Empowering Individuals for the Future of Public Education

Public education is under fire nationally. This is not news, as the last 40 years can attest. We have responded to “A Nation at Risk” and Title IX, embraced the challenge of Special Education and Bilingual education, integrated the Charter School movement, the Standards movement, and unevenly mandated test-taking requirements, to name the most significant tsunamis. The result, in the political climate of 2017, is a politicized, disheartened, and largely dis-empowered public institution.

It’s time to reclaim public education as our most vital national resource. Taking it back requires a proactive stance and the re-empowerment of educators at all levels. Like me, I hope you hold fast to the belief that public education’s mission – to educate ALL – is critical to our nation’s success as a democracy. Given your new role, a lot is possible, especially if you have the luxury of a “honeymoon.” I invite you to look beyond 2017 and deep into the 21st Century – both to imagine, and then create, a different future for the schools you are leading. If you have the will, the courage, and the perseverance for this work, this letter offers advice about empowering yourself, as well as the people around you. It explores VISION, and clarifies crucial BEHAVIORS for you to embrace or adapt.

VISION – a Reflection

The term “Visionary” is something I have been called, for better or worse. If I own it, unpack its possible meanings, and try to think critically about what I have actually done, I conclude that being visionary is like being creative. Both have a continuum, from novice to genius. But regardless of where you naturally fall on that continuum, you can advance your School District and community with practice. There is a skill set that can be learned, encouraged, coached, and reinforced – for individuals, groups, and organizations.

Modern, global corporations like Facebook have figured out the key – valuing and harnessing communal creativity and multiple perspectives around ambitious goals. True, they started from scratch to create this culture, and hire a diverse cadre of continuous learners, whereas you have inherited a culture that is more hierarchical, more homogeneous, and more risk averse. But don’t be discouraged. Even though you don’t begin with a critical mass of skilled and forward thinking staff, you will find at least a small group whose rich ideas and solutions are there, waiting for your invitation to come out in the open, even if they have been dormant or discouraged previously. As the new leader, your challenge is to find and engage these people at all organizational levels to create a vision and use it to set bold, multi- year goals that matter. This is the work you must undertake in Year 1 of your superintendency, in hopes of being ready to set these big goals for Year 2 or Year 3 at the latest.

Before I can get into the strategy and skill set, I need to discuss mindset. For me, this comes first. A short story about my own professional development might help.

My training as a “Visionary” began with an important “What if” assignment that I first encountered as a graduate student. What if…I could invent the perfect school? What would it be like? I struggled with the exercise of stepping outside the mindset of schools like I knew them, and pushed myself to imagine and try to flesh out a very different model. This was particularly challenging for me, because I had been an excellent student – most people who go into education are. Think about that. The traditional version of school had worked for me. And yet, as I was about to enter this noble profession, the world of school that I saw after Jonathan Kozol’s shocking book, Death at an Early Age, revealed a lot of students who were failing. How might my ideal school work for everyone, regardless of privilege, race, socioeconomics, culture and language differences? I was preparing for urban education, and the answers mattered. This was such an important assignment for me that I kept it and referred to it occasionally over the next forty years. In some respects, the rest of my career has been about trying to reach, refine and extend this vision for a future world and the citizens that I would like to see inhabit it.

My vision began simply, with the wisdom of Bloody Mary from the musical South Pacific:

               You’ve got to have a dream. If you don’t have a dream, how you gonna make a dream come                true?

 As a teacher, I became a dreamer. I carried the spirit of this exercise with me. I created a classroom experience and culture based on a “what if” world – a place that didn’t exist except in my classroom, where people treated one another with respect, where there winners were not defined in counterpoint to losers, where work was valued, where teamwork was taught and its products and relationships praised, where there were enough skills and talents to touch every child in a way that the group could celebrate, where children and teacher learned from each other, and where there was joy in the enterprise. For fun, I asked “what if” these same kids, coming from very poor and often single parent homes, had the chance to perform in a musical, and I decided to find out – not with stipends, but with the help of all my family, friends and a community that appreciated the opportunity.

