District 109

Structural Change – What is School? – #Engage109

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“Strange as it sounds, great leaders gain authority by giving it away.”
– James B. Stockdale

We in education are grappling with perhaps the largest challenge to structural schooling in the history of the modern era! What is school for? Are we optimizing the greatest force for supporting and sustaining our democratic way of life? How do we ensure that the public school system is fully functional and designed to support a future unknown in this Information Age?

I’m a student of leadership. I’m a student of structural change. I’m working to lead our school system and our community for educational needs of today and not for yesterday’s needs. Beyond rhetoric and admiration of problems, I subscribe to proposals of change and I subscribe to what I am and what we are “FOR” not “against”.

I’ve often wrote about how it is incumbent upon us in education to focus on the newness, freshness, and excitement for each student each day. Every day is a new day for our students. Only one time to “do” first grade, for example; in most school experiences there are no “do overs” for these high impact life experiences. Often I ponder questions like these:

How can we make school, the system created in the 19th Century, relevant for today’s learners?

How can we make school, the system from Horace Mann’s era, meaningful for today’s learners?

How can me make school, the system resistant to change for so long, open to change for our future?

There are some ways to change school systems, but most have not been done so there are not many examples of effective structural change. We in change leadership are pioneers embarking upon the very essence of society and the essence of our place in history. From the 1980’s “A Nation at Risk” to the 2000’s “No Child Left Behind”, to today – we have been

The major findings - distilling from millions of studies on what works.
The major findings – distilling from millions of studies on what works.

bombarded by what is “Wrong” with schools. Well, the Illinois Vision 20/20, of which our district is on record supporting, and creative leaders like Sir Ken Robinson and John Hattie are sharing thoughts and research (proof) about what changes can do.

In pursuit of my own leadership development and growth I am studying personalized learning. This year’s focus from the superintendent’s office is PIE: Personalization, Innovation, and Engagement. This year we are co-hosting innovationa community screening of the film Most Likely to Succeed on November 9, 2015, at the Deerfield High School Auditorium. From an email I sent to the community:

Click to learn more about the film, and to view the trailer.
The educational leaders of both school districts have chosen to show the film community-wide because we believe that it will generate important conversations that will help guide our schools’ transformation. It will allow us to start forming our collective vision of what the education of students in the School District 109 & 113 communities should look like. After the evening screening of the film at Deerfield High School, Joe Taylor, Assistant Principal for STEAM Instruction & Director of Instructional Technology at Deerfield High School, and Marcie Faust, Director for Innovative Learning for District 109, will be part of a panel discussion and Q&A session, moderated by District 109 Superintendent Mike Lubelfeld. The panel discussion will last 25-30 minutes.

Please click here to RSVP so we can get an idea of the number of people who will be attending. This isn’t a binding RSVP – if your plans change at the last minute, or friends convince you to join them, please come. We want you there!

 

personalizationI’m part of a national leadership team studying innovation and personalization from Utah. Please see this TEDx Video about this topic:

I’m convinced we can and we will change education for the better and we will Engage, Inspire and Empower our students for now and more important FOR THEIR FUTURES!

ENGAGE, INSPIRE, EMPOWER
ENGAGE, INSPIRE, EMPOWER

Leadership is Key – Leading for ALL Learners – #Engage109

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“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.”
– Henri Bergson

This year in Illinois there are 70 new superintendents and 28 superintendents new to their school districts. This reflects a reality that more than 1 in 10 Illinois school districts are experiencing a change in leadership at the CEO level this year. In Deerfield Public Schools District 109 I am proud to report that

20130815_104540I’m only the fifth superintendent of schools since the consolidation in 1978 (Drs. Caruso, McGee, Pekoe, Goier and me). I am starting my third year at the helm of this district. I enjoy a positive professional relationship with the seven non-partisan elected school board members and I consider myself quite fortunate to serve this school district. This community has benefitted from the leadership stability over the past 37 years since the two historic school districts consolidated in the area.

Often I am asked about my job, my role, and my functions as a superintendent. I am most proud of the fact that this role allows me to support leadership growth and development at the student, staff, teacher, administrator, board, community, local, state and national government levels. I am an advocate for ILlearning for ALL – this means students with labels, without labels, students in small groups and students in large groups. I support ALL programs and initiatives and special programming for ALL learners.

Over the course of the past two years our District has completed initiative after initiative and project after project in order to be leaders in innovation. Our teachers are outstanding and incredibly hard working. They have been quite flexible and supportive and accepting of the many changes that have changed their work. This year, we will “catch our breath”as we

The major findings - distilling from millions of studies on what works.
The major findings – distilling from millions of studies on what works.

implement, monitor, adjust, amend, and review. We will enjoy the benefits of the changes as we Engage, Inspire, Empower ALL children every day. We have communicated quite a bit about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. We also share a lot of information about the 1:1 transformative learning environments. Those and the other initiatives are of the utmost significance and we also provide quite a few supports in support of Social Emotional Learning (SEL). We realize that our students have but one time and one opportunity to experience their particular grade level and their particular years’ worth of educational experiences. We take very seriously our charge to act in loco parentis and take care of the emotional, social, academic, and “other” educational experiences for our students. Beyond standardized accountability measures, it is incumbent upon us to serve the “whole child.”

