Return to Read Our Blogs

Our “Best of the Blogs” section includes thoughtful insights on school leadership being shared through blogs maintained by AASA members. This representative sampling of five bloggers, through an RSS feed, will change periodically to showcase other member blogs, so check back regularly. If you are aware of others, contact magazine@aasa.org.

• Give a Memorial Day Saluteto Honor Our Fallen Americans

  Mesquite ISD Superintendent|5/24/2013
  Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have given their lives in our nation’s wars. Since 1868, this holiday reminds us to honor those who paid the ultimate cost in defense of our country.
  
  
  On Monday at 3 p.m., please join in the National Moment of Remembrance. Established by Congress in 2000, this resolution asks for all Americans to “voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to ‘Taps.’” The moment is an act of national unity in which all Americans, alone or with family and friends, honor our fallen veterans.
  
  
  As we attend graduation festivities, spend time with our families or just relax this Memorial Day weekend, please take time to salute these special men and women. Pay tribute to those who make our freedoms possible.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• Preparing for Memorial Day . . .

  Seeking Shared Learning|5/23/2013

  Today, ninth grade students from Tahoma Junior High placed about 30,000 flags on graves at Tahoma National Cemetery   This is the tenth year in a row that our students have shown their respect this way for those that have served our country.  You can learn more about the project in this interview of Principal Rob Morrow by KVI's John Carlson.
  
  

  
  
  We need to thank the staff at the Junior High for supporting this annual event and especially teachers Cary Collins and Todd Baker for their leadership and commitment to the program and to Principal Morrow for his understanding of its importance and behind the scenes support.  The flags are purchased through donations. If you would like to support this program you can make out your check to Tahoma Junior High - Flag Fund.
  
  
  
  
  

• Professional quality product . . .

  Seeking Shared Learning|5/22/2013
  
  In September I blogged about our High School Green Team receiving an $80,000 grant from State Farm Insurance.  The purpose of the grant was to support their efforts at promoting deeper understanding of storm water pollution in our schools and community and identifying solutions to the problems caused by storm water runoff.  The girl on the right in the picture is Cassandra Houghton, a senior at the High School and one of the driving forces behind this initiative.
  
  One of the products of the initiative is the professional quality video below of Cassandra presenting to our ninth graders.  If you take the time to view the video you will be impressed with the information being shared and with the presentation by Cassandra.  Her passion and commitment are present in her words and in her delivery.  She did on awesome job!  Earlier this spring she was honored by King County as a 2013 School Earth Hero and was one of three out of 29 that received special recognition for their efforts.
  
  
  
  
  Behind the scenes in this video and one of Cassandra's mentors is Peter Donaldson who provides guidance and support for our sustainability work.  Peter is guiding the efforts to create rain gardens on our sites that serve as a models and teaching spaces for our science program.  High school teacher and Green Team Advisor, Clare Nance, is another adult that has supported and provided opportunities for Cassandra to live her passion in our school system.  Thanks to them for nurturing the passion that our young people bring to these efforts.
  
  

• May Mayhem

  G-Town Talks 2.0|5/21/2013

  What a mixed-up month May is in the world of school! It’s budget time so I’m immersed in budget documents, procedures, the public hearing, ‘Meet the Candidates’ night and the public vote/election. At the same time, it’s beautiful outside (at long last!) and I’m yearning to get outside in my gardens but have no time [...]

• A possible pitch . . .

  Seeking Shared Learning|5/20/2013

  This short Daniel Pink video I found on his blog caught my attention because the topic was about the use of questions in making a pitch.  It comes from his book To Sell Is Human where we learn that if the facts are on your side it makes sense to pitch with a question.  He uses an example from the 1980 Carter/Reagan presidential campaign to make his point.
  
  

  
  
  The video is only 1:36 in length so you may want to give it a look.  I did so and my attention immediately turned to our bond measure where we badly need something to get parents and community members engaged in the conversation and seeing the need for additional learning environment capacity in our system.  Give it a look with this context in mind.
  