My “what if” world did not come easily. I was a Boston public school teacher, prior to desegregation. My students came from tough circumstances and years of disjointed education before they reached my 5^th grade classroom. And even though each year of experience helped me approximate my dream with more certainty and skill, it still took me from September until March to create my imagined culture as natural and trustworthy for my students. When I did the math, that was pretty discouraging – we actually operated in this utopian society for about four months before I lost them to summer and the reality of puberty and the real world. Each year I began again, like Sisyphus endlessly rolling the same stone up the hill, until finally I decided that I needed to get an administrative credential. My vision at that point was to create a “what if” culture that would infuse a whole school and offer a consistent learning environment for the time that a child spent in that school.

Somewhere along the line, I met Nietzsche, whose quote, An artist learns to dance in chains, would become my signature quote. It perfectly captures the reality of dealing with stodgy bureaucracies and promoting “what if” visions.

 I liked viewing myself as a teacher who could also be an artist. But there was a problem. I was an artist who was dancing alone. Even though I had moved into administration and set small “what if” breakthroughs in motion, particularly in writing and technology (when it was really new as a tool for instruction and communication), many of my big ideas were dead on arrival – they were too much, too soon. I had to find a community of artists and dreamers.

 The public schools of Brookline, Massachusetts provided such a community. I learned to find and celebrate small visions – sometimes mine and more often those of gifted teachers who were doing their own dreaming and experimentation. Here was a whole group of people who were leading the adult learning without leader titles. These colleagues invited me to join them in seeing and supporting their “what-if” classrooms, and because of my instructional leadership role, I could link like-spirited people and spread the breakthroughs across schools. Positioned in the middle of the dreaming, I became a vision broker. Gradually, visions begat visions. There was momentum and excitement for change among professionals working hard to create something more and better for children. It is in this context that I learned how to walk in the company of visionaries, and to cultivate visionaries as colleagues.

My role as leader became clear – I was to lead people on fire, to see further because of their visions, to articulate those visions, and to clear the path of chains that impeded these artists and leaders. In the process, I also disciplined myself to look ahead, to look around the bend, and to continue my own habit of imagining “what if.” Think of it as exercising a muscle to strengthen it. This “what if” theme will repeat itself in other letters, because it is so fundamental to my leadership practice. Over time, I found myself comfortably co-existing in two worlds – the world of the present, and another world that is several years down the road. Here’s how I would characterize that dual existence. I inhabit the present both to enable it, but also to mine it for opportunities or germs of ideas that I might nourish now to harvest later in a future that I am imagining as possible. I have a foot planted in each time.

Having been steeped in this culture, both by the good fortune of being in the culture of the Brookline Schools in the 1980s, and my own self-development, the challenge became how to translate a visionary culture to a place that was not on fire, or worse, had a low self-esteem for its ability to change anything. Now I am ready to talk about how you can approach the task strategically and systemically.

LEADERSHIP BEHAVIORS

Rhetoric is not enough. If you want to empower people, you have to walk the talk – over and over, year after year. There’s real work to be done – work that you can’t delegate. These ten strategies outline the work that empowers and elevates you – from professional to artist, from administrator to leader.

STRATEGY #1: Find the Artists who are Leading the Learning

A very fine Brookline art teacher and successful sculptor once helped me understand what separated the artist from the craftsman. He explained that the craftsman masters the tools and techniques to execute a flawless product. The artist does the same, but then takes a flying leap into the unknown to create something new with the medium or the technique.

Teacher artists and administrative artists are present in all school districts. These are the people who are doing cutting-edge work – taking the flying leap. They are teaching and reaching students, but also taking some risks in their pedagogy and expectations for and among students. However, depending on the culture, they may be stuffed away in corners or hiding in their classroom “closets,” keeping a low profile. In Brookline, they were mostly “out,” but in other school districts, I have had to ferret them out and coax them out of hiding, because they were not comfortable sharing their innovative practice with peers or supervisors, for fear that they would be laughed at or criticized.

How do you identify these people and help them be brave? You can begin by asking your principals who the interesting educators are, and why they think so. The prompt matters here. It may not be as helpful, for instance, to inquire about the most successful educators. This is as much about figuring out your subordinates’ priorities as it is about finding the artists.

Then you have to get out of your office and get your own evidence. Hopefully you are meeting regularly with your Union President, and explaining the purpose of your visits – simply getting to know people and seeing first-hand what is happening in classrooms. If your pathway to the superintendency has been instruction or curriculum, you will know how to visit a classroom. If this has NOT been your pathway, you might want to these visits with a principal or curriculum person who can help you notice and engage. Similarly, if your area is secondary, you may need guidance in your first visits to elementary classrooms. Start with your areas of strength, and ask for help as needed.

