“Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It’s thinking of yourself less.”
– C.S. Lewis
In our school district we take pride in the words and actions ENGAGE, INSPIRE, EMPOWER. We aim to do this each and every day with and for each and every student, staff member, and the community! Since July 2013 our Big 5 have been driving our actions and initiatives:
We often write about innovation and we often share examples of the teacher’s innovative practices in blogs, Twitter, Facebook, principal newsletters, emails from the district, in person events, etc. Today I’m writing to celebrate an innovative project experience from 7th grade English Language Arts. In the 7th grade ELA class this year the students had to complete a project entitled: Change the World. One of our students sent a letter to the Illinois Department of Homeland Security. The boy’s letter was so impressive to the staff that the Deputy Director, James Joseph, called principal, Dr. John Filippi, and he shared his delight at the letter. In addition he offered to come visit the student and his classmates!
In addition he made a brief presentation and answered questions from the students. In the pictures shown to the left we also show another special guest, retired Major General Robert G.F. “Bob” Lee. Gen. Lee was visiting the Governor’s office and it fit into his schedule to join Director Joseph. Gen. Lee shared information about his fascinating service to our country as well as to his home state of Hawaii. Security is a national concern and it’s nice to know we have such able, knowledgeable, talented and able leaders helping defend our nation and our state.
The power of a letter, the power of a communication, the power of an inquisitive student can lead to the highest levels of government, society, agencies, companies, etc. Our amazing teachers are taking learning to new levels with engagement, inspiring lessons and empowerment of students to reach out to “real people” in the world who do the work about which we are learning!
Check the podcast for a 5 minute excerpt of today’s visit:
In Deerfield we truly believe, and we teach our students, that, in the words of Margaret Mead:
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
Our students, through agency and voice, are learning that they matter not only in school and at home, but as part of the larger world. It’s wonderful, especially as a public school leader, to show the power of education and the value of our innovative public education in terms of meaning and relevance.
We are grateful to General Lee, Director Joseph, as well as other dignitaries who have visited our schools like Governor Bruce Rauner, U.S. Congressman Hon. Robert Dold, Illinois Senator Hon. Julie Morrison, Illinois Representative Hon. Scott Drury, Lake County Regional Superintendent of Schools Hon. Roycealee Wood, Deerfield Mayor Hon. Harriet Rosenthal, and many others who visit to engage with students, learn from our teachers, interact with our world class facilities, and in one way or another, show support for meaningful, effective public education!
“There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there.”
– Indira Gandhi
In this blog post I am highlighting the great work of the teachers, students, parents, support staff members, administrators, community members and the Board of Education of the Deerfield Public Schools District 109. Our leadership team has been following the research of Kouzes & Posner. In their book The Leadership Challenge they share decades of leadership research across industry and they proffer that the five practices of exemplary leadership are: Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart (MICEE). The focus of this post rests with the Inspire a Shared Vision Practice, and at the end of the post I share a recently published journal article about our District’s shared vision and its direct connection to actions.
From an August 23, 2013 post:
Leaders build relationships. I believe that each person is a leader in one way or another. Some are leaders by nature and talent, some are leaders by situation or role. Leadership is both an art and a science, and there are many books, articles, research reports, and findings about what leadership is and what leadership can do. Two great books on school and district leadership are: School Leadership that works and District Leadership that works. One of the main charges that I have as the superintendent of schools is to support leadership so that leaders emerge in all parts of the organization to Engage, Inspire, and Empower. While I am visible in the schools, and while the classroom is the most important “place” in the school district, I also work very closely with the administrative team in an effort to support their work and their leadership.
This year [2013-14] as a leadership team (district center administrators, and building level administrators) we are working on a book study with The Leadership Challenge. The authors of this classic and highly regarded leadership book Kouzes and Posner detail and describe Five Main frameworks for leadership (Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart).
