide work forward. Throughout this conversation, great questions have been raised, shared, and answered.

• The establishment of four main groups (Academic, Office, Faculty, and Building Departments) bringing ongoing ideas, collaboration, innovations, conversations, and feedback.

This process is ongoing. The critical focus, as time passes, will be to determine the best methods for managing the change and continuing to adapt to the current everchanging conditions. I continue to focus on the mental health of staff and students looking to provide ongoing support. Support and management during the process will be critical in moving from surviving to thriving.

Work thus far in the school building provides indication buy-in for the process, practices are growing, and trust is being established. Communication containing questions and insights gained from the conversations have been shared with supporters for the remainder of the school year. Weekly discussions are serving to align the work and foster all faculty/staff’s inclusion in planning and preparing for 2021-2022. It is too early to predict the result, but there is much promise for a successful outcome at this stage in the process. The sustainability of the processes and outcomes will depend on confirming or correcting actions during the start of the 2021-2022 school year. As Mayne notes (2015), the theory of change and its associated actions may adapt or evolve to meet the building’s changing needs, and the changes should only stay if they remain beneficial to the children’s learning. My fingers are crossed for the calmer days ahead where this work serves to simultaneously support and catalyze everyone moving forward.

REFERENCES

Bryk, A. S., Gomez, L. M., Grunow, A., & LeMahieu, P. G. (2015). Learning to improve: How America’s schools can get better at getting better. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Publishing.

Donohoo, J.; Hattie, J.; Eells, R. (2018). The Power of Collective Efficacy. Educational Leadership. Volume 75, Number 6, p 40-44.

Fullan, M. (2020). Leading in a Culture of Change. 2nd edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Honig, M.I., and Hatch, T.C. (2004). Crafting Coherence: How Schools Strategically Manage Multiple, External Demands. Educational Researcher. Vol 33, No.8, p. 16-30.

Lawson, H., Durand, F.T., Cambell-Wilcox, K., Gregory, K.M., Schiller, K.S., Zuckerman, S.J. (2017). The Role of District and School Leaders’ Trust and Communications in the Simultaneous Implementation of Innovative Policies. Journal of School Leadership, 27, p. 31-67.

Mayne, J. (2015). Useful Theories of Change. Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation. January 2015. DOI: 10.3138/cjpe.30.2.142.

Parrett, W.H., Budge, K.M. (2020). Turning High-Poverty Schools Into High-Performing Schools. 2nd edition. Alexandria, Virginia: ASCD.