Early in your tenure, it will be most welcome for you to be seen as a “Walk-about” Superintendent. You can do this casually, visiting all the Social Studies classes one day, all the Grade 3 classes on another day, etc., or you can do it more formally as a series of “Walk-throughs” with your principals or administrative staff. Refrain from taking notes as you observe. This will make people suspicious. In both cases, you need to plan time to observe for 15-20 minutes (minimum), and then spend 1-2 minutes debriefing with the teacher – noting something you observed, asking about something the teacher said or the students did, and otherwise giving the teacher the opportunity to give you more context for the work at hand, or the process being used. If the teacher can’t step out of the room, it’s fine to write a note and put it in the teacher’s box (the same day), send an email (inviting a response), catch the teacher at lunch, or even include the students. Young children will be very happy to participate in this debrief, and will tell you a LOT about what is going on in the classroom in answer to your questions.

Part of what you want to know is what motivates and really excites each teacher. Perhaps you will catch him or her at a time when the work is pretty mundane. Ask when the teacher or class might like you to return to see them doing (their choice), and ask the teacher to let you know when that might be happening. Get an invitation back, and follow up by showing up and participating. If you can carve out classroom time on a weekly basis in your busy calendar, you will find your artists and dreamers. Be patient while they check you out and try to decide if they can risk coming out of their closet.

STRATEGY #2: Cultivate a Community of Artists and Dreamers

Interestingly, the artists and dreamers may or may not recognize each other. As professionals, these people are confined to their classroom space, and do not have the luxury of visiting other classrooms and observing their colleagues – especially if the colleagues they need to meet are not in the same department, or teaching at the same grade level. After school faculty meetings and occasional professional development days are simply not adequate for artist networking.

Here’s how you can help. After you’ve spent deliberate time getting to know and observe your staff in action, and with the assistance of your administrative team, who may also have some insights about like-minded practitioners, you and your team can begin to put people together. It might be as easy as strategically arranging a substitute teacher to cover someone’s class for part of the day while a teacher observes a colleague doing something that they are trying to do – in the same school or a school across town. It may be paying two subs to free up both teachers simultaneously to plan something, or providing some summer work time for two or three like-minded artists. It may be sending like-minded or like-spirited people to a workshop together, so they come back as a cabal, able to support one another in furthering the cutting-edge practice while they refine it, with a view to introduce it to others at a later point. In short, you need to invest in the artists and dreamers, let them know you are supporting their experimentation, and give them the support and encouragement of colleagues in the midst of the same “birthing” process. This can come in the form of “Critical Friends” groups, the creation of an electronic group via an on-line list serve with a facilitator, or whatever feels friendly to the participants. You unleash them to move an idea forward, feed their intellects and spirits, and check in periodically to see where they are and what they need. Then, at the right moment, you ask this question: “What would it take to move this idea forward to a larger group?”

STRATEGY #3: Create Dissatisfaction

While you are nurturing your artists and dreamers, you can begin the larger task of priming the community (school and external community) for some movement and change. Nothing motivates people to adopt a “what if” attitude like hunger and dissatisfaction. By hunger, I mean a longing that the schools were better. Sometimes the hunger is a dull gnawing. People know they are unhappy, but they don’t know why, or what to do about it. And most significantly, no one has engaged them in a “what if” exercise. As the new leader, you can take a lot of risks in the name of addressing hunger. My successful superintendencies (to be honest, I can claim two out of three) were in places that were “hungry” for change. My job as “Visionary” was to broker the process – first defining, then getting people moving toward a new vision.