  
  
  
  Do we have the facts on our side related to the need for additional capacity or is the opposite true leading to what Pink says will be people disagreeing with you?  What are the facts about this need?  If you were going to lead the campaign with a question what would it be?  I would be very interested in your thoughts as we continue conversations on how best to meet our current and projected student enrollment needs with quality learning environments aligned with our Future Ready initiative.

• Vandalism

  G-Town Talks 2.0|5/20/2013

  Vandalism. Senior Pranks that cause damage. Graffiti. Why is any of it necessary? Last night, the mural that our students and Art teachers created in Town was vandalized. This happened along with the vandalism of some of our local churches. Vandalism is a problem that I cannot get my head around. I understand that those [...]

• “Our Best for West” Aid fromOne Texas District to Another

  Mesquite ISD Superintendent|5/20/2013

  
  

  Today marks one month since the town of West suffered an explosion that destroyed much of the community—including three of its four school buildings. As part of our district’s KARES initiative, we would like to show our kindness, empathy and service to the West community—particularly the students and school employees, through an MISD fundraising effort to benefit West ISD.
  
  
  Next week, May 20-24, all MISD schools will be collecting donations of cash or checks to benefit West ISD.  Sources tell us that the greatest need is for funds rather than supplies.
  
  
  Interested in giving to this worthy cause? School secretaries on all Mesquite ISD campuses will be collecting cash and change. If you want to write a check, please make it payable to MISD with Our Best to West on the memo line. At the fundraising campaign’s end, the grand total of funds collected will be delivered to West ISD.
  
  

• A reinforcing email . . .

  Seeking Shared Learning|5/19/2013

  Last Friday I received an email from one of the business owners that attended our Cafe event that I blogged about here.  It was one of many comments that attendees shared with me about their positive experience.  The email took it a step further and I wanted to share part of it with you.
  
  
  

  Your people are OUTSTANDING. I live and breathe in FORTUNE 500® corporate environment, and attend a lot of meetings with folks in facilitator roles – I was very impressed with Ms. Kathy Whylie as group facilitator -- Ms. Whylie brought her contagious passion, attention and smile as she made sure that all voices were heard, while accurately capturing the essence of our group discussion – great facilitator! 
  
  
  
  
  
  Kathy was one of the many table facilitators that supported the conversations.  She and the others did a great job as they do in all of our work.  We are blessed to have competent, committed individuals and teams supporting our efforts.  This email reinforces what I already knew about the quality of people I have the privilege to work with, but it is always good to have one's beliefs reinforced by others.
  
  
  I'm looking forward to the information and guidance from this process and will share how it will influence our Future Ready initiative as we move forward.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• 4 Steps to Leaders Modeling Effective Use of Technology

  Promoting Student Engagement|5/17/2013
  You are a superintendent or principal who wants to promote students leveraging technology to improve the quality and amplify the impact of their work. As a superintendent, you want principals to model using technology to improve their work. As a principal, you want assistant principals, department chairs, grade level chairs, and other teacher-leaders effectively modeling how to leverage technology as well.  How can superintendents and principals achieve this?
  Step 1: Model and celebrate the behavior.
  ·         Meet with principals using videoconferencing technology, such as Blackboard Collaborate, to demonstrate using technology as a productivity tool.
  ·         During a workshop with leaders you supervise, model learning with outside experts by connecting with other educators via Skype.
  ·         Visit a classroom to watch students and teachers for using technology successfully. By spending time observing lessons that leverage technology, you communicate that those lessons are important.
  ·         Take digital photos and videos of students effectively using technology and share them at faculty meetings, principal meetings, and School Board meetings to celebrate and inspire.
  ·         Send kudos to teachers for successfully leveraging technology via Twitter. E-mail the tweet to the teacher if she doesn't use Twitter herself.
  ·         Share shout-outs regarding great lessons via blog posts.
  ·         Seek out examples of student and teacher blogs in your school or district and take just two minutes to publish a comment on their blog.
  
