Creating Thriving Schools and Districts
“There is no more powerful engine driving an organization toward excellence and long range success than a meaningful, worthwhile, achievable vision for the future, widely shared.” Burt Nanus
The mission of the High Desert ESD is to improve student outcomes with excellence, equity and efficiency. HDESD priorities involve implementing best practices for educators gleaned from investigation, innovation and incubation of ideas and efforts from the private and public sectors. We know that to truly move the dial for our students it will take an invested community implementing best practices in teaching, learning and engaging our students and families. The HDESD has purposefully aligned itself in the gaps where schools and districts need additional capacity to address outcomes for students. One important role for educators is to spend time generalizing, looking for trends and averages, but at the ESD our job is to specialize in unique supports that are student focused and unique to each students needs - We do this work by being innovative and proactive and we have great pride as we serve students and families at their most vulnerable intersections in life.
In his article, Shooting Bottle Rockets at the moon, Thomas Kane makes a connection between improving rocket design and educational reform efforts.
The Jupiter rocket did not have the payload capacity to get a human into space - It required much equipment to not only get them there but keep them alive while in space.
In the end, the Saturn V rocket was dramatically different from previous rocket designs—because it had to be. At 360 feet in height, it stood more than five times taller, five times wider and 100 times heavier than the Jupiter rockets that preceded it.
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"In education, we never bother to calculate the thrust needed to carry our schools to our stated targets. Too often, we draw up proposals which are directionally correct: better professional development for teachers, higher teacher salaries, incrementally smaller class sizes, better facilities, stronger broad-band connections for schools, etc. However, we do not pause long enough to consult the evidence on expected effect sizes and assemble a list of reforms that could plausibly succeed in achieving our ambitious goals. When we fail to right-size our reform efforts, we breed a sense of futility among teachers, parents and policymakers. We might as well be shooting bottle rockets at the moon." Thomas J. Kane
Our mission is to create a system designed to achieve our ultimate outcome - every student prepared for a bright future, ready to lead a healthy and fulfilled life. Simply put, we cannot achieve that outcome if we don’t focus on our greatest and most powerful resource, our human capital. We must consider our design, not just making tweaks and small adjustments to our current design, but rather truly consider what it will take to achieve our goals and empower our team to design systems that will achieve our mission. We cannot simply design around the edges, but must have the wisdom and foresight to create what will have the capacity to achieve our mission and maintain sustainability over time. It would never have been a success to get a person into space if they didn’t keep them alive once they got there and then ultimately return them safely home.
STOP AND CONSIDER THE COST BEFORE WE BEGIN: All of our actions have impact - we have finite capacity and energy to do this critically important work. Therefore we must be relentlessly honest about our capacity and where we invest our energy, time, resource. All of our actions have impact - we must ask then, which of our actions have the greatest impact? How can we invest more of our energy into what is having great impact while reducing the amount of energy we spend on processes and systems that produce little to no lift toward our vision?
If we take a minute to reflect on all of the changes, initiatives and priorities that have been handed down to districts and schools over the last ten years and then we stop to consider the impact they have had on developing thriving students - students who leave our system prepared to achieve their future, not just dream of it - we can not only see, but rather document the gap - achievement gap, opportunity gap, dream gap. Countless amounts of state and federal dollars earmarked for the next greatest strategy have not made a difference. The great irony in all of this is that the answer is in the room, within the walls of our districts and our schools - it’s us. The knowledge, skill, expertise, passion, faith, perseverance is here and my goal is to create the conditions so that we can focus on our most valuable asset, our students and our educators. It’s not rocket science :) - when we have fulfilled and engaged educators, coalitions within our community advocating and supporting our children, skilled leaders who know how to create conditions for excellence to thrive and school, district and community leadership that is service driven and attune to the unique needs of our community, we can and will produce thriving students - not by default, but by design.
Our strategic actions involve four categories: Fulfilled and Engaged Educators, Service Driven District Leadership, Skilled Program Leadership, and Engaged Parents and Families
Our action plan will include investing in our most precious resource, our human resource.
Our Theory of Action:
When educators have the supports and resources to flourish in their work
And district leadership serves the needs of schools, and educators with equity and transparency,
And parents and families have choice and are authentically engaged in their child’s learning,
And programs are led by skilled leaders who have the knowledge and ability to create conditions for success = THRIVING STUDENTS
As an organization we view our educators (teachers, EAs, specialists, substitute teachers, custodians, community partners, volunteers, internship sites etc.) as the source of innovation, creativity, passion that will help us achieve our vision. As such, we are purposeful to ensure that HDESD is a vibrant and safe place where educators are not afraid to take risks, learn from our mistakes and encourage one another to see the opportunity not just the threat when challenges arise. We believe there is no final draft to our work; we are constantly improving. We believe that being fulfilled and engaged means knowing our role and how we contribute to the team, having the resources and supports to do our jobs well, having friends we can laugh with, and being able to do what we do best every day.