In year 1, the Superintendent has the best opportunity to help a community notice what isn’t working. After this, it’s your fault, so you want to get ahead of the complaint by naming the problem yourself. Part of your tool kit should include facility with the Dissatisfaction Formula, a set of relationships devised by Richard Beckhardt and first expressed as additive, but later adapted by Kathleen Dannemiller to a multiplicative function, where a zero in any area means game over. Here’s the formula:

Dissatisfaction x Vision x Next Steps > Resistance

Raising dissatisfaction is an important role for the Superintendent. Here’s a simple example of how to use the formula strategically, in the context of being a new Superintendent:

1. Solicit feedback from teachers and the community, all of whom will want to tell you what is wrong with the schools. For balance, set ground rules in advance – no complaints against specific teachers (not the time or place) and ask them to begin by telling you what they like/appreciate/ are proud of in their schools. You might pose the same questions to diverse groups in official “Getting Acquainted” sessions that might be part of your entry plan. By capturing responses to questions such as these: “What are you most proud of in our schools?” “What is the most urgent issue for me to address in my first year as Superintendent?” “What one thing would you like to see changed about the schools?” you will get an earful of pluses and minuses that you can then organize in a way that offers praise but also raises collective and useful dissatisfaction that you can harvest.
2. Preview the results of your input sessions with your leadership team. Determine ways to organize the concerns into potential goal categories that reinforce work already in motion, where possible. Assess whether there is a consensus on the issues (Vision), whether it is practical to address them (Next Steps), and where resistance might occur.

3. Based on the team discussion and emerging strategy developed in advance, present the results of your input sessions publicly. Add your own weight to the concerns, highlighting the areas that really matter most to you and your team, as well as ways to categorize and address the issues. Because you are reflecting, rather than identifying the concerns (which you may share, by the way, but do not need to lead with your opinion at this stage), you do not own them. Addressing these concerns, therefore, becomes the community’s agenda, embraced by the School Committee – and by you and your team. In this way, the criticism of the schools remains separate from you, a nuance that may be important, especially for women in the leadership role.

4. Offer to confer with your Team again to define some specific work that will address the concerns, and take it back to them for fleshing out, with the promise that this work will be reflected in a goal for the year (or for the next year).

The above scenario gives you a simple example of using the Dissatisfaction Formula. Strategically, it is a useful exercise in showing the community how, when you have a common Vision, you can create a process (Next Steps) that deals positively with dissatisfaction. Yes, you may have to overcome Resistance, in the form of tradition, teachers’ unions, inertia, and people who feel threatened by change, but the momentum of D x V x NS can be pretty compelling, and can be staged to bring the resistors into the fold over time.

But what if your Committee’s and community’s Vision for its schools is all over the place? In short, there is no vision. Just how important is it? Check out the next strategy.

STRATEGY #4. Bone Up on How Organizations Change.

Here’s the crash course. In the 1980s, Terry Deal and Lee Bolman created a contingency theory on how change happens in organizations. They envisioned an equilateral triangle, with three stable dimensions: Structure, Process, and Symbol. Their research showed that most organizations attempting to change try to modify structure or process, with the result that there is a temporary mess of confusion, after which the organization settles into basically the same old same old. When no one knows WHY they are being asked to report to different bosses or interact with different people in different ways, (or why the schedule has changed from a rotating schedule to a stationary schedule), their resistance is high. Nothing of substance changes. Bolman and Deal argued that the only effective place to initiate lasting change happens when symbol is the starting point. This is the Vision piece. When some dissatisfaction causes people to question, reassess, and change the Vision, and people get on board with that change, then it becomes reasonable for the structures and processes to follow suit, in order to support a new Vision. Simply stated, this is how change occurs.

Except that it isn’t so simple. In my dissertation, I argued that an organization’s culture needs to be engaged around a new vision. This is particularly true in flat organizations like schools, where, increasingly, the hierarchy is very closely associated with the majority of employees, the teachers. You need to nurture a critical mass of people toward a new dream, until they believe it in their minds and hearts, and start articulating the vision and demonstrating it in practice for themselves and others who are new to the organization. The momentum of this critical mass of “visionaries” is what pushes the organization to a new threshold.

STRATEGY # 5: Develop a Mission Statement

In many organizations, Vision and Mission Statements have become confused with each other and have fallen out of favor a little, because a lot of time and resources are expended and the result is that the statement gets put up on a wall and ignored. I urge you not to be cynical about the importance of this work. I have found it invaluable. Let me illustrate the power of a good Mission Statement.