Our Leadership Challenge is to fulfill our district mission every day in every classroom and in every interaction. One tangible, observable way in which we can guide our leader’s work is found in the Five Main frameworks.
Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart (MICEE)
The Mission of the Deerfield Public Schools, DPS109:
Provide educational experiences of the highest quality that engage, inspire and empower each student to excel and contribute in a changing world.
Our Vision: District 109 students will excel and contribute when they have the knowledge and skills to be: • Lifelong, self-directed learners, • Critical and creative thinkers, • Effective communicators,
• Collaborative team members, • Respectful and responsible members of society
This month (March 2016) Deerfield Public Schools District 109 Assistant Superintendent for Finance & Operations, CSBO Greg Himebaugh & I published an article in the Illinois Association of School Business Officials (IASBO) Journal UPDATE (see below). This article is about how WE in DPS109 have been inspiring a SHARED vision that has lead, leads to, and will continue to lead to ACTION and LEADERSHIP on behalf of students, staff, and community!
“Embrace your passion. Jump into your passion with both feet and bring others along with you.” – Vince Lombardi
In front of the AASA logo on the Cecaini School
This is the seventh post I’m sharing about the LifeTouch Memory Mission Trip in which I participated in January 2016 as a representative of the American Association of School Administrators (AASA).
Thanks to LifeTouch, AASA, and all of the amazing leaders with whom I worked, learned, shared, laughed, thought, reflected, and lived while in La Republica Dominicana! In my first blog post leading up to the actual trip I shared some questions and answers about what I hoped to learn and experience while on the trip.
Excerpts from that post:
Question: What do you hope to learn from the experience of building this school, interacting with the residents of Constanza and working as a team with your fellow Memory Mission volunteers?
Response: I expect a truly life changing experience in terms of culture, language, building, caring, and doing. I am hoping to see the world through the lens of the people of Constanza and through that lens better clarify my own lens. I hope to spread “public diplomacy” as well by showing the good side and caring side of our American people and of our school personnel. I look forward to making life long friendships and connections with my fellow volunteers. I want to make my wife and children proud of me by modeling a life of service.
Question: How do you think the Memory Mission will change you? Do you have personal goals for what you take away from this experience?
Response: I think this trip will change me in terms of the building experiences, the family/citizen interactions, the overall cultural exchange in the Dominican Republic. My goal is to listen, learn, embrace the culture and the people and aim to give as much as I can to these projects.
“I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.”
– Langston Hughes
This week I had the good fortune and honor of completing a two year advanced leadership program sponsored by the American Association of School Administrators (AASA). Upon my return home I and more than 20 other superintendent friends and colleagues across the nation will carry the distinction of being a “Nationally Certified Superintendent”. Last year after our coursework I published an article on the AASA website (click link).
From the article:
“This unique leadership program, designed to help school district leaders succeed on the job, brings together superintendents from around the country. The East Coast Cohort, the group I am a part of, consists of 26 superintendents representing 15 states. So far, we have been able to benefit from lead learners as well as veteran superintendents. Just as important, we also get to learn from one another. These expert superintendents help us understand that the working relationship with our board is perhaps the most important relationship we have.
During reflective leadership exercises highlighting our unique experiences, we built bonds that united us in the consistencies of the challenges we each face. We also engaged in board and governance workshops with representatives from the National School Boards Association.
An essential element of the program includes coach/mentor support from a master superintendent. This mentor relationship supports multiple levels of growth and support in the superintendency. The superintendency is often described as “lonely at the top,” but AASA is making efforts to change that through supportive, deliberate, thoughtful and high-level leadership and education.”
In Deerfield I have been able to apply the skills and lessons learned from this program. Our Board supports leadership growth and development for our leaders and teachers on behalf of one another, the students, and the community. Thanks to the support of my AASA mentor/coach, the master teachers, the AASA personnel, and the opportunities to reflect and grow through this high level leadership program, I am confident that the educational opportunities for our 3000 students have become enhanced.
