organizational culture

Culture is Everything – Relationships are Everything – #Engage109

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“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

Professionalism in DPS109! A new Teacher’s Contract!

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“It’s not about being the best. It’s about being better than you were yesterday.”
– Unknown

We are proud to announce the approval of the Collective Bargaining Agreement between Board of Education, Deerfield Public School District 109 and the Deerfield Education Association (IEA/NEA), through 2018-19!

Both the DEA and the Board of Education voted to ratify and approve the contract which takes effect August 24, 2015 and runs through August, 2019. The negotiation process was smooth and respectful – it was the earliest settlement with the fewest number of meetings. As a result of the contract, there willleadimage be a change in schedule to include early release days every Wednesday starting in the 2016-2017 school year.

The dismissal times will be one hour earlier (2:00pm for middle schools and 2:25pm for the elementary schools). To ensure student learning time is not impacted, there will be an additional instruction end, there will no longer be monthly grade level and building faculty meetings. Therefore, there will be more time for consistent and collaborative professional development and learning for staff, with no loss of teaching and learning time.

The District will coordinate with the PTOs and the Deerfield Park District to ensure there are programs that integrate with the new schedule. Please see the slide deck below for more information. With 20150311-111453.jpgquestions or concerns please visit and use LET’S TALK! – the District 109 24/7 communication tool.

We “are 1:1” – now what? Transformation – data, information, growth!

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“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. ”
– Albert Einstein

On September 3, 2014, in this blog, I shared a post about measuring success. In our District, we are “living” becoming and being a data-informed and data-driven learning environment. One of the major initiatives in which we are involved is the 1:1 Transformative “roll out” in all classrooms with all students in the District. Started over a decade ago, the District has looked to technology accelerators to engage students and teachers with respect to innovative growth and change. Last year we engaged in an Innovative Grant (Innovation Grant Program) which yielded 40 1:1 classrooms for half of the year. Through those experiences the District authorized a full 1:1 roll out for this school year!

Picture1

From the September 3 blog post:
“…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!!”

Today, March 15, 2015 – we sent survey links to all parents, all faculty, staff, administrators, and all students in grades 4-8 throughout the school district. We are measuring impacts, growth, success, areas in need of improvement and attention and overall data gathering to see how we are engaging all students and how we need to address enhanced engagement of all students in the context of pedagogy (instruction/teaching), skill development, personalizing learning for children as well as meeting the needs of all learners. The initial benchmark data can be found by clicking HERE.

Our data collection is part of overall “ROI” “return on investment”. Our overall aims to engage, inspire, empower all students and staff and community permeate all aspects and elements of the District leadership and planning. The 1:1 roll out is just beginning – it’s here to stay – and we leaders are roiworking to refine areas in need of improvement and enhance areas of success and increase staff learning and growth and mindset change/shifts on behalf of student needs and student growth and learning!

This year we enhanced the curricular resources with multiple digital subscriptions, core resources, supplements, teaching and learning aids, assessment tools, and of course devices and professional learning. Our aim is to “rock the boat” a bit by implementing a bit of “chaos” and “dissonance” into the system so that growth and change may take place. During a change process there are some discomfort situations and some periods of confusion. It is our aim through professional learning and development that we can bring forth greater comfort and clarity.

It’s no accident that the BrightBytes research partner calls it’s data portal “Clarity”. The overall purpose of our data collection is to gain greater clarity so that we may support leadership, change, education and growth. An example of a data point from the vast analysis is shown below:

chart

This is but one of MANY data points, comparisons, insights, and analytics we can learn from via the survey data. This survey administration will give us comparables to the September benchmark or baseline data and we will continue to have the opportunity to compare our own stakeholder input with that of the entire Bright Bytes population (tens of thousands of schools across the USA and Canada). Suffice it to say that we are listening, we are learning and through informed guidance and analytics we are leading!

Farewell 2014, Welcome 2015, Superintendent Leadership!

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“Do what you can, where you are, with what you have. “
– Theodore Roosevelt

As 2015 dawns upon us and while we recharge and rest up on break and gear up for an amazing new year and the rest of our school year 2014-2015, I am continuing my personal professional reflections about leadership, the role of a public school superintendent, and impacting change for the better.

The aim of this blog overall is service through communication to the world. My “stage” has been and continues to be public education, but leadership is leadership, I hope that these words and messages help and inspire leaders in all facets of life! Over time I am reminded that the keys to success are many, and they include: supporting a healthy organizational culture and continuous building of the culture, increasing student and staff achievement, and systems level growth and development as a public school superintendent.

I have found through reading, discovery, observation and communication that typically, superintendents lead so that others in the organization may benefit. I posit that through and from connectivity greater generative synergy produces results at the highest levels of quality on behalf of adult and child learning. Connectivity takes many forms, from the traditional to the digital. In my experiences as school superintendent (5 years and counting) and district/school leader (17 years) and as a classroom teacher (5 years) and as a higher education adjunct instructor (10 years), children learn more and adults work harder when they see/feel/hear the value of a healthy organizational culture for all aspects of the school system. It is also needed, in my professional opinion, to support “from the top” leadership and culture creation especially in today’s era of immediate connectivity as well as long lasting digital footprints.

As I have written about many times, for many years, I have been fortunate to have mentors and guides who have helped my career and my professional learning. Over time I have disciplined myself to read the journals, blogs, websites, and attend conferences of key/related professional associations. During the past five years in the superintendency, I am indebted to the great resources and help of the IASA, Illinois Association of School Administrators, and the AASA, the American Association of School Administrators (to name two great connected organizations). In addition, I have learned more than I anticipated from the Twitter PLN I am lucky to interact with! My leadership advice today is: join organizations and make the time to read and reach out and network.

As we bring closure to 2014 I say THANK YOU to so many for so much! My “message” for 2015 is found in Teddy Roosevelt’s quote at the start of this post:

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!!