My first superintendency was a hungry place that wanted more. Happily, they decided to pay for a comprehensive soul-searching process called a “Future Search Conference” that featured a facilitator/consultant and about thirty people representing all constituencies of the town and schools. After more than twelve hopeful months of visioning schools of the future, we came up with a “fits on a coffee cup” statement about what we wanted to work toward. It was this:

       A community and school partnership that:

1. Creates excited learners
2. Demands excellence
3. Fosters integrity.

 Like the French revolution with its three slogans (liberte, egalite, fraternite), this was a statement people could remember. As Superintendent, I had listened carefully and identified the dreamers who had imagined very different school:community partnerships, and very different definitions of the teaching/learning process. This simple statement gave me enough fodder to challenge the status quo on all fronts. Putting this mission at the center of all subsequent work, and using it as a mirror, I had the license to engage people in some important and innovative work toward a future vision that was not nailed down, but which would emerge as we gained momentum and learned what worked. And most importantly, I knew the artists who would join me in that work. I am pleased to note that, even after I left that town, the next Superintendent, who worried that he was not a “Visionary,” was able to keep things moving by always putting the Mission Statement in the center of any goal or decision work.

Without the desire for new vision work (We already did that, and we’re not going there again), you need to begin with what you’ve got. In one of my school districts, the parents and School Committee wanted children to be “happy.” When I asked people what that meant, the responses were all over the place. My own observation was that teachers and students were comfortable. Too comfortable. Behind closed doors, my administrative team agreed with this assessment. Our schools were enabling a social dynamic (an all-white, mostly middle to upper middle class Christian community) and a learning dynamic (I show up and do my homework, so don’t ask me to work very hard and give me an A) that was out of sync with the world our students were entering. They were (happily) going on to mediocre colleges that reflected the same sort of values. Interestingly, it was this last piece of data that made the School Committee wonder if we shouldn’t be doing something different….

The opportunity for me and the Leadership Team was to shape the definition of “happy,” and raise the bar for both students and teachers in the process. We set aside time to explore our own best thinking about “happiness,” and what constituted a happy person. Our discussion was rich, animated, and challenging, and yielded three habits of mind: courage, resilience, and compassion. Holding up these three traits, we looked critically at both our school culture and current practices, and had to confront some serious dissatisfaction – something we did privately. After all, we were leading this enterprise. It was a little embarrassing to see what a disservice the school district was doing to its students. But rather than broadcast that we were falling short in all three areas, we decided to take it on. The team was motivated to work differently. Internally, we agreed to shape goals that gave both adults and students new experiences of what “happiness” might mean. To build courageous, resilient, and compassionate students, we had to see that the adults modeled these habits, starting with ourselves. We set about to change behavior.

 STRATEGY # 6: Set Multi-Year Goals that Reflect the Vision of an Empowered Staff..

Armed with a decent Mission Statement, building on your increasing familiarity with the culture, and backed by the enthusiasm of a motivated Leadership Team, you are now ready to create goals that matter. Think in terms of where you want your schools to be in five years. Here’s where you position yourself proactively, strategically, and systemically. For me, this has always been a Year 2 or Year 3 opportunity, depending on the circumstances and the culture. The bottom line is that it can’t be rushed.

It’s useful to use the above circumstance (trying to reinvent “happy”) as an example of how to construct a useful 5-year skeleton. Here are some guidelines to consider:

1. Use the obvious categories as your framework.

School departments have common concerns that need addressing in some way. I would define five comprehensive and systemic areas in the establishment of 5-year goals, as follows:

1. Programs (Curriculum and Instruction)
2. Human resources
3. Technology
4. Facilities
5. Budget

You will note that I am not naming Student Achievement or Student Performance as a separate goal. This is deliberate. So is the above order. This organization is about education rather than politics. Meat and potatoes rather than fads. Program, or Curriculum and Instruction (C&I) addresses what is important for students to learn, and how it will be accomplished. Certainly you may have concerns about test results, but I urge you to address those concerns under C&I, and not give Testing its own category (suggesting it is equal to other large areas). Human Resources (HR) is the next most important area. As a goal, HR is in service to C&I. You staff now with the future in mind, to maximize what you are trying to teach, how you are trying to do it, and where you want it to evolve. Technology and Facilities must support the structures and processes for delivering teaching and learning, and, finally, budget is the fuel that runs the system.

2. Imagine what things might look like 5 years out.

As Superintendent, the vision moment is at hand. Get help from your Team – empower them to join in this work. You need to interest and excite the School Committee about where you and the Team see each area in 5 years. It needs to be a believable dream.