We all got to experience a capstone event highlighting the leadership lessons in which we engaged. A short view of one of my presentations is shown below:
In our Capstone project experience we held ourselves accountable through goal setting and metric development. As depicted in the slide deck above, and from our Capstone template: “The area to be improved in DPS109 is in the area of technology and its impact on K-8 instruction. The area to be improved will be determined by baseline data collection from September 2014 survey administration with Bright Bytes research partnership. Bright Bytes will measure impact from parent, student, staff stakeholder groups using online survey collection following a model they describe as CASE Technology Framework. CASE measures impact on the classroom, access, skills, and environment. The area to be improved is discovery of the effects/impact of the 1:1 transformative learning environment on learning and performance.”
We shared our “do” statements as well as our internal and external metrics. Holding ourselves and our organizations accountable through shared successful and replicable leadership strategies that ultimately support and celebrate growth and leadership across the nation on behalf of hundreds of thousands of students. We learned a ton from one another during the leadership coursework and related homework assignments and in-district work.
Other examples of accountability included: “Input changes to get to desired state:Empirical data points that support administrative direction, teacher training, parent training and engagement and Board support. Increased CASE metrics from Sept-March – increased student growth rates over time as measured by MAP reading/math K-8.”
During the course of my leadership coursework in the AASA National Superintendent Certification Program, the DPS109 Board of Education carefully monitored survey data, student performance data as well as my leadership performance as the superintendent of schools. Concurrently with the leadership program and our local leadership initiatives, the Board indicated support and satisfaction with the realization of tangible evidence in support of previous Board plans (i.e. Master Facilities Planning from 2007-12, the Strategic Plan from 2011-16). The Board was also pleased with successful community engagement (i.e. Superintendent’s Task Force for Middle Level Education). The Board, parents, students, and teachers were engaged in planning, review, implementation, and further review of many initiatives, including the 1:1 Transformative Learning Environment changes. It has been a really busy, active, and impactful 32 months in DPS109 since July 1, 2013 when teams took office! Success in DPS109 is impacted and has been greatly influenced by the professional advanced leadership programming through the AASA National Superintendent Certification Program!
The relationships in our system were enhanced through deliberate outreach including parent technology information nights and working sessions, community film screenings and successive book talks, student focus groups, work groups, and student presentations to the Board of Education. In addition, through intentional communication strategies and leveraging of social media outreach, members of the community reported knowing more about the school system than ever before.
Because of this set of experiences, coaching, mentorship, leading and learning, I have greater confidence in my abilities to lead our organization on behalf of student and staff learning.
Thank you AASA and thank you DPS109 Board of Education!
“Some people give time, some money, some their skills and connections, some literally give their life’s blood. But everyone has something to give.”
– Barbara Bush
The beautiful children of Rio Grande, Constanza, Republica Dominicana hung out with us, watched us work, worked with us and played with us at “recess” and engaged with us on home visits. This is me, Eduardo, Alex, and my friend Nick, another supt. and rep. of AASA in the background.
We are all humans – it makes no difference to a child what your job title is, what your status economically is, where you live, etc. What matters to a child is that you care, love, respect, and take the time to understand. The children of Rio Grande, Constanza, Dominican Republic are beautiful and full of love, energy, spirit, and now, thanks in part to our mission, they are also full of hope! Our mission of hope and construction is for the entire community and especially for the children. During our time we played games, sports, etc. with the children. Often their parents were working the fields, tending their stores (colmados), and they could not play. The importance of play and socialization has impacted me and our new friends in many, many ways.
From Eduardo (pictured with me at the left) on my shoulders yelling “caballito” or little horse, to Alex (pictured in the red shirt) playing baseball every day and really connecting with us, the play was as meaningful as the physcial labor.
Their current educational options for the children in Rio Grande are quite limited. They can attend the one-room school that serves grades 1-4 or they can walk 5 miles round trip each day to an area called the Japanese Colony for grades 1 through 8.