  
  Don't have the time or expertise for all these actions? No problem, start with a few.
  
  
  Often superintendents and principals who want to promote the effective use of technology stop after step one. They mistakenly think that by modeling and celebrating the behavior, that other leaders in their organization will adopt the same strategy. Our strategic thinking about growing leaders who model the effective use of technology needs to extend beyond our own modeling.
  Step 2: Communicate your core expectations to leaders relating to modeling the behavior.
  If you want your principals, assistant principals, department chairs, grade level chairs and other teacher-leaders modeling technology usage, tell them that. Don't stop at modeling and celebrating the behavior yourself. After you have taken steps in walking the walk yourself, share your expectations regarding modeling.
  In York County, Virginia, Chief Academic Officer Stephanie Guy and I worked with Instructional team members to articulate core expectations relating to several instructional areas. We shared these expectations at our Leadership Academy in August. The document included expectations relating to modeling technology usage.
  All administrators will model the use of video-conferencing and video conferencing roles with staff at least once and will encourage teacher use of videoconferencing to enhance instruction.
  All administrators will model the use of Social Media/Web 2.0 Tools for professional learning with staff.
  In November, Stephanie Guy and I described our core expectations to Ginger Blackmon, a principal in Alaska who serves as an instructional leadership coach through the Microsoft Partners in Learning program. Ginger asked a disruptive question: "Are you dictating the core expectations or are your leaders articulating them as shared expectations that they hold as a group for themselves?" This question led us to step 3. To take a more collaborative approach, skip step 2 or integrate steps 2 and 3.
  Step 3: Ask leaders to articulate shared expectations relating to modeling the behavior.
  Chief Academic Officer Stephanie Guy then asked principals to reflect on the core expectations relating to modeling and other instructional topics prior to a principals meeting. Is each expectation reasonable, appropriate, and attainable?
  Prior to a principals meeting, Ashley Ellis, Coordinator of Professional Development, e-mailed a survey to our nineteen principals and six central office participants asking them to rate each core expectation via Survey Monkey, an online survey tool. During the meeting, the group results were displayed. When consensus was not obvious, the group discussed the expectation, making adjustments as necessary. For example, the group decided to delete the list of examples of Social Media/Web 2.0 Tools. Also, the group revised one of the other core expectations relating to technology which initially stated, "All secondary administrators will promote the appropriate usage of Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) to support student learning." Given our plans to expand our BYOT initiative to the elementary level, elementary principals stated that the word secondary should be deleted from this expectation so that it applies to them as well. After discussion and revision of each expectation, Stephanie Guy asking each principal to indicate their level of support for the shared expectation by holding up from one to five fingers, with the quantity of fingers raised indicating the level of support for the expectation. When this "fist of five" activity indicated broad support, an expectation became part of the shared expectations.
  Step 4: Facilitate learning relating to the expectations.
  If they are going to model using technology, leaders need time to play with it in a low risk setting. Recognizing the importance of play time, Kipp Rogers, our Director of Secondary Instruction, created Principals Digital Playground with the support of other members of his department. It eventually was renamed Digital Playground once other leaders began to attend as well. The Digital Playground is an optional event, held monthly, at which leaders focus on a specific topic, such as learning via Twitter, creating and editing movies using iMovie, or using Edmodo.
  Promote a culture of reflective practice. We loosely structure some of our reflective conversations regarding using protocols adapted from free resources available from the National School Reform Faculty. Even when we are not officially using a protocol, our conversations benefit from skills learned by using the protocols, such as asking questions that effectively clarify a dilemma and articulating probing questions that prompt new insight.
  Taking these four steps can increase the extent to which leaders in your organization effectively model how to leverage technology. Please join the conversation. What advice do you have relating to taking these steps? What other steps can be taken to encourage others to effectively model how to leverage technology?
  Follow me on Twitter at @EWilliams65.

