President’s Perspective - Dr. Stephanie Nehus

High Reliability Schools

October signifies the end of the first quarter for schools across our state. I never cease to be amazed at how fast time flies, especially each school year. As we head into the second quarter and the last half of the first semester, we must check our progress on doing the right work. How are you spending your time? When did you last do a time audit? Are you allowing little things or managerial tasks to take up the bulk of your time or are you remaining intentional about visiting classrooms and providing feedback and coaching to your staff?

Last month I shared about Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). This month, my focus will be on High Reliability Schools (HRS). You might think, “well here is one more thing.” I would stress that HRS and PLCs go hand in hand. In fact, the PLC process is the cornerstone of the HRS model. Thankfully, our state blessed us a few years ago with the two books pictured here. Last year, our district charge to our schools was for every campus to receive HRS Level 1 Certification. Level 1 Certification signifies that our schools have a safe, supportive, and collaborative culture. I proudly share that we accomplished the charge, and the district received the designation as well. It was hard work to collect the evidence necessary to submit for certification. What was invaluable was realizing and reinforcing all of the right work that is being done across our campuses.

This summer we met with each of our building administrative teams and hosted conversations. We, as district leaders, understood the demands that we made when setting very tight deadlines to accomplish the certification charge. Going into the 2021-2022 school year, we shared our desire for our schools to continue the work and receive HRS Level 2 Certification...but we were not going to require it at this time. Amazingly all six campuses expressed their desire to continue and shared how they were already working to collect the evidence. Level 2 - Effective Teaching in Every Classroom (every day) - is so critical for our students and isn’t student achievement by far the main purpose of our schools?

I hope you will all join us in this journey. Our schools - administrators, teachers, staff, students, families, and community - deserve leaders that are intentional and transparent. Let’s all continue until we reach certification in all five levels and are designated as High Reliability Schools.

Dr. Stephanie Nehus, AAEA Board President