Stop Wasting Your Time on School Improvement Plans That Don’t Work. Try This Instead
Too often, the required actions leaders must accomplish from year to year become acts of compliance rather than opportunities to learn. When this happens, leaders often feel more reactive than proactive and feel as though they can never engage in the instructional-leadership practices they read so much about.
The examples above are just a few of those actions that are sometimes viewed as tasks to get over with instead of tasks that we can learn from in our profession. In these times of increased workloads, teacher shortages, staff burnout, and high levels of anxiety on the part of teachers, staff, and leaders, we need to refocus our efforts on those areas that can bring us the most value and perhaps improve our mindsets around those actions we have always taken but didn’t get much bang for our buck.
A few weeks ago, I was facilitating days 3 and 4 of a six-day instructional-leadership professional learning series with teams across Arkansas. The focus of the learning is developing collective leader efficacy (which you can learn more about in this video). It occurs when leadership teams develop a shared conviction that they can have an impact on student learning and achievement. Basically, collective leader efficacy is a “researchy” way of understanding how teams come together from a social-emotional and academic perspective.
One of the most useful actions that teams can take when they are working together is to create a theory of action. Theories of action help teams understand what problem they are trying to solve and will help those teams develop a common language and common understanding around that problem. It provides them with a space to engage in conversations about how teachers in the school are doing the work already and creates an opportunity to talk about how they can go deeper with practices to help them solve their problem. Additionally, theories of action help the instructional-leadership team stay focused, so they can be empowered and feel proactive as opposed to feeling reactive.
I recently developed a theory of action for work I’m involved in as a lead advisory for the state of Washington with directors of teaching and learning and am providing it as an example here. If we want leaders and teachers in our district to possess the necessary understanding, knowledge, and skills to impact student learning, then we as directors of teaching and learning need to focus on what necessary understanding, knowledge, and skills are needed to do that work.
Engage teachers in the discussion about this focus before, during, and after instead of just creating workshops for them where they have little background knowledge.
As you can see, developing a theory of action includes understanding our assumptions and choosing a few high-impact strategies we can take to put our theory of action into … well, action. Not to get into the weeds in this blog, but theories of action should also include success criteria, meaning what will success look like if we effectively complete our theory of action?
From there, we create a program logic model to outline how we will implement the work. This brings us back to our school improvement plans. School improvement plans should focus on helping teams focus on the problem they are trying to solve and be seen as a workable document that is useful to help schools improve or go deeper with their learning as an organization.
Unfortunately, in many educational circles, the mention of school improvement plans sucks the oxygen out of the room and makes the eyes of educators gloss over to the extent that they begin daydreaming about a day when school improvement plans will prove to be useful, because, in too many cases, they are acts of compliance. This is not new information, because many researchers who have come before me have talked about this. Sadly, though, it is still an issue with many leaders.
Why do we do that? Why do we spend countless hours creating a document that we really do not plan on using in practical ways because we only created it to check a box of compliance for our districts or state education department. We can accuse the district or state for requiring such complicated and unuseful documents, but in many cases, they are not to blame. We all have a tendency to create a document using big educational words when, in reality, we should be creating documents we can actually use and those teachers and staff around us understand.
It’s a missed opportunity and one that we desperately need to change. The stress and workload of leaders and teachers has increased tremendously over the past decade, and we need to identify those actions we take that our impactful and replace those actions that do not have an impact at all. One such action that needs to be replaced is that of putting together a school improvement plan that we cannot, or choose not, to use.
I recently began discussions about de-implementation and published a book on the topic in the late spring. De-implementation is the abandonment of low-value practices, which you can learn more about here. There are two ways of looking at de-implementation, which is through a partial reduction or a replacement action. In this blog, I focus on partial reductions, but I believe the discussion about school improvement plans should be a focus for the replacement action.
When working on a school improvement plan, or what some schools may refer to as an academic plan, it’s important for its creators to make sure that it is useful. How do we do that? We do that by:
Think of all the time that goes into creating a school improvement plan. Just imagine if that time spent on creating the plan actually proved to be useful in our meetings, planning, and day-to-day walk-throughs and conversations with teachers.
Inserted below is an example of a program logic model I created for our work in Washington. I provide it as an example, because when we can include conversations about our school improvement plans, we will more likely see an increase in their effectiveness in our school improvement process.
Some of this seems complicated, right? Problems of practice, theories of action, assumptions, success criteria, and program logic models all seem like a lot of work. However, what is more work is when leaders create a document in isolation that they never intend to use and never engage in conversations with teacher leaders about areas of focus they could work on together.
Areas of focus and problems of practice are not just about gaps and where schools are not doing a “good job.” Problems of practice are also about areas where teachers and leaders want to have a deeper impact on student learning.
School improvement plans can be a resource that helps teachers and leaders see the interconnectedness between faculty meetings, PLC meetings, instructional-leadership team discussions, and faculty meetings. We no longer have the time to spend on worthless activities that bring no value and perhaps we can start with how we approach our school improvement plans.