• Another special evening . . .

  Seeking Shared Learning|5/16/2013
  
  
  
  
  This evening we brought together 100 people to assist us in a review of our outcomes and indicators.  We had representatives from parents, city counselors, local and regional business, higher education, staff, board members, and students spend almost four hours in conversation and feedback to support our work.  We want to ensure that the Outcomes and Indicators capture what young people need to know and be able to do for success in post high school learning and work.  We did a cafe style process where each participant engaged at three different table groupings with a focusing question at each table.
  
  The following questions were used to initiate each conversation.
  
  
  • In what ways do the district Outcomes and Indicators, as currently written, propel students to future success?
  • As we think about the essence of "future ready", what, if anything, is missing from the district Outcomes and Indicators as currently written?
  • In what ways might we enhance the district Outcomes and Indicators to capture the realities of a global community?
  
  
  
  
  We ended with the following question that was posed to job alike groups.
  
  
  • What is one bold step our job alike group could take to support the future ready vision becoming our reality?
  I'm excited about the answers to this question and to the recommendations for possible revisions to our document.  I'll share the results once we have an opportunity to process the information, but will share one from the students that particularly resonate with me.
  • Rewrite them using kid friendly language.  By the time we get to high school they are over used and begin to lose their importance.

  This is why we need to ensure that we have student voice in ALL major decisions impacting their learning in our system.
  
  
  I want to thank Connie Hoffman and Dawn Wakeley for the quality lesson design and facilitation of an effective and efficient meeting.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• Creating a broader context . . .

  Seeking Shared Learning|5/15/2013
  
  The Education Specifications Committee met again this evening to continue conversations about a new comprehensive grade 9-12 high school.  I blogged about the work of this committee here and here that is designed to alleviate the over crowded conditions in each of our buildings.  It is a generative process where individuals share ideas designed to provide the architects with direction and a framework to begin the design phase.  Tonight was focused on designs to meet specific functions identified in prior discussions including core classroom spaces, project and applied learning spaces, media/library, administrative, fitness, and other spaces.
  
  We started the meeting this evening, however, trying to create a broader context for the work.  Yes, we are bringing an aspiration to life, but the driver behind this effort is the need for additional student housing capacity.  As we continue this effort, it will be important for the Committee and for all of us to keep this broader context in the conversation.  We shared the slide below to visually capture the number of students we are currently housing in our schools compared to the designed capacity of our buildings.  Though the graph shows we are over capacity, it does not convey the tension it is creating in our school system.  As the work continues it will be important for us to identify vehicles to share stories that truly capture the tension and stress that over crowding brings to our learning environments.  In the absence of addition capacity, we will be forced to make difficult decisions with significant program implications.
  
  
  
  
  The remainder of the meeting

• Agnew Middle School Chosen for Programthrough New George W. Bush Institute

  Mesquite ISD Superintendent|5/13/2013
  Agnew Middle School  is one of eight middle schools chosen by The George W. Bush Institute to participate in the Middle School Matters Institute. The institute, designed to improve school outcomes in the middle grades (grades 6-8), leverages the best available research and practices to support student improvement.
  Some of the program features include:
  ·      Targeted support through the first Middle School Matters Institute Summer Conference in Austin. Agnew’s leadership will attend development sessions with researchers and practitioners.
  ·      Help in developing an implementation plan tailored to Agnew’s strengths and areas of growth.
  ·      Continued support efforts with researchers throughout the year.
  
  
  We are proud Agnew was one of the lucky eight chosen from 44 applicant schools of varying sizes from across the country. We look forward to great things to come from this consortium of great minds and best practices.
  
  
  

• Standing out in the crowd . . .

  Seeking Shared Learning|5/12/2013

  Sunday is a "normal" post day for me so I have spent the last few minutes going through my blog folder to choose a topic and there are plenty to choose from.  I want to share the video of Bill Gates TED talk last week that I blogged about here, but thought I'd share a more personal reflection on our young people and our school system.
  