For me, in the “happy” school district, it was as simple and tangible as promising that students would be prepared for and would gain acceptance at more competitive colleges. With a brief overview that tapped into School Committee dissatisfaction and created a sense of hope (that we could make this happen), we were able to make a straightforward presentation of our first steps – the goals for Year 1.

3. Design and Present Year 1 Goals that Will Show Concrete Movement.

Think in terms of evolution rather than revolution – small changes with big potential impact. For us, the initial focus was Grades 7 – 12, training adults – empowering them first, and then their students, to step up to more challenging work for the 21st Century, with technology tools to match. We targeted our higher achieving students, beefed up expectations for our AP courses, and introduced intellectually challenging extracurricular activities like Mock Trial and Model UN. We had identified promising teachers (artists) to launch these initiatives, and felt confident that students would respond. At all levels, we took advantage of retirements to bring in smart, on fire teachers and a new Director of Guidance (artists in the making), and gave them clear messages that we wanted them to challenge students and take risks. We promised to support them. School Committee saw small budget changes (teacher stipends to support the new extracurricular activities, a part-time position to develop a community internship program, and some targeted technology purchases, with indicators for a more comprehensive technology plan to follow in subsequent years. Success was easy to measure. Students jumped at the new opportunities, and the majority of AP students actually achieved passing grades on the AP tests – for the first time!

4. Synchronize Central and Building-Based Efforts to Guarantee Empowerment.

Rather than me creating a document to represent “my goals,” the Principals and Directors developed shared goals that fit the targeted areas and the direction we had envisioned together. All participated actively in both written and oral presentation of district goals to the School Committee. We had linked our success to one another, and to a shared purpose. Our unified goals became strategic, systemic, and measurable, with individual accountability noted as to who was the point person for deliverables. At all levels, people owned their goals, and were working for themselves, as well as the whole organization.

In addition to showing my Committee and the public how a good team works together, I wanted to educate them on the intelligence of our differentiation, so they could see who was assuming responsibility for an outcome, and who was in a support role. In an era where it’s easy and convenient to say “We’re top-heavy. Let’s cut the Central Office staff…” I needed the Committee and public, as well as staff, to see the vital work that support staff did – work that the principals could not do. For the first time our central and building goals were truly integrated.

STRATEGY #7: Keep the Vision on the Front Burner – at All Levels of the School Organization.

As Superintendent, your role is not to be the vision repository, but rather the vision broker. For 5 year goals to have vitality, you need to tap into the idea people, and get people ready to invent or to implement the next goal iteration. This may require formal Task Forces, informal conversations with those emerging artists, proactive strategizing with your Principals and Directors about promising staff, and regular discussions with community leaders about needs and assets. Let me unpack each of these briefly.

1. Task Forces.

Smart as you are, you need the expertise of others who are steeped in the present and future in specific arenas. Technology is a good area in which to illustrate the reality of limited vision. Innovation is coming so fast that it’s hard to keep up, let alone, anticipate what tools will be available, and how we might use them five years from now in instruction. A well-constructed Task Force consisting of educators, parents, and technology professionals can push your empowered professionals to do that future gazing with a knowledgeable and supportive team that can advise the whole span of your 5-year Technology strategy. Once they present recommendations, you and the Leadership Team need to weigh them, in terms of the Dissatisfaction formula, and then work for School Committee and community support through the goal and budget process.

2. Informal Conversations that are Strategic

In addition to the “artists,” you will also identify, with the help of your Leadership Team, the informal leaders and movers and shakers in yur organization. Sometimes these people are grade level team leaders, department heads, or teachers with gravitas, by virtue of their reputation or immense popularity with students. Sometimes an idea generated within the Leadership Team needs to bounce to one of these people in a casual exchange – in the corridor, in between classes, after school. Here’s where the individual members of the Team are so important. Perhaps you are not the right person to introduce (or receive) the idea, but one of your Principals or Directors is, because he or she has a great relationship with this person.