For most educationally speaking, that’s it – 4th grade then work – or “other”! The Cecaini School in Constanza (shown below), is the one that previous LifeTouch memory mission trip workers helped construct under the guidance of their Dominican supervisors. This incredible school starts to fulfill Pastor Angel Moreta’s vision of transformation. The school serves children in
another part of Constanza in grades 1-8. In addition, in Cecaini a vocational school has just been created too, as part of the LifeTouch memory mission and commitment to the Dominican Republic. The vocational school at Cecaini is post 8th grade and it has coursework in computers (both science, engineering and repair), cosmetology (specifically as a way to help prevent teen pregnancy by providing other income earning opportunities for the girls and young women), culinary arts, artisan work (crafts, jewelry, etc) with other options in the works. The children in Rio Grande will have the opportunity to also attend the Cecaini vocational school after they complete the 8th grade in their neighborhood.This vocational school serves children after they complete 8th grade. With this new vocational school they will learn vocations and trades that will earn them an income and additional opportunities for life that currently do not exist in this part of the world.
School construction in process in Rio Grande
For many it is simply not practical to walk 5 mile round trip daily on an unpaved, rocky, potentially unsafe route. As stated, for many than it is no education post 4th grade. This mission trip is helping change this and bring hope for change to these forgotten people! Our school in Rio Grande- the one on which we made AMAZING progress in one week – is scheduled to open in August 2016 – this fall. There are two more groups of mission trips coming to continue and help complete the construction in April and June 2016.
Rio Grande (current project) and Cecaini (project just dedicated by the government) represent two of the six schools that local leader (and hero) Pastor Angel Moreta has in his vision to change the lives of his people.
Getting to Rio Grande
Prior to reaching the worksite and our new neighborhood we travelled for more than 12 hours. From our arrival at the airport in Atlanta at 7:30am, we flew to Santo Domingo, the capital city of the Dominican Republic, this 3.5 hour flight, with a one hour time zone reflects the first 4.5 hours of our travel day … Then at the airport we put all of our luggage – more than 100 suitcases – into a pickup truck as we
View from Altocerros Hotel where we stayed in Constanza outside of Rio Grande
boarded two small buses for a 4.5 hour journey north into the mountains. We left Santo Domingo’s international airport at 3:15pm. We went from sea level to nearly 4000 feet above sea level in our journey. We arrived at our new home, the hotel Altocerros in Constanza, around 7:30pm.
In the DR there are around 10 million people, 4 million of whom reside in or around the capital city. The capital city resembles any typical large city. There is a subway system, tons of businesses, a lot of traffic, well built and maintained bridges and roads and the appearance of multi-national investment. In the country the infrastructure is somewhat spotty.
There is the juxtaposition of highly developed engineering and irrigation through the mountains into the farms with the tin roofed small (300 sq. ft.) domiciles that dot the roads and the landscape. In terms of economy, Constanza is also a well stocked city – but a short distance away in the mountain area where we lived and worked, the economy is RURAL and remote. Specifically the economy is in the form of farms and storefronts (Colmados) as part of the homes. An interesting phenomenon is the presence of many unfinished structures, we were told that the people build what they can afford and as they accumulate more money they continue building until they ultimately complete the project (homes, stores, etc.).
We traveled on solid infrastructure and we traveled on treacherous (by USA standards) mountain passes on dirt and stone (boulder) roads with little to no passing space. The area of Constanza contains a mix of city and country, farm, and mountain, wealth and poverty. The 90 thousand residents reflect a variety of the faces of society. The folks with whom we spent the majority of our time were somewhat forgotten by
Video experts Donnie and Adam with some children at Cecaini School
the authorities, they did not live with highly advanced housing or infrastructure. But though their world has differences from ours, the similarities between us that we discovered on our journey far outweigh any differences. These folks love their families – just like us, these folks want a better life for their children – just like us, these folks work hard for their living – just like us, and these folks have pride, integrity, and now they have hope!
