Education Week - March 18, 2015 - Special Report - S24

EDUCATION WEEK MARCH 18, 2015
n
The Chief Academic Officer > www.edweek.org/go/CAO
S24 |
Connecting Principals
To Top District Priorities
CAOs see strong links with school leaders as a key to success
T
he chief academic officer for
the Highline, Wash., school
district works directly with
principal supervisors to
craft professional-development
plans for principals
and teachers.
In Omaha, Neb., curriculum
leaders worked with a
private company to develop
an app to chart how principals are progressing
toward meeting academic goals
And in the Montgomery County, Md.,
schools, the associate superintendent for
curriculum and instructional programs
meets once a month with principal-advisory
groups and then reports back to the
cao. It's a regular collaboration that was
behind the district's decision to implement
its common-core-aligned curriculum in
multiple stages.
The connection between the chief
academic officer-or the person with
an equivalent title in a district-and
school principals must be strong if districts
want to turn lofty visions into solid
academic gains in classrooms, say school
leadership experts. A weak connection
can lead to frustration in the central office
and confusion among principals, a
working atmosphere that ultimately filters
down to teachers and students, too.
"My job [as chief academic officer] is to
support the principal to be an instructional
leader at the highest level possible, so that
the principal can support the teachers at
the highest level, so that the teachers can
support the students," said ReNae S. Kehrberg,
the assistant superintendent for curriculum,
instruction, and assessment for
the 51,000-student Omaha, Neb., public
schools, essentially the district cao.
To provide more support and
strengthen the academic connections
between the central office and schools,
some districts give principals a seat at
the table during initial discussions about
choosing curriculum and instructional
materials. In addition to Montgomery
County, districts in Baltimore, Omaha,
and Orange County, Fla., use principaladvisory
groups, in which select principals
provide input about curriculum and
instruction and the implementation of
academic programs.
The principal-advisory groups were key
contributors in Montgomery County's decision
to implement its curriculum aligned
to the Common Core State Standards in
multiple stages and by grade levels, instead
of a one-time systemwide rollout,
said Erick J. Lang, the associate superintendent
of curriculum and instructional
programs.
Mr. Lang said the mechanisms in the
151,000-student Montgomery County
system create "two-way communication"
between the central office and the schools
to avoid a "top down" approach.
FORGING STRONG BONDS
To establish strong two-way communication
in the 19,000-student Highline public
schools, the district's chief academic officer,
Susanne M. Jerde, directly oversees principal
supervisors.
She works with those supervisors to devise
professional-development opportunities
for principals and teachers based on
the district's instructional and leadership
frameworks, which spell out what principals
and teachers must know, the practices
that must be used in classrooms-and, at
each step, the training that will help teachers
and principals effectively implement
those strategies.
The district has also crafted annual action
plans for each content area, with milestones
for implementation, professional development,
monitoring, and assessments,
Ms. Jerde said.
Collaborative-inquiry walks are also
important in ensuring that schools are,
in fact, doing what they are supposed to
do. On those walks through schools, the
instructional-leadership directors are accompanied
by staff members from Ms.
Jerde's teaching and learning department.
"There has to be very strong relationships
between our [principal supervisors]
and the rest of the teaching and learning
department," Ms. Jerde said. "Because
our [principal supervisors] are doing such
strong work with instructional leadership,
it's important that it's totally aligned and
connected to any work that might be happening
with teacher development, and curriculum
and instruction, and assessments."
During those walk-throughs, the supervisors
pay attention to a number of
details, including how teachers are interacting
with students and how principals
are analyzing evidence and planning to
deliver feedback to their teachers. Those
visits are also important in helping principals
identify whether the practices in their
classrooms are aligned with major school
district initiatives and whether they are
following the timelines based on the district's
action plan.
Highline tries to ensure that principals
are supported-and included-throughout
the process, she said.
"Part of my push is that decisions must
be made [based] on research and best practices,"
Ms. Jerde said, "but they also must
be made [based] on input from principals
and our implementers."
Meredith I. Honig, an associate professor
of educational leadership at the University
of Washington, in Seattle, is working with
the Highline district to hone its leadership
approaches. Principal supervisors are
the "essential anchors" for establishing a
strong academic connection from the central
office to schools, she said. But Honig
also emphasized that that connection
should be strengthened by a commitment
from all district departments to focus on
academic priorities.
FIGURING OUT WHAT WORKS
The Long Beach district in California
is doing similar work establishing stronger
connections between district-level
academic leaders and principals through
collaboration among three top administrators:
the deputy superintendent of schools;
the assistant superintendent of curriculum,
instruction, and professional development;
and an assistant superintendent of
secondary schools. (The district has retired
the title of chief academic officer.)
When the 80,000-student district first
rolled out its K-12 common-core-literacy-implementation
tool three years
ago, it designed an accompanying multiyear
professional-development plan.
That plan identified what both principals
and teachers, and the schools' instructional-leadership
teams, needed to
learn together to make the plan work,
said Pamela Seki, the assistant superintendent
of curriculum, instruction, and
professional development.
In the first year of implementation, the
curriculum-leadership team trained the
principals, who were expected to train staff
members. The principals were provided
with resources to help them do so.
But some principals struggled to make it
work, and not all felt competent enough to
implement it in their schools. In the third
year, the district changed the model to include
the school leadership teams in the
professional-development training.
"We know what the research tells
us about what makes a difference in
schools," said Jill A. Baker, the deputy superintendent
of schools. "The first is that
effective and high-performing teachers
are the number-one way that we impact
student achievement. Second to that is
effective principals, and so we wanted to
maximize what we know about those two
things together." l
BY DENISA R.
SUPERVILLE
"
My job is to support
the principal to be an
instructional leader at
the highest level
possible."
RENAE S. KEHRBERG
Assistant Superintendent
Omaha Public Schools
http://www.edweek.org/go/CAO
Education Week - March 18, 2015 - Special Report

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