Transforming an entire district from one that is satisfied
with being academically good enough into one keenly focused on improved student performance
requires overhaul that reaches from end to end, from building to building, from bottom to
top.
Leaders in Birdville Independent School District in Fort Worth, Texas, learned that applying five fundamental principles of professional learning can jump-start the transformation. The five-year journey of this midsized suburban school district serving more than 22,000 students offers significant implications for any district preparing for a big turn ahead. Birdville ISD lies just east of Fort Worth near the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. While the seven-city area began as a community of modest neighborhoods, the boundaries now expand to include upscale suburban areas. Birdville, where the first school opened in 1858, has grown into a district large enough to have some resources yet small enough to maintain a strong sense of family and pride in longevity of district residents. Many staff members who started school in BISD returned to work in the district where their children and grandchildren now attend.
While deep roots bind stakeholders and staff, problems arise when people who remember the good old days fail to see that those days are gone. These community natives sometimes overlook the rapid demographic changes, socioeconomic decline, and achievement disparity among specific populations of students. Consequently, the dynamics between natives and newcomers can be strained. In a culture of intelligent, caring people, leaders in BISD formed a cohesive team to bridge this divide through high-quality staff development and stakeholder awareness.
Ellen Bell's arrival as associate superintendent for curriculum and instruction launched a
series of transitions she and leadership teams facilitated through a five-year district
transformation. By constantly asking, "What needs to be done?" and "How do we begin?," Bell
worked with her staff to reshape long-standing professional development structures and
practices. They worked to show how three district initiatives align and to prove that a
comprehensive professional development plan ensures the consistent implementation of those
initiatives. The diagram below illustrates Birdville's three key focuses: student
engagement, continuous improvement, and Gallup strengths. Gallup's Strengths Finder is an
assessment instrument that Birdville educators use to identify their natural talents to
build their personal strengths and heighten their success.
The strong pillar of professional learning ensures total implementation across the district.
BIRDVILLE'S PRINCIPLES
Birdville applied five principles of effective professional development to implement these tightly linked initiatives.
1. Allocate time and resources.
Staff members in Birdville, like those in many districts, work hard to do their best with fewer resources. A key factor limiting resources is the double-edged sword of unfunded mandates. While some state legislation improves the educational system, other laws are so convoluted that they do nothing more than wear staff down. Since tight budgets force the district to spread the dollars thin, BISD demonstrated stewardship by drawing on the expertise of its internal leaders and specialists and using Title I funds to purchase materials.
Leaders and specialists collaborate to pool their talents at every level:
2. Include all leaders.
Both the board of trustees and Superintendent Stephen Waddell provide stability and vision for Birdville ISD. Instructional leadership has metamorphosed from principal meetings that merely disseminated information to collaborative opportunities for authentic learning. Campus administrators engage in book studies to learn and apply research to local decision making. By studying the works of such visitors to the district as Mike Schmoker, Doug Reeves, Robert Marzano, and James Popham, BISD leaders learn and use strategies appropriate to the district's No. 1 goal - student achievement. In short order, leaders bonded in a reading community, sharing applications and implications of their new learning. Campus principals meet regularly in instructional learning teams.
Such leadership practices extend to every school. Some schools conduct book studies during which teachers post discussions on campus blogs. Others have designed campus professional learning sessions around topics such as interdisciplinary instruction, Stephen Covey's The Leader in Me (Free Press, 2008), and the work of Ruby Payne. Others establish Working on the Work (WOW) (Schlechty, 2002) days during which teams of teachers collaborate as they design engaging work for their students using protocols and student work samples to guide their curricular decisions. Principals flex time to allow grade-level teams to coach each other in skillful lesson design. Still other campuses establish data teams to analyze performance and perception data in order to make changes in the way they do their work.
Small groups of first-, second-, third- and fourth-year principals deepen their leadership
skills in special principal academies led by Stephen Waddell, Ellen Bell, and Lane
Ledbetter, director of curriculum. Tuna sandwiches in hand, developing administrators
collaborate by analyzing data, discussing current research, and, best of all, designing
effective procedures to implement a stronger academic focus on their campuses. In addition,
a newly formed leadership team, consisting of co-chairs from each campus (one assistant
principal and one lead teacher), meet monthly with Margaret Miller, director of professional
learning, and David Holland, director of accountability, research, and program evaluation,
to ensure districtwide implementation of key initiatives. These tri-level looping teams
share authentic evidence of district initiatives at work in classrooms and design "digging
deeper" measures to increase staff and student learning on every campus.
