Reflections from AASA Personalized Learning Summit

“Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.”
– John C. Maxwell

Recently I had the good fortune to enhance my leadership knowledge by interacting with superintendents and school system leaders from 24 US states and the District of Columbia at a Personalized Learning Summit through the American Association of School Administrators, the AASA. The amazing experiences of my peers and colleagues help strengthen my ability to lead and serve in the community where I have the privilege of working as the superintendent of schools. My recent leadership journey brought me to the beautiful state of Utah with majestic mountain tops and vistas – quite impressive for an Illinois native like myself! We visited schools, an amazing public library space, we watched a film and interacted with the director/producer, and we engaged in thinking, planning, defining, and leadership development.

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I am so grateful to have a Board as supportive as the Deerfield Public Schools District 109 Board. They encourage me to seek professional growth and development opportunities on behalf of the school district. I am a better and more impactful leader as a result of the amazing and powerful leadership experiences in which I can lead and participate. Leaders came from all over the USA: IL, OH, KY, TN, ME, NJ, NY, AK, CA, AR, MN, MA, MI, MO, VA, ID, UT, OK, WY, GA, WA, AL, TX, AZ – all in all 24 states and the District of Columbia. The richness of experience and the depth of differences, similarities, scale, creativity, etc. was really impressive. Regardless of our community or district demographic we all serve for the same calling. Our collective aim is to improve educational outcomes for all chilren in all settings.

 

We superintendents all serve school boards, communities, students, teachers, school systems and the business world. We all aim to support engaged learning environments designed to support and strengthen student learning for all students. We all have a calling to serve and a mission to improve our systems.

As I have written in the past, we are committed to engaged learning, personalized learning, and community engagement. As I have also written in the past, we have but ONE chance to support a child’s learning experiences in public education. The child has one chance at 1st grade, one chance at 8th grade – it’s imperative that we act with urgency to provide the BEST, most excellent educational system for ALL children – all the time. During my time in Utah – a really beautiful and rugged terrain and part of the world – I felt the sense of urgency to act, lead, support our awesome teachers, to support our precious students, to lead with passion! One of the amazing learning institutions I visited on the journey is called Innovations Early College High School and Career & Technical Center. Wow! What an impressive place for a public high school student to learn, grow, excel, and become a productive member of society.

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I took notes during my visit to Innovations High School in Salt Lake City and I’m sharing highlights in this post. During the visit we had the chance to meet the principal, teachers, students, parents, the superintendent, we toured the school, and we learned what a high school – a public high school – open to ALL students – looked like in a personalized learning environment. The visit was powerful and the lessons will be shared with the leadership team and Board of Education in my district. Lessons learned will be applied to improve the already great education in DPS109 so that we may become OUTSTANDING – for ALL learners every day.
Some of the highlights of this innovative and quite different school where students have a voice in their pace, goals, future, planning, and learning (see image below from one of the walls):
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-Every child has an adult mentor and they meet weekly
-Integrated coursework
-Teacher collaboration
-The content is personalized, individualized, and differentiated – truly personal pathways
-Flexible teacher day
-Class meetings are designed like our traditional “classes” – students may attend meetings for direct instruction from and with teachers and tutors
-One on one small groups meeting coaching
-Competency based assessments
-Tied to state standards
-Teacher has access to online system
-Counselor role for teachers
-Constant professional growth, weekly PLC (professional learning community)
-Weekly Faculty meetings
-80% mastery – students do not complete courses until they master content
-Traditional school system doesn’t work for everyone
Some highlights of our conversations with parents about why they or their child chose Innovations:
Parents chose school because “Daughter was bored at traditional school, they came here for a change”
The parents like that the students must prove competency in subjects – no social promotion!
Other parents “Wanted child to love school and enjoy learning – they get to go at own pace  – this school benefits all learners [lo med hi] – the children are genuinely engaged”.
Another parent shared that “My child wanted to come here after a rough time in gifted program at traditional Jr. High. She is twice exceptional and she didn’t fit in. [Child] petitioned mom to agree to enroll in this new concept school”. Mom reports that now the family is very pleased.
A parent commented that at Innovations all personnel have “respect for students”, she went on to comment that it’s “inhumane how we treat kids” in traditional schools.
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Overall this was a really cool school with impressive organization. Personalization, innovation , and engagement are real here – every day for ALL children.
Other highlights include career and technical certifications, dual enrollment with local community college and so much more!