We came here to build a school and in doing so we accomplished a whole lot more. We did hard labor and manual construction and we’re quite proud of this! We also did life’s work and human work. What does this school represent? Among other things, it represents hope, possibility, change, diplomacy, love, compassion, opportunity, etc. The LifeTouch officials have done an incredible job of logistics, planning, training, execution of mission, safety, facilitating team building and reflection. Each day we worked, played and learned and each night we reflected, shared, and grew as humans.
El Jefe de translators! Translator-In-Chief Don Pedro
Our team of more than 50 had representatives from Brazil, Canada, the United States, and of course our amazing Dominican translators (some of whom are shown in the photos) and workers with whom we are now friends for life. The translators with whom we worked are forever bonded to us as friends. The love, care, humor, learning, explaining, laughing, and working side by side have impressed upon us for life. We hugged, shook hands, exchanged numbers and emails and connected on FaceBook. The workers first looked at us like a bunch of crazy North Americans (at least that is my thinking) and we left, after working really hard on many construction tasks, as friends sharing pictures, stories, laughs, and relationships. We earned their respect on the job and we earned their admiration and appreciation for really doing the work and trying so hard to do the work right.
We completed construction tasks like moving rocks (boulders), placing cinder blocks (more than 1000), making mortar and making concrete, placing mortar on the blocks, leveling the blocks, pouring cement in the blocks, using rebar (cutting, tying), stuccoing walls, framing stairs, framing a chasm for rain
Mixing concrete with water, cement, rocks and sand. Digging the trenches, building walls – making a difference.
water, digging trenches, sifting sand, shoveling dirt, rocks, sand, using pick axes, trawls, hammers, nails, a rebar cutter, we literally helped to build a school by hand! Our group bonded in a close, strong, and reflective manner.
We did not organize as superintendents, or principals, or teachers, or photographers, we organized as people. We did not distinguish tasks based on gender, age or station in life. Our group ranged in age from 29- late 60’s. We were a united team who developed a care and concern for one another that seems unusual in today’s “dog eat dog” world.
Day by day the people with whom we interacted became warmer, friendlier, more interested in us and our presence, caring, loving, and engaged. Daily we took at least two half hour “recess” breaks to walk up the road, across the river to a field. This field, on privately owned pasture land, was used as our play field. We were allowed to play with the children, teens, and young adults during our time. Each day more and more townspeople joined us as we played catch, soccer, baseball, cards, or just hung out learning about one another as people.
On the recess play field – the Force is strong with Junior!
Day by day they saw our sweat equity and our truly hard work on their behalf. Day by day the power of hope and diplomacy and mission and work became more evident. We came here to support the visionary dream of Pastor Angel and other community leaders to change the lives and future of the people who live in the forgotten outskirts of Constanza. We changed and grew as people each day and we reflected as people, team members and also we reflected on how this work and these experiences can and will be applied to our “day jobs”.
In our school district we take pride in the words and actions ENGAGE, INSPIRE, EMPOWER. We aim to do this each and every day with and for each and every student, staff member, and the community! Since July 2013 our Big 5 have been driving our actions and initiatives:
education and the value of our innovative public education in terms of meaning and relevance.
In this blog post I am highlighting the great work of the teachers, students, parents, support staff members, administrators, community members and the Board of Education of the Deerfield Public Schools District 109. Our leadership team has been following the research of Kouzes & Posner. In their book 
what leadership can do. Two great books on school and district leadership are: School Leadership that works and District Leadership that works. One of the main charges that I have as the superintendent of schools is to support leadership so that leaders emerge in all parts of the organization to Engage, Inspire, and Empower. While I am visible in the schools, and while the classroom is the most important “place” in the school district, I also work very closely with the administrative team in an effort to support their work and their leadership.