A task force from this group recently crafted a much-needed Implementation Innovation Configuration map to measure implementation levels of the key initiatives in BISD. Baseline data collected from classroom teachers help campuses determine their implementation levels. These data provide the foundation for goal setting in campus improvement plans. The descriptors and indicators on the Implementation Innovation Configuration set guideposts as teachers collaborate about how to move from their current status to a deeper level of implementation. (See the Innovation Configuration below.) District leaders benefit from active participation in region-wide consortia at the Educational Service Center, where they network with others regarding continuous improvement practices to achieve results.
Sample Innovation Configuration
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT: Using tools to measure and monitor progress towards goals and objectives.
3. Collaborate in teams.
Before 2003, staff development in BISD had been either nonexistent or a disconnected series of random acts of inservice. Bell garnered the strengths of the curriculum and instruction staff to design professional learning that placed job-alike teachers in small learning communities across the district. Using A Facilitator's Guide to Professional Learning Communities (Jolly, 2005) as a frame- work, Miller coordinated more than 125 action learning teams that met five days throughout the year. These teacher teams analyze data, set goals, design action plans, implement those plans, examine student work, use protocols to examine their own work, and try new practices to improve student performance. Teachers report that they look forward to staff development days and collaborative learning. Teachers found that learning teams afford them a deeper understanding of the interconnections and alignment of what had seemed like isolated initiatives before. Those initiatives work in tandem to engage staff and students in a systemic and systematic journey of continuous improvement.
A transformational shift from thinking about what teachers need to teach to thinking more purposefully about what students need to learn spread like a virus across the district. Teachers eagerly design professional learning to address specific student learning goals. For example, one teacher offers sessions on using Singapore math strategies, while other teachers design professional learning called ShareFests where teachers display and discuss their data, action plans, common assessments, rubrics, units, and student work samples. Teachers and leaders in BISD have become what Doug Reeves (2006) calls "learning leaders" who effectively design their learning in order to facilitate the learning of others, thereby deepening the level of the learning of their students.
4. Engage everyone in meaningful learning and work.
Birdville educators believe that individual staff engagement in their daily work directly impacts student engagement in meaningful learning. Results of the Gallup Q12, a national survey designed to measure employee engagement, reveal increasing staff engagement and satisfaction in the last two years. High Q12 scores indicate organizations with lower turnover, better productivity, better customer loyalty, and superior performance. Birdville staff surveyed responded that they have multiple opportunities to learn and grow. As part of the Schlechty Standard Bearer Network , BISD teachers and leaders focus on designing meaningful work that appeals to the motives of student and adult learners. BISD leaders embed design qualities into all learning experiences through a process called Coaching for Design. Designers use the high-yield classroom strategies that Robert Marzano compiled to address the varied learning needs of BISD adult and student learners.
5. Use data to make decisions.
Birdville ISD designed a tool called the District Dashboard to display data to track progress toward district goals and objectives. Campuses access a variety of student performance reports online. The district recently invested in a data warehousing program that will allow teachers and leaders to manipulate data to answer customized queries. Leaders and teachers have been trained in the use of Baldridge tools and continuous improvement processes. District, campus, and classroom mission statements are posted for all to see. Many teachers engage students in tracking their own performance in data folders using formative and summative assessments. Data walls greet visitors in campus foyers. Principals engaged in an in-depth study on using formative assessment to transform classroom instruction. James Popham, author of Transformative Assessment (ASCD, 2008), will be the keynote speaker at this year's administrator retreat.
By using data to make decisions in the past five years, BISD leaders have reallocated funds, changed requirements, and created programs to boost academic excellence. As a result, the number of National Merit Scholars has increased from 5 to 22. The district pays for PSAT examinations for all 10th- and 11th-grade students. Selected students are invited to participate in a new Superintendent's Scholars program that provides recognition and preparation for PSAT success. Students enrolled in Advanced Placement courses now take the AP exam as an expectation of participation in the college-prep program. BISD allocates money to cover AP examination fees.
BISD has added a program to its three high schools that addresses the needs of an increasingly diverse student population. Site teams support minority students in advanced academic opportunities and college preparation.
LOOKING AHEAD
Is the team of Birdville leaders satisfied with where the district is today? No. The good news is that because of the focus on staff engagement in small learning communities and the use of continuous improvement tools and high-yield strategies to transform instructional practices, student achievement results are beginning to reflect movement in the desired direction. Implementing simple professional learning principles has positioned the district to make a big turn ahead. BISD teams stand ready to lead that transformation.
