cess, attitudes and outlooks change as both administrators and teacher leaders learn and apply new skills of leadership. Beaumont Unified School District serves
approximately 8,900 K-12 students. Demo- graphics are considered “medium” under the new Local Control Funding Formula. As such, the district will receive the supplemen- tal and concentration levels of funding to support the needs of English learners, socio- economically disadvantaged students, and foster youth. Approximately 10 percent of the students are identified with mild/mod- erate and moderate/severe disabilities and 63 percent of the students qualify for free and reduced price meals. Adult education has been a full partici-
pant in this leadership development, with its team consisting of the principal and three teacher leaders who represent GED, nursing and English learners.
Sustained professional development It was a cabinet-level decision to convene
school leadership teams with principals for sustained professional development, based on the shared vision of how leadership could continue to develop after the completion of Balanced Leadership, an eight-day profes- sional development series from Mid-Conti- nent Research for Education and Learning, by the entire administrative team – princi- pals, APs, cabinet and directors. Principals had begun to wonder and talk
about how to take the best next step at their sites. Cabinet members could tell that the time was ripe for taking the district to a new level. We gauged a high level of readiness for a new kind of leadership across the district: shared leadership. Traditional leadership teams were al-
ready in place at all the sites. But after at- tending multiple PLC conferences with Richard and Rebecca DuFour, completing Balanced Leadership, followed by a multi- day book study of “School Leadership That Works: From Research to Results” by Robert Marzano, et al., everyone knew that a differ- ent approach to leadership was necessary. The new cadre of leaders was named
Instructional Leadership Council to dif- ferentiate it from the traditional leadership teams that sites already had in place, because
its role would be a new and non-traditional one: developing teacher leaders to lead col- laborative teams of peers to share and col- lectively examine student work, honestly examine their personal classroom practices through team discussions, and plan more and more highly effective instruction.
in the planning and implementation of this transition. We would not have CCSS pro- fessional development planned by a small, isolated committee and “delivered” to the district’s teachers. Beginning in fall 2012, the ILC teams were augmented to broaden the base of
Some teachers who were already part
of the traditional leadership teams – as de- partment chairs and elementary grade-level chairs – were invited by their principals to be ILC members. Other ILC members were new to this kind of leadership role. Princi- pals’ criteria for selecting ILC members included an attitude of openness and risk- taking, strong teaching skills, and having the respect of their peers.
Transitioning to Common Core After sessions in leadership development
– facilitation skills for small teams, working with resistors, protocols for examining data and student work, instructional planning protocols – we began integrating the build- ing of the knowledge base for the district’s transition to the Common Core State Stan- dards. A cadre of Teachers on Special As- signment, selected to be academic coaches and content experts for the CCSS transition, began co-planning with the session facilita- tor and co-delivering the sessions. Again, district vision drove the work: teacher leaders would be full participants
content areas, and to develop cadres of el- ementary grade-level leaders specifically for mathematics and English language arts, bringing the number of teacher members participating to approximately 130. At the secondary level, teacher leaders
for English, history/social science and spe- cific electives attended one set of sessions, and those for mathematics, science and re- maining electives participated in another set of parallel sessions. The two teams for each (K-5) elementary school – one for math- ematics and one for English language arts – convened in separate, content-intensive ses- sions. Principals and APs attend all sessions, along with cabinet and directors.
Using technology to introduce content By its nature, this work has sometimes
been messy and ambiguous; more than once, a number of the session evaluations reflected discomfort at not knowing exactly what the final expectations would be for teachers in their classrooms. But it has also been exciting. The TOSAs use technology – individual tablets, the use of cell phones as
January/February 2014 23
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40