We have identified a key ingredient in creating this type of culture is a culture that promotes ongoing, authentic, relevant and purposeful feedback. Feedback is the food any organizational culture feeds on in order to grow. What are we feeding our culture is a great question to consider asking. You are what you eat they say!
At the heart of HDESD is a heart of service, one where we create the conditions for our community, businesses, schools, school districts, higher ed institutions, parents can link arms to address issues our students face. We create unique spaces where powerful ideas are incubated, innovated and implemented across a spectrum of critical priorities. We listen to the voices of our community because the conditions we work in are constantly changing.
Embedded deep within the creation story of the High Desert ESD is a purpose rooted in service, that is called out at a regional level to provide efficiency, excellence and equity across a spectrum of unique needs. We serve a community of needs - We design with individual children in mind - We develop relationships one family at a time. We provide service with heart.
As such we are invested in developing leaders that lead through service and who are willing to be lead learners, never stagnant, always growing.
This last year we spent time developing a set of values and beliefs that will help guide us as we seek to live our mission daily. What integrity in our system looks like is being honest and consistent with living out what we say we believe. When our actions contradict what we say, we live in conflict with the work, the system and the people. We are committed to building a culture where we can live in harmony with our mission on a daily basis - supporting each other when we need it and working together to make a great work environment and achieve great outcomes for students.
Our Core Values
We Put Kids First
Of all that we do on a daily basis, we keep our mission in mind to increase student outcomes and opportunities. When competing demands challenge our time, energy, resources and commitment, we ensure that the key element in our decision making is to put kids first. We share this as a common value across our organization and it bonds our work, filters our priorities and elevates our level of service. By putting kids first we live our our mission and challenge our team to find new and more efficient ways to serve kids.
We Are Innovative, Proactive and Responsive to Customer Needs
We think creatively, welcome new ideas, and value proactive approaches to customer needs. We regularly mine for effective, efficient and equitable ways of delivering services, sparking creative thinking and collaborating with partners. We put resources toward innovation, value risk taking and celebrate change. As a result, we address customer needs creatively and collaboratively and thus produce great outcomes for those we serve.
We Take Care of Our People
We take care of our people their physical, mental and emotional wellbeing, and create the conditions so that each member of our team is healthy and has the tools to be successful at work. One of the ways we create this culture is by ensuring each one of us knows what is expected at work, has the right equipment and material to do the work, and has the opportunity to do what he/she does best every day. We are relentless at supporting one another and are honest about our needs.
You’ve heard the phrase, “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Not only is that true within our programs but also within our leadership, specifically within the conditions we create that allow our leaders to fail forward, trust one another, be innovative and accountable and lead in communities and programs that require leadership that has a high social emotional IQ and an ability to hold people and systems accountable to the students and families we serve. Developing Lead Learners means that we are helping our leaders better learn from each other strengthening lateral relationships as well as developing the mindset that leadership must constantly be learning - listening and growing along with our staff, teachers, community and stakeholders.
As we think about the analogy of the rocket and it’s design - we need to remember that we can have the best design in the world, but without the thrust necessary to power our design we will not achieve our mission. The four areas I’ve lined out in this presentation represent the elements, that when combined, will create the thrust to achieve our mission and beyond. As such, Engaging Parents and Families and our community at large is a component of our work that can easily be put on hold - but it is an essential ingredient in sustainability over time. If we just look internally to consider what we can design and build, then yes we can make some progress on outcomes like increased attendance, or graduation - but if we want the outcomes to sustain and become future building blocks that are the foundation for the next level of improvement they must be embedded within the culture of our work, our staff and our community. The rocket launch would never be a success if the design didn’t include keeping the person alive while in space and returning them to earth healthy and well - This is akin to sustainability. So what if we achieve our outcomes for one year if in the next five years they decline or stay flat. Sustainability means life for our work; including our community, parents, students and partners means we will design with sustainability and support in mind.
What bonds the four elements of our work together is our human capacity, relationships, trust, hopefulness and well being. The best design in the world lays lifeless on the table without passionate professionals willing to do whatever it takes to build it, to live it out in community! It’s the core beliefs we bring to work each day - it’s our ability to truly give each other the benefit of the doubt and assume what’s best in others - it’s treating others the way we want to be treated - fanning our passion for education, students and families - acknowledging our failures and successes and acknowledging how much we truly rely on each other if we are going to get to where we are going.
THIS IS the culture we get to create together. Our work is not a theory of action, but rather CULTURE IN ACTION. As we work to create thriving students, ensure fulfilled & engaged educators, create world class service driven leadership, empower skilled leadership and build coalitions of engaged parents & families it’s important to know that the common thread in all the work is us, you and me. Simply put we will be successful when you and I feel valued in the work and have the resources and support to thrive. It's time we focused our resource, support and best effort on what really matters, what really has the thrust to send us to the moon and beyond, our human potential.