MARGARET N. MILLER (Margaret_Miller@birdville.k12.tx.us) is director of professional learning.
ELLEN V. BELL (ellenbell@earthlink.net) is former associate superintendent for curriculum and instruction.
DAVID F. HOLLAND (David_Holland@birdville.k12.tx.us) is director of accountability, research, and program evaluation at Birdville Independent School District in Fort Worth, Texas.
REFERENCES
Covey, S. (2008).
The leader in me: How schools and parents around the world are inspiring greatness, one child at a time. New York: Free Press.
Jolly, A. (2005).
A facilitator's guide to professional learning teams. Greensboro, NC: SERVE.
Popham, J. (2008).
Transformative assessment. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Reeves, D.B. (2006).
The learning leader. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Schlechty, P.C. (2002).
Working on the work: An action plan for teachers, principals, and superintendents. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
- National Staff Development Council's Journal of Staff Development (Fall 2009)
Leaders in Birdville Independent School District in Fort Worth, Texas, learned that applying five fundamental principles of professional learning can jump-start the transformation. The five-year journey of this midsized suburban school district serving more than 22,000 students offers significant implications for any district preparing for a big turn ahead. Birdville ISD lies just east of Fort Worth near the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. While the seven-city area began as a community of modest neighborhoods, the boundaries now expand to include upscale suburban areas. Birdville, where the first school opened in 1858, has grown into a district large enough to have some resources yet small enough to maintain a strong sense of family and pride in longevity of district residents. Many staff members who started school in BISD returned to work in the district where their children and grandchildren now attend.
While deep roots bind stakeholders and staff, problems arise when people who remember the good old days fail to see that those days are gone. These community natives sometimes overlook the rapid demographic changes, socioeconomic decline, and achievement disparity among specific populations of students. Consequently, the dynamics between natives and newcomers can be strained. In a culture of intelligent, caring people, leaders in BISD formed a cohesive team to bridge this divide through high-quality staff development and stakeholder awareness.
Ellen Bell's arrival as associate superintendent for curriculum and instruction launched a
series of transitions she and leadership teams facilitated through a five-year district
transformation. By constantly asking, "What needs to be done?" and "How do we begin?," Bell
worked with her staff to reshape long-standing professional development structures and
practices. They worked to show how three district initiatives align and to prove that a
comprehensive professional development plan ensures the consistent implementation of those
initiatives. The diagram below illustrates Birdville's three key focuses: student
engagement, continuous improvement, and Gallup strengths. Gallup's Strengths Finder is an
assessment instrument that Birdville educators use to identify their natural talents to
build their personal strengths and heighten their success.The strong pillar of professional learning ensures total implementation across the district.
Birdville applied five principles of effective professional development to implement these tightly linked initiatives.
1. Allocate time and resources.
Staff members in Birdville, like those in many districts, work hard to do their best with fewer resources. A key factor limiting resources is the double-edged sword of unfunded mandates. While some state legislation improves the educational system, other laws are so convoluted that they do nothing more than wear staff down. Since tight budgets force the district to spread the dollars thin, BISD demonstrated stewardship by drawing on the expertise of its internal leaders and specialists and using Title I funds to purchase materials.
Leaders and specialists collaborate to pool their talents at every level:
- District-level directors and coordinators meet quarterly to align their departments with district goals and objectives as they work with staff to filter actions through district beliefs, vision, and mission. They use skills and concepts from all three initiatives to model for their staffs how to implement new learning in their daily work.
- Consultants provide content-area sessions to help teachers align student work to the standards and scope and sequence. Teachers then implement these models in their classrooms.
- Assistant principals form small learning communities to extend their own learning before implementing that learning on their campuses.
- Campus instructional leaders (assistant principals and teacher leaders) drive campus implementation of district initiatives. Advanced academics specialists model and teach teachers effective differentiation strategies to use with gifted and talented students.
- Elementary and secondary reading specialists host sessions in effective reading strategies for struggling readers.
- Campus continuous improvement teachers coach teams to use tools to collect data to measure progress towards goals.
- Campus-based action learning team teacher leaders facilitate small collaborative groups that focus on one of four modules for widespread campus professional learning.
2. Include all leaders.Both the board of trustees and Superintendent Stephen Waddell provide stability and vision for Birdville ISD. Instructional leadership has metamorphosed from principal meetings that merely disseminated information to collaborative opportunities for authentic learning. Campus administrators engage in book studies to learn and apply research to local decision making. By studying the works of such visitors to the district as Mike Schmoker, Doug Reeves, Robert Marzano, and James Popham, BISD leaders learn and use strategies appropriate to the district's No. 1 goal - student achievement. In short order, leaders bonded in a reading community, sharing applications and implications of their new learning. Campus principals meet regularly in instructional learning teams.