ENGAGE, INSPIRE, EMPOWER
ENGAGE, INSPIRE, EMPOWER

In DPS109 we are on a path toward transformative learning environments, we are proud to differentiate and individualize education. Our journey will lead us to personalized learning pathways!

Stay tuned as our adventure in education continues!

Special Education Climate Survey 2015 – #Engage109

“Excellent firms don’t believe in excellence–only in constant improvement and constant change.”
– Tom Peters

Engage, Inspire, Empower – these words drive our vision and our mission in Deerfield Public Schools, District 109. We are Future Ready, we have made great gains in We are Future Ready!science, technology, engineering, and mathematics K-8. We have impressive, world class facilities and we select excellent staff and administrators! We have tons to be proud of.

We never rest on our laurels and we aim daily to go from good to great or from great to more great. Part of this relentless focus on excellence is shown in the data informed leadership from multiple stakeholders. Recently, in partnership with K12Insight, we administered a special education perceptions survey to parents and staff. All staff were invited to take the survey and all parents of children who leadquotehave an IEP were invited to take the survey as well. Survey data like this guides us, informs us, provides check-ins and check ups and allows us to best serve our students.

The presentation made to the Board of Education on Monday, October 5, 2015, is embedded below. We are so proud to show positive growth:

86% of parents were completely or somewhat satisfied with the quality of the special education and related services their child received this year, which is 9 percent higher than in 2014.

90% of employees said special education students are receiving quality services.

And we are equally proud to show in what areas we have growth opportunities:

55% of employees who have been in co-teaching environments said they do not have adequate support from district leadership for co-teaching. Forty-nine percent of employees who have been in co-teaching environment said they do not have adequate support from school leadership for co-teaching.

31% of employees rated assistive technology services and 25 percent rated professional development in assistive technology as fair or poor.

ENGAGE, INSPIRE, EMPOWER
ENGAGE, INSPIRE, EMPOWER

Culture is Everything – Relationships are Everything – #Engage109

“The test of a leader is taking the vision from me to we.”
– John C. Maxwell, Leadership expert

In the Deerfield Public Schools – District 109, one of the “BIG 5” initiatives under which we operate is Organizational Culture. Our unwavering focus on employee engagement and satisfaction is demonstrated in our annual measure of culture and the individual school action planning around measures of culture at each school. It’s also felt each and every time one walks the halls of our schools or interacts withPeter-Drucker-Culture-Strategy our amazing teachers, support staff, administrators, board members, students, and members of the community. With a strong organizational culture reflecting intentional relationship building, our District is humbled and proud of the three year culture trends (see below from a recent Board presentation from one of our research partners):

All school teams deserve a lot of credit for identifying culture dimensions in need of attention. It is essential to replicate that which works and to remediate that which does not! Our aim is success for all students and staff and community. Our Board of Education continues to lead strategically and govern from “the balcony” allowing staff to do the necessary work on behalf of student learning. As a futureleadership team we have been in office for 26 months and a tremendous amount of positive growth and change is underway. I cannot thank our administrators, teachers, support staff members, students and board members enough for their dedication to intentional and deliberate excellence!

At the most recent school board meeting I shared a highlight of where we have been, where we are and where we are going organizationally. See below for details:

ENGAGE, INSPIRE, EMPOWER
ENGAGE, INSPIRE, EMPOWER

Shift Happens 2015 – Our Future is Now – #Engage109

“The best teachers are those who show you where to look, but don’t tell you what to see.”
– Alexandra Trenfor

Each year since 2008 I have watched the “DID YOU KNOW?” Shift Happens videos with interest and amazement. The power of our exponential times is almost impossible to grasp unless the video/music combo is presented with graphs and words.

As we prepare for the Class of 2028 it’s incumbent upon us to imagine THEIR future as we prepare for our present! We have one chance for each child to experience his/her grade – we don’t get “do overs” with our precious students! The following video puts some perspectives into place about the world and society we are preparing today’s students for: