Strategy Overview (10 minutes)

Transcript (~24 min @ 1:17:52)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 1:18:02 Speaker 6: all those in favor the motion carries unanimously with two absent and thank you for that the next item on our agenda is one of my favorite pieces of business and documents our strategy overview I note madam superintendent that this is

▶ 1:18:31 Speaker 6: an abbreviated version of it this is the entire document and let me say you know I tend to repeat myself in my dotage I struggle with I struggle with this document I appreciate its complexity and I think I appreciate correctly that this document is more about what you and your team do on an almost daily basis more than what we do so it's very informational I really would like us to to find a better way to do this and i i don't have a solution and i i i don't know that i'm alone in struggling to read this document um or maybe i am but with all of that said madam superintendent would you like to speak to the strategy overview yes thank you um

▶ 1:19:27 Speaker 1: so you know again this is a format as i've explained five years ago um is really becoming

▶ 1:19:38 Speaker 1: um universal among superintendents as the state has trained more and more superintendents in conjunction with some local universities they basically adopted an approach that was developed at harvard and this um um from a book called strategy in action if you've never read it

▶ 1:20:01 Speaker 1: and this approach came out of that work and many of my colleagues have a very similar it's a theory of action it's an action plan a similar format when we

▶ 1:20:22 Speaker 1: went out to do it this year the first first thing I want to tell you is it's a much larger team when we first started this it was my administrative team maybe 11 people now it's a much larger team we have the educational team facilitators we have the content facilitators in the room we had a couple of teachers who said can I participate and I said sure why not all the administrators so it's a really good discussion about what have we done where were we and where are we

▶ 1:20:56 Speaker 1: going and the first issue that I said to them quite frankly was this is the old vision we do not have a new vision I shared with them some of the conversation that we're having as a committee about a new vision but a new vision does not exist so we worked with what we have I think at the time we started this we hadn't adopted it because my retreat was in June so that's all right but they knew what what you were talking about we refined the theory of action which we've done over the past couple of years because we want to include culture and climate we want to include relationships and make sure that

▶ 1:21:39 Speaker 1: we're factoring that into our work what surprised me the most when we went to do this this year is the team which had a lot of teachers in the room said to me

▶ 1:21:50 Speaker 1: can we revisit the strategic objectives and tie them more closely to the rubric

▶ 1:22:00 Speaker 1: to the evaluation instrument because if you remember I had planning curriculum

▶ 1:22:09 Speaker 1: instruction data and assessment these objectives came from them they wanted them to be very clearly articulated and tied to the evaluation rubric so we have

▶ 1:22:29 Speaker 1: basically four new objectives and we looked at the rubric and while they don't align 100% with the indicators they reflect the heart of the rubrics curriculum planning and assessment teaching all students responsive and inclusive environments professional culture and community engagement then when we went to do the priorities again they surprised me last year when they participated for the first time they it went on to three pages it was their first time out they learned to regret that because that meant there was so much more we had to report out on and that's where your abbreviation may be

▶ 1:23:14 Speaker 1: coming from when you look at this and the very interesting discussion again if you look at the verbs that are used here they raised the level in the business we refer to it as they went to higher higher thinking skill verbiage where before we would say implement explore they said to me no we've done that how do we go deeper so you know update rubrics continue advance further we begin to get stuck after a while foster improve but they wanted to have priorities that pushed deeper work the last thing they surprised me with was

▶ 1:24:02 Speaker 1: they felt very strongly that we somehow get in here continuing to work on

▶ 1:24:13 Speaker 1: content and instruction somehow embed that in the priorities so that's why you you have a objective that says develop and plan high quality curriculum and systems of assessment that enhance student-centered personalized and self-directed learning and while you also have employee instructional practices that expect high expectations for content and performance engage all students and are personalized to accommodate diverse learning styles needs interests and levels of proficiency now we all know from when we've done wordsmithing together it gets a little choppy and it gets a little difficult and you try to control it so that it's not verbose and in the end

▶ 1:24:59 Speaker 1: this is what we came away with I don't write this they write this with me I send it out to them after the meeting I asked for feedback I correct it I send it out again so this is really a collaborative effort what what I found interesting is probably how far we have moved from the very first one I've done that one was was me and the administrators only and so this really reflected what they did what you do not have here because it's for them internally is they spent time linking what they wrote to specific rubrics so So there is another version of this that if you go to the bottom of every column, it tells you its indicator, and I'm making this up, 1A3, or indicator 3C2, so that teachers know exactly what is going to be the focus when it comes to evaluation.