The World Seems Complicated. Perhaps It’s Time to Be More Human
Sean Slade is the co-head of education for BTS Spark North America, helping develop the next generation of education leaders. Alyssa Gallagher is the co-author of Design Thinking for School Leaders (ASCD, 2018) and Design Thinking in Play (ASCD, 2020). She is the co-head of education for BTS Spark North America, helping develop the next generation of education leaders. Connect with BTSparkUSA on Twitter.
Education is a human endeavor. It is a sector and a function that relies and thrives on relationships and the connections between people. We’ve known this for a while with our students, emphasizing the bonds that are created between peers and also between a teacher and their class. We seek positive school climates and develop functions for students to grow and work together across the school—from homerooms, to clubs, to peer learning. We also know it instinctively in our gut. Learning takes place most often when our classes feel safe, connected, and understood. We teach most effectively when we know our students, not just who they are but how they learn, collaborate, and respond.
The same applies—and it’s obvious when we state it—for our teachers and principals. Staff work best when they have colleagues they can connect, share, empathize with, and learn from. And the same applies for our school and district leaders.
But for some reason, we have resisted the urge—or need—to help our school and district leaders develop these relationships. We have maintained the old adage that we must separate our personal side from our professional side. We have ignored, or avoided, the need for our educators and especially our school leaders to show their human side.
Recently, we worked virtually with a group of superintendents and assistant superintendents across the U.S. on using empathy to improve communication strategies and better engage with others, especially in challenging or difficult situations. Judging by reactions, it wasn’t their typical professional learning situation. It was less task-oriented and more human-focused. In our 60 minutes together, we shared strategies and provided opportunities for reflection and breakouts for partner conversations. At the close of our time together, we invited these leaders to share a closing thought, takeaway, or feeling. Several leaders chimed in with gratitude, others shared a new strategy; however, the response that resonated with all was from a superintendent who boldly shared, “Thank you, this was the first time I exhaled all week.” This meeting took place on a Thursday afternoon. Shocking? Or is this becoming the norm for school and district leaders who are constantly putting out fires and working on a neverending to-do list.
The human side of school leadership can be overlooked, yet it is critically important because it underpins the culture of a single school or an entire school system. Get it wrong, and the impact can be far reaching. Get it right, and everyone benefits. From what we are hearing from school leaders, it doesn’t sound like we are getting it right. Here is just a small sampling of reflections from leaders:
“I feel like I have to be everything for everyone and eventually when I can’t do it all, I feel like I fail someone. I also take on things I shouldn’t because I feel like doing so will preserve relationships which I value.”
School and district leaders may tend to overlook their own leadership development, opting to divert budgets to their teams instead. If they do invest in personal coaching support, experience tells us that it will predominantly be geared toward supporting them in the day-to-day running of their school—and is often delivered by other school leaders, typically retired principals/head teachers rather than professional coaches. At BTS Spark, we have coached over 16,000 school leaders and, as a result, have a strong point of view and insights as to what supports leaders are asking for to help them lead more effectively.
Every time we engage with a leader, our coaches work with them to establish a shift they want to make in their leadership. In analyzing data from these anonymized coaching conversations, we are able to uncover the shifts and areas of supports leaders really need. This isn’t data coming from districts or state mandate; this is data coming directly from school leaders. It’s personal and deeply human.
While all feedback is insightful, there is a key theme emerging from leaders at all levels within education. It’s the need to slow down, pausing to take a breath, and reflect on how better to accomplish the work to be done, perhaps by delegating some work or, better yet, empowering others to solve problems.
Over the past few years, our leaders have increasingly taken on more and more responsibility, for more people, and for more concerns and issues. When pandemic-related decisions had to be made, it often fell to school leaders to make them. When learning and accessibility concerns were raised, it was school leaders determining the solutions. At each step or month over the past two years, an increasing number of issues have fallen onto the shoulders of principals. And to cope—or try to cope and keep the school functioning—they have avoided asking others and avoided displaying any uncertainty. Such an approach can be admirable for the short term but ultimately flawed, self-destructive, and unsustainable.
As we found via our MESSY Leadership research, the human side of leadership was often the key missing piece to effective teams and successful schools during the pandemic. Those who showed their human side, their concerns, and vulnerabilities thrived along with their school teams during the past two years. By doing so, they allowed others to step in and grow. They developed stronger and more capable teams by distributing the leadership roles and actions. When they focused on their human side, they and their schools flourished. Our human side—our personalities, our likes/dislikes, successes/failures, strengths/concerns—is what makes us US and should not be dissected from our professional selves.
During November in the U.S., people’s thoughts and attentions move toward festivities and connections. The Thanksgiving holiday, besides being a time to give thanks, is also a time to reconnect with family, friends, and neighbors. It’s a much-loved holiday not because of any gifts that are given (there are none) but because of the personal connections that are renewed, reinforced, and even started. It’s a time when we celebrate our human-ness and our relationships.