  Our schools, teams of students, and individual students have recently received local, state, and national recognition for achievement.  I have blogged about many of these achievements, but I am more proud of who we are individually and collectively.  As I told our We The People Team, placing seventh nationally is an exceptional honor, but I am also as proud, if not more, for the stories that Gretchen shared about how other teams became our biggest boosters.  Our kids are competitive, but they are also collaborative and supportive of others.  They don't resort to smack talk and game playing.  They do their thing with confidence and humility that results in respect by others.
  
  

  
  I believe that this respect is a byproduct of our work in the system focused on our Outcomes and Indicators and our deep belief in collaboration and consensus.  Another example with students is Bear Metal our robotics team receiving the Chairman's Award, the highest award in the First Robotics world.  The award is given to teams that support the mission of the organization and that demonstrate collaboration and support in a competitive environment.
  
  Please consider sharing with me and those that follow the blog other stories about young people and adults that demonstrate this important characteristic of our culture.

• Simply unbelievable . . .

  Seeking Shared Learning|5/10/2013
  
  I just sent Melissa Corby and Ken Riggs an e-mail thanking them for a thoroughly enjoyable evening watching Les Miserables.  The singing and acting were so good that I can't believe I was watching students.  Their voices were amazing and the acting of a professional quality.  The young people in the starring roles are truly impressive, but what struck me the most was the quality of talent across the whole cast that also included students from our elementary schools.
  
  It was for me one of the most impressive high school performances of any kind that I have had the privilege of attending and is one that I will remember.  Thank you to Melissa and Ken for creating a stage for our young people to showcase their talent and for the memories that they will take with them forever.  Tonight was one more reason to be proud to be associated with the quality young people and adults that make up our school system.
  
  
  

• A new experience . . .

  Seeking Shared Learning|5/9/2013

  Today brought a new experience for me that took place at the Issaquah Community Center this afternoon that was shared with about 1200 others.  I may have been the only one in the room from the Tahoma School District as it was the Issaquah Schools Foundation fifteenth annual luncheon fund raiser, Nourish Every Mind.
  
  

  
  How did the Tahoma Superintendent end up at an Issaquah fund raiser?  I was invited to join the table sponsored by Cedar Grove Composting, an organization that this year will sponsor a $2500 scholarship for a Tahoma student and that also sponsors student attendance at Camp Snowball. I had previously met the Foundation Executive Director when I presented last month at an Eastside Business event and wanted to follow-up with her on an offer to assist our foundation effort.
  
  The Foundation is impressive and the event was truly inspiring.  They raise over a million dollars annually and provide the school system with support in multiple areas.  A focus for this year is to create a fund that will annually put $100,000 into the school's art programs and $360,000 into purchasing a writing program.  They sponsor rocketry and robotic programs and a four week summer school program for ELL students.  And, the list goes on.
  
  What did I learn?  I learned that systems like Issaquah and Mercer Island whose foundation can raise over $500,000 in a breakfast meeting have resources that create opportunities for their young people and staff out of reach to most other systems in the state.  There is no level playing field when systems have this capacity and can also pass maximum levies and $200 million bond measures that result in lower taxes for their home owners. Though it concerns me that our current reality does not include these flexible resources or ease at passing levies and bonds, I do not fault their system for this incredible support.
  
  Today also reinforced for me the tremendous job that our teachers and staff do without this additional support.  I left the meeting with increased tension to grow the capacity of our foundation to replicate the success in Issaquah.  We will be meeting with their Executive Director to learn from their journey what we can transfer to our school community.
  
  Oh, in case you are wondering, I did make a contribution.  It did seem a little odd when they passed me an envelope with my name on it as I had not given any thought to the possibility of needing to contribute until I walked in the door without my check book and little cash.  It was a good thing that they took credit cards.