▶ 1:26:07 Speaker 1: So this is what we've set. continues to be reflect the work that we are doing in quite frankly inclusive education technology competency-based education so it continues those themes

▶ 1:26:25 Speaker 1: but in a very integrated approach that I think is much deeper than we were doing before they're trying to push the concept that nothing is in isolation nothing is done as a silo it's all an integrated effort so if I may ask how

▶ 1:26:52 Speaker 1: would you have us use this document so what happens on this document is two things first of all there has to be an alignment between your goals and this document and my goals and then we align the teachers goals with this as well so we always have that what we call that through line so when I sat with

▶ 1:27:14 Speaker 1: administrators last week we talked about their goals and everybody has the strategy overview in front of them they had their AIPs in front of them and what is the goal that you're going to have as an administrator that is somehow going to integrate this so that I hold you accountable for it okay that's how it works at the administrative level it has to work the same at your level as well and then what we do on this what I do on this and that this is the habit that you've all developed when since I first presented this five years ago is I

▶ 1:27:56 Speaker 1: report out very briefly against the the priority now you all know and I thank you because you've recognized that what we report out on this is a fraction of the work we every we do every day all right and there is no way to report out

▶ 1:28:08 Speaker 1: on what we do 260 days a year because that's you know that's how everybody in this job is working 260 they may not be in school 260 but they're working 260

▶ 1:28:24 Speaker 1: all right you have to distinguish between what are your high-level priorities in any given year and the everyday work so what the team has decided is that this is their high-level priority as administrators and teachers

▶ 1:28:44 Jessica Dugan: for this year mr. thanks so I enjoy this document and I find myself getting bogged down in it at the same time but I love that they're bought into it what I'm

▶ 1:29:00 Jessica Dugan: what I'm seeing a little bit is a lot of thing the same thing being said with slightly different words to fit within each of these objective areas that

▶ 1:29:13 Jessica Dugan: sounds like it might be on purpose because the point is nothing happens in a silo but in my mind that's a little bit of what's bogging it down so I care

▶ 1:29:30 Jessica Dugan: very much and to be honest find a little bit there's so much work being done on

▶ 1:29:42 Jessica Dugan: practices theory of teaching PBIS interventions those types of things what I am starting to miss in our work as a district is the deeper curriculum content unit development I'm not saying it's not happening I just know all these other things are such a focus that what I'm missing is what I think is critical to be happening side by side with CBE and you know standards for proficiencies

▶ 1:30:16 Jessica Dugan: and habits of learning I'm so excited for those things to be brought in but at the same time I think we need to make sure we continue to deepen the curriculum unit and I'm missing that from this so plan just really quickly and I've I've always thought this and I have a hard time figuring out how to say it so it you know maybe this is making sense to me in a little bit different way but it's it's more from the lens of student engagement then how teachers are practicing their craft so to me the curriculum content development has to progress and go deeper every year which is the mind frame of your team right but I don't see it reflected in here because I feel like the rest of it the theory that the practices the strategies have taken over so I guess maybe if you could reflect a little bit on that I know it's still happening but I'm not seeing it as

▶ 1:31:19 Speaker 1: a priority and that's a little bit so so that was part of the discussion so the part of the discussion is this is the fifth iteration of this so part of the discussion was how do you keep moving forward building on what you've done without being bogged down in repeating what you've done before so that becomes a real issue so when you look at continue to revise curriculum units and assessments that align to content areas that's that curriculum work and habits

▶ 1:31:48 Jessica Dugan: learning and standards that integrate technology like that to me is said somewhere else but it takes away from the the work that needs to be done on the actual curriculum how are you teaching earth science differently from sixth seventh to eighth grade what is the actual unit so that's

▶ 1:32:05 Speaker 1: that's where it talks about alignment wherever it talks about alignment that's what they're what

▶ 1:32:16 Speaker 1: they're talking about they say advanced inquiry based and project based learning

▶ 1:32:22 Jessica Dugan: the inquiry based is the science well I hope it's a project based to it so I see that in one place and the rest of it I see that basically all these theories and things being repeated over and over again different ways and that is what

▶ 1:32:34 Speaker 1: I'm missing so what you try to do when you try to do this is again and when is is you try to have integration in the document both vertically and horizontally. You're going to have reputation. It's the same thing we tell teachers when they give us artifacts. You don't give us an artifact for a single activity or a single rubric, a single element. You give us an artifact that represents multiple elements across multiple indicators. Again, working towards that theory that nothing is in isolation. So if you look at stuff like assessment, when we talk about assessment, all right, and it goes a little bit to some conversation that Ed and I have had recently, all right, it's a cycle. You always have to think of this as a cycle.

▶ 1:33:27 Speaker 1: Where do I start? It's a chicken or egg. So I start with assessment. That's just how I operate. What do my kids know? What don't my kids know? Now, why do they know what they know? Why do they not know what they know? Is it a matter of my curriculum? Is it a matter of my instructional practices? Is there some other factor? All right, now I make my corrections to curriculum. I make my corrections to instruction. I assess again. If I still have gaps in my outcomes, all right, well, maybe my assessment's wrong. Did my assessment not measure what I taught? Was my assessment not aligned? Or am I still missing the boat somewhere? So it's always that circular thing in education. That's how we operate. And I think that's what they were trying to capture.