STRATEGY # 8: Recruit, Hire, and Empower More “Artists”

Your Human Resource work is a crucial component of your long-term vision strategy. It’s your “Supreme Court” opportunity. Most of your hires will outlast you – maybe by a quarter century. My suggestion is that you get involved directly, as follows:

1. Signal to your HR staff that you intend to promote your school district proactively – not just in ads and your website, but also with brochures and a PR campaign that targets job fairs at good local universities. Send a charismatic teacher who embodies the vision to meet and greet, along with a personable administrator who also walks the talk. Match these people to the level for which you are hiring (elementary vs. middle/senior high).
2. Meet with the top candidate before a contract is offered. Explore the candidate’s comfort with risk, explain where the district is going, share goals, and ask how the candidate can help you get there.
3. Be part of the orientation for new hires. Reiterate values, vision, and your expectation that they will make mistakes, ask for help, and continue to grow. Show them the criteria you and your staff will be using to judge their performance and fit, and explain your process of reviewing their work (see #5 and 6, below). Tell them you will be visiting their classroom/work area (and DO IT – several times). Then introduce them to their mentors.
4. Offer each new hire a mentor who is selected by the principal because he/she embodies the values you want to promote. This works respectfully as a position with training, set expectations, and a small stipend that is negotiated. The mentor’s role is to be helpful and discreet, know how to get things done, and mediate the culture – preferably a colleague who is in the same content area or a close grade level.
5. Talk with each new hire’s ultimate supervisor informally throughout the first year, but do a formal review of the person’s performance with a scheduled meeting at about the 6-month mark. Use this time to review how the new person is handling the work, understanding/fitting into the culture, embracing the values/goals/vision, and taking risks. If there is any weak area, strategize how this supervisor might work directly with the person (or with his/her immediate supervisor)to address it in the next time period. If, after Year 2, there is little improvement, cut the person loose.
6. Prior to a decision that confers permanent status, involve all supervisors and directors who have had professional interaction with the person being considered. Ask them to weigh in – not only on performance, goal work, etc., but also to consider where they see the person in 5 years, and how they envision this person making an impact on the organization. If the decision is positive, and there is consensus on this person’s future contribution, the group moves forward with excitement and a commitment to help the person grow professionally.
7. Celebrate ALL the staff who make the cut with a special lunch that includes their direct supervisor and mentor. In informing the person that he/she is being moved forward, make a poit of lettig him/her know about the thoughtfu discussion that the supervisors had, and what direction they identified for future growth. Empower this person!

STRATEGY #9: Put Your Staff Forward to Build a Vision and Reinforce the Empowerment Culture

As a “Walk about” Superintendent, my agenda was to catch people in the act of being artists. Once caught, I wrote about them in a weekly newsletter that went out to all staff and School Committee members. In the absence of a local newspaper in one community, I learned that parents were getting hold of it to get the school news, so I started to publish it on the website and send it out electronically. My mailing list included the Town’s Selectmen and Finance Committee.

In a profession that does a poor job of rewarding or acknowledging its artists, my newsletter sent forth a beacon of light that uplifted both the teachers and the profession. I learned that teachers whom I caught sent copies of my reflection highlighting their work to family and friends. My experience is that people become braver, more willing  to  empower themselves when their efforts are welcomed and noticed. People doing brilliant work in their isolated space for years start coming our of their professional closet when someone important or in authority tells others that their work has value.  Suddenly, they are able to see themselves as artists, and start taking more risks in the name of that art. Over time, a critical mass of artists is able to move the organization forward in ways no leader could imagine.

STRATEGY #10: Build a Budget that Supports Empowerment

You will likely be asked to begin building your budget for the next fiscal year midway into your first year. It’s too soon!! You are still trying to figure out who your internal leaders are, and you aren’t ready to tell the community exactly where you are going. How can you appear credible and yet fiscally responsible?

Despite the absence of a specific package/plan, it is completely reasonable, proactive, and strategic to put forward a bold request for professional development, with details to follow. If you are talking regularly with your School Board about the need for empowerment and ongoing training of staff for a very different future, they will entertain the request and wait for the details in May. Some of these details may include stipends for mentors, as discussed above, seed staffing positions, and other ideas that are already in discussion. You must signal the necessity of R&D money as a crucial aspect of a healthy organization, and line up allies to support you and assist you in making the case. If your School Committee, municipality, Finance Committee, and Town Meeting members are hearing from lots of people (other than you) about the importance of this investment, it will be hard to turn it down.

Empowerment toward a vision doesn’t happen overnight. But it does happen if the focus and will are there to stay with this work. Realistically, it’s a 6 – 10 year process.