Education Week - February 22, 2017 - 28

LESSONS FROM
A LEADER

Start With
'Why?'
Make sure the vision is
clear and compelling, and
engage students in telling
the story. Communicate,
communicate,
communicate.

Build on Success
Start small and learn
from your efforts. Be
transparent with the work
and build opportunities to
reflect on successes and
struggles, incorporating
improvements as you
work to scale.

Empower People
Get the right people in the
right seats, and empower
them to do the right work.
Create opportunities
by setting clear goals
and monitoring
100-day cycles.

"I've been really committed to empowering educators to influence decisionmaking in our district," says
Deklotz, who also infuses "student voice, student
choice" as a recurring message in her conversations.
A firm believer in risk-taking, Deklotz models it, as
members of her leadership teams will tell you.
Stephen Plum, the director of Kettle Moraine's High
School of Health Sciences, recalls sharing a ride with
Deklotz to lobby the state legislature about a charter
school issue when he asked if it was possible to be too
careful. "Yes, you have to be willing to go out on a limb"
for what you believe in, Plum says she told him. Adopting that philosophy has given him license to grow his
"microschool" that now has 153 students on the Kettle
Moraine High campus, he says. Students experience
competency-based learning in an immersive experience. They can earn nursing and emergency medical
technician certifications while attending high school,
study literacy through science, and learn biology through
exploration of human cadavers.
Risk-taking is part of Deklotz's roots as the daughter
of a sharecropper and one-room schoolhouse teacher
who was an early advocate for free library access and bus
transportation.
Deklotz, now 63, left college at 21 to raise her infant
daughter-she managed to finish her degree years later
when she was on the school board. In the meantime,
she held positions as a manager of technical support,
a systems analyst, and a consultant. Her background
in business translated in some ways to school: She was
comfortable using and interpreting data, but surprised at
certain parts of educational culture.

Support for School Choice
"When I stepped into my first classroom, I was in awe
of my teacher colleagues," says Deklotz, who taught
physical science. She was impressed with "their wealth
of knowledge" and the fact that so many held master's
degrees. "But I was also awestruck by the isolation of
teachers...and the lack of collaboration or problem-solving in the structure of our educational process."
With a background in financial software development, Deklotz was accustomed to a team approach to
tackling challenges, and she deployed it for schools-
first when she and other science teachers met to talk
about lesson planning once a week, and later as an
administrator. It's an approach she vowed to emulate
with her leadership.
Kettle Moraine's transformation began with support
for school choice and charter schools. A school for the
performing arts, KM Perform, and another for global
leadership were the first two charters, both housed
within the district's high school.
Creating those schools demonstrated the impact of
personalized learning on student success and engagement. "It's very affirming to have young people talk to
you about their aspirations for learning, their learning styles, how they see navigating the expectations of
the standards we have, and how they're going to move
forward," Deklotz says.

Education Week Leaders To Learn From 2017

An impromptu lunchtime visit in early December
with Natalie DeRoche, a high school senior attending
KM Perform, seemed to prove the superintendent's
point. DeRoche, who interns part-time for Milwaukee's mayor during the school day, commutes 45
minutes to attend the school. Rejecting her local high
school option, DeRoche chose the district because in
her previous school experience, she says, "I felt like
I was being taught how to go to school, which isn't
what I felt learning should be about." Now, she says
she "loves going to school" for the many different opportunities to learn.

Tapping Student Agency
After the high school charters, Kettle Moraine added
KM Explore, an elementary charter that serves students
across the district with a project-based curriculum.
Kindergartners through 5th graders form a community,
and each student has his or her individual learning plan.
Through school-approved projects, students demonstrate their competencies for the standards they have
chosen in their learning plans.
"It's the proof point that we don't need to start at the
high school level," Deklotz says. "Personalized learning can tap into student agency at kindergarten or the
elementary level."
Early on a December day, 2nd and 3rd grade students
worked in small groups and independently to create
"evidence" that they are meeting their learning targets.

Painting rain barrels that would be distributed in the
community was part of their plan, as they studied the
water cycle. "The subjects of math, science, reading
and writing are infused into that project environment,"
Deklotz says. Teachers work alongside them as guides,
asking questions to drive student inquiry to deeper
levels, she says.
Once some elementary students had the KM Explore experience, parents wondered how they would be
prepared for middle school. Rather than set up another
charter, the district set up "houses" for 6th, 7th, and 8th
grades that are multi-aged learning environments with a
team-based approach to teaching and learning.
Kettle Moraine schools have changed in many ways.
In 2014, voters approved a $49.6 million referendum
that has allowed for major improvements, including renovated learning spaces designed to give more
flexibility for large-group instruction and small-group
collaboration. That means installing windows and sliding

Education Week - February 22, 2017

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