▶ 1:34:15 Jessica Dugan: Yeah, I get that. I like this. I'm just missing it. And maybe it's what, I don't know exactly what we will see as this develops to show that the curriculum units, the actual content of what is being taught is progressing.

▶ 1:34:36 Speaker 1: progressing I hear what you're saying and I and I will talk to the team about that but again I have to respect that I had 30 odd people in a room and this is the document they created to reflect the work they want to do based on what we've

▶ 1:34:53 Jessica Dugan: done in the past and I respect that very much too again to me that that's the

▶ 1:34:59 Jessica Dugan: whole and maybe what that means is that we as a school committee need to talk about that a little bit more I may be the only one who sees that but to me that would potentially be a goal that we would set and encourage them to respond to in future years mm-hmm I love how committed they are to this and bought

▶ 1:35:21 Speaker 1: into this so so the interesting thing on the technology is and again we're not

▶ 1:35:31 Speaker 1: talking about machines you may know and I think I've shared with you that the state is accelerating its expectations around what we're beginning to call computing knowledge not computer science where computing knowledge becomes

▶ 1:35:53 Speaker 1: embedded in every course so you can so it was a challenge with that we talked about how do you make that a reality so let me give you an example and it again and see in my head I see it all interconnected because of the way I see things when you talk about universal design for learning when you talk about project-based learning when you talk about personalized learning or differentiation for different kids needs there they all interconnect so here's an example of where we're going to begin to see computer computing knowledge become part of every subject I'm teaching English and I'm going to ask you that because I just taught you myths and legends not an uncommon middle school project going back to my roots now I'm going to ask you to take the elements of myths and legends that I've taught you and write your own myth okay well what

▶ 1:36:53 Speaker 1: you're going to begin to see is some kid using Minecraft to create their myths and that be perfectly acceptable to the teacher as long as they've displayed the elements I'm looking for another kid may do a traditional writing another kid may write a play you know when you start to talk about multiple means of expression you give kids multiple opportunities to express what they know and how they know it in a way that works for them there is an expectation that one of those options

▶ 1:37:35 Speaker 1: is computer based not in the sense of using a PowerPoint but in a much more using coding using multiple media all right that's going to be an expectation so we've begun to talk about well how do we build out that capacity for our staff and how do we make it okay for people to experiment with that and know that that's okay way to assess a kid so that's one of the things that was driving this discussion how do we begin to go beyond the fact that gee it's nice to have one of these for every kid but what are they really doing with it that's enhancing their learning and giving them new ways to not only create information but to share information. Ms. Driscoll please. Thank you so I would

▶ 1:38:24 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: recommend that we we take this to our goals discussion I think that's a really good idea and just I just want to clarify in terms of roles and responsibilities it is the purview of the committee to vote strategic plans because our budget ties to the strategic plan so I agree with Ms. Dugan that we want to make sure we understand what that is so that when we build the budget for next year we can fund what we collectively agree we value thank you

▶ 1:38:55 Speaker 6: and so our strategic planning will inform this document which gets back to my question about you know what our role is and what you want from us with regard to this document does that make sense to you I mean no please elaborate because

▶ 1:39:13 Speaker 1: the state no longer requires strategic plans from school committees that model is gone by the wayside the state has let go of that model where you spend ten twenty twenty five thousand dollars and bring in some advisors and help write a five-year strategic plan this is the model the state has gone to and this is a model that's based on a needs assessment done by the superintendent all right and then producing a plan for the work for the staff to do and yes it is tied to your goals well our goal is and even though the the new vision is not there your new vision was very similar it's about raising student outcomes so this strategy overview is how do you raise student outcomes we're doing well in some areas we're not doing well in other areas you know to the discussion earlier tonight we continue to have pockets of concern with middle school outcomes we continue to have pockets of concern with individual classrooms I would never ever tell you differently thankfully the high school is pretty on track including closing the achievement gap at the high school but this is about building capacity so that we can improve kids outcomes and that is ultimately the goal of this district the fallout mr.

▶ 1:40:42 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: yes so I I still question the roles and responsibilities piece so I would with the indulgence of the chair invite the chair to explore with the school committees Association what they feel the role and responsibility is get some counsel from them and maybe ask them what is your experience with this kind of document if it's not a traditional strategic plan what are the roles and responsibilities and can you help that figure it out figure help us figure it out so that we have a clear understanding when we go to do our roles and responsibilities how to parse that out in terms of functions and also the votes that we need to take to you know to execute our responsibilities on

▶ 1:41:27 Speaker 6: behalf of the community will do thank you for that any further discussion

▶ 1:41:34 Speaker 6: seeing none Thank You madam superintendent that will conclude the