Examples of Social Emotional Programming in DPS109

The following “laundry list” shows the many SEL initiatives across the District:

  • Botvin Life Skills 5th grade pilot at South Park (4th & 5th grade planned for 2015-16)
  • Text-A-Tip – anonymous tip line 224HELP (community partnership)
  • Community the Anti-Drug community coalition
  • The Leader in Me at Kipling
  • Check in/Check out
  • Second Step curriculum
  • Implement school wide SEL/Behavior program
    • Includes 4 PAWS assemblies
    • Includes a parent/student PAWS contract
    • Includes daily announcements by 5th graders who share the weekly PAWS principle
    • Includes incentive programs for students
  • Implement school wide SEL/Behavior program
    • Penguin Principles
    • Held several “behavior boosters” throughout the year to reinforce the program
    • Used daily announcement to reinforce behavior expectations and Penguin Principles
  • Provide ongoing and as needed social work/counseling to individual students and groups of students
  • Students completed a social/emotional survey
    • Staff responded to student needs by addressing group and individual concerns
  • Principal held several Town Hall meetings with 4th/5th grade students to address social concerns innovationwith topics ranging from bullying, to cyber safety, use and misuse of social media and general friendship issues
  • All elementary schools held an assembly on sexual abuse
  • Assemblies on bullying
  • Create opportunities for student leadership – e.g student council, student mentors, student ambassadors who introduce assemblies and special events and who meet and greet parents and guests for various programs
  • Buddy programs to support the social needs of students with disabilities and opportunities for teaching about diversity and empathy for peers
  • Dev Heitner programming for 5th graders
  • Develop individualized behavior plans based on assessed student needs
  • Health curriculum in middle school P.E. courses
  • SEL RTI programming 
  • Cultural/World studies in 7th grade social studies
  • Peer mediation group at MS
  • Student Council, Student Advisory Committee, and Philanthropy Club
  • Digital citizenship/sexting presentation led by principal
  • Mentor/Problem Solving teams of teachers to connect with students for either Check in/Check out and/or further problem solving students needs
  • Positive Behavior presentation to address the definition of bullying and how we address/prevent bullying at Caruso (we also addressed how we investigate bullying)
  • A positive behavior matrix for the entire school with specific behavior expectations for all areas of the school (classroom, hallway, lunchroom etc.) and will pilot a positive behavior incentive program for the 6th grade class in the fall
  • Social/emotional team comprised of teachers, student support staff and admin to discuss how to create a system of social/emotional growth that includes Tier 1 data collection, Tier 1 interventions as well as a school-wide approach to support positive student behavior
  • We created the Bluejay way handbook that highlights expected behaviors and presented these expectations to each grade level.
  • Middle School Facilitation Committee recommends that the 6th grade MS teachers address specificleadquote social emotional needs the first few weeks of school and 8th grade MS teachers address specific social emotional needs the second semester of their 8th grade year
  • Deerfield Vertical Alignment committee recommends that 8th grade students complete a pre and post survey that addresses social emotional topics such as stress. In addition, the committee presented to the board the 9th grade survey regarding not only social emotional topics, but also academic preparation for Deerfield High School
  • PBIS-like system of encouraging and supporting positive behaviors and supports with a special emphasis on being helpful, responsible, respectful, and safe.

 

 

Measuring Success

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“Individual commitment to a group effort — that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”
– Vince Lombardi

In DPS109 we measure success in many ways. We measure student academic performance, we measure staff culture, we measure all stakeholder satisfaction and we probe into special areas for discoveries about ways we can improve. This year we administered an all staff Culture Survey for the second year in a row. The all-district results will be shared at the September 15, 2014, school board meeting. Last year’s summary results were presented to the Board in October, 2013 and are linked here. This year’s culture survey will show levels of engagement and satisfaction with comparisons to last year’s results. Our aim is excellence and our aim is continuous improvement. Our teachers have high expectations for students, our students have high expectations for themselves, and we leverage our vast instructional resources to support learning and provide timely feedback.

Like our aims for student learning, growth, success, and excellence, one of the Big 5 in our District is Organizational Culture. We address Organizational Culture through multiple measures and through multiple behaviors. Behaviors include collaborative leadership, teamwork, presence in the schools and classrooms, and overall follow up and focus on morale. Measures include a number of surveys, observations, focus groups, and data analytics.

Last year we measured the climate and satisfaction levels of the community, staff, and for the students in the 1:1 pilot classrooms. Later this fall, in October, we will again administer climate surveys to our stakeholders – by comparing results from one year to another we can track trends in the data as well as data as compared to our goal setting and implementation. This year we are adding a section to the climate survey on special education programming. Our aim is to listen, hear, and act in the best interests of students, staff, and the community.

This year we are also working with Let’s Talk for ongoing climate/culture/satisfaction/concern collection. We encourage anyone to use Let’s Talk so that we can track trends of interest in the school district.

In addition, we are getting ready to measure the impact(s) of the 1:1 Roll Out. On September 15, 2014, and again on March 15, 2015, we are going to send out links to online survey instruments to all students, staff, and parents regarding the 1:1 roll out. With our research partner Bright Bytes, using an algorithm from MIT and Stanford researchers, we will measure and learn about impacts on learning, classroom, access, schools, and environment.

Please know, we are listening and we truly care about what you have to say! Please reach out, please share your thoughts about what we are doing well, in what areas we can improve, and if we ask you to complete a survey or two or three, please take the time to do so – we truly appreciate your input!!