Such leadership practices extend to every school. Some schools conduct book studies during which teachers post discussions on campus blogs. Others have designed campus professional learning sessions around topics such as interdisciplinary instruction, Stephen Covey's The Leader in Me (Free Press, 2008), and the work of Ruby Payne. Others establish Working on the Work (WOW) (Schlechty, 2002) days during which teams of teachers collaborate as they design engaging work for their students using protocols and student work samples to guide their curricular decisions. Principals flex time to allow grade-level teams to coach each other in skillful lesson design. Still other campuses establish data teams to analyze performance and perception data in order to make changes in the way they do their work.
Small groups of first-, second-, third- and fourth-year principals deepen their leadership
skills in special principal academies led by Stephen Waddell, Ellen Bell, and Lane
Ledbetter, director of curriculum. Tuna sandwiches in hand, developing administrators
collaborate by analyzing data, discussing current research, and, best of all, designing
effective procedures to implement a stronger academic focus on their campuses. In addition,
a newly formed leadership team, consisting of co-chairs from each campus (one assistant
principal and one lead teacher), meet monthly with Margaret Miller, director of professional
learning, and David Holland, director of accountability, research, and program evaluation,
to ensure districtwide implementation of key initiatives. These tri-level looping teams
share authentic evidence of district initiatives at work in classrooms and design "digging
deeper" measures to increase staff and student learning on every campus.A task force from this group recently crafted a much-needed Implementation Innovation Configuration map to measure implementation levels of the key initiatives in BISD. Baseline data collected from classroom teachers help campuses determine their implementation levels. These data provide the foundation for goal setting in campus improvement plans. The descriptors and indicators on the Implementation Innovation Configuration set guideposts as teachers collaborate about how to move from their current status to a deeper level of implementation. (See the Innovation Configuration below.) District leaders benefit from active participation in region-wide consortia at the Educational Service Center, where they network with others regarding continuous improvement practices to achieve results.
Sample Innovation Configuration
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT: Using tools to measure and monitor progress towards goals and objectives.
Before 2003, staff development in BISD had been either nonexistent or a disconnected series of random acts of inservice. Bell garnered the strengths of the curriculum and instruction staff to design professional learning that placed job-alike teachers in small learning communities across the district. Using A Facilitator's Guide to Professional Learning Communities (Jolly, 2005) as a frame- work, Miller coordinated more than 125 action learning teams that met five days throughout the year. These teacher teams analyze data, set goals, design action plans, implement those plans, examine student work, use protocols to examine their own work, and try new practices to improve student performance. Teachers report that they look forward to staff development days and collaborative learning. Teachers found that learning teams afford them a deeper understanding of the interconnections and alignment of what had seemed like isolated initiatives before. Those initiatives work in tandem to engage staff and students in a systemic and systematic journey of continuous improvement.
A transformational shift from thinking about what teachers need to teach to thinking more purposefully about what students need to learn spread like a virus across the district. Teachers eagerly design professional learning to address specific student learning goals. For example, one teacher offers sessions on using Singapore math strategies, while other teachers design professional learning called ShareFests where teachers display and discuss their data, action plans, common assessments, rubrics, units, and student work samples. Teachers and leaders in BISD have become what Doug Reeves (2006) calls "learning leaders" who effectively design their learning in order to facilitate the learning of others, thereby deepening the level of the learning of their students.
4. Engage everyone in meaningful learning and work.
Birdville educators believe that individual staff engagement in their daily work directly impacts student engagement in meaningful learning. Results of the Gallup Q12, a national survey designed to measure employee engagement, reveal increasing staff engagement and satisfaction in the last two years. High Q12 scores indicate organizations with lower turnover, better productivity, better customer loyalty, and superior performance. Birdville staff surveyed responded that they have multiple opportunities to learn and grow. As part of the Schlechty Standard Bearer Network , BISD teachers and leaders focus on designing meaningful work that appeals to the motives of student and adult learners. BISD leaders embed design qualities into all learning experiences through a process called Coaching for Design. Designers use the high-yield classroom strategies that Robert Marzano compiled to address the varied learning needs of BISD adult and student learners.
5. Use data to make decisions.
Birdville ISD designed a tool called the District Dashboard to display data to track progress toward district goals and objectives. Campuses access a variety of student performance reports online. The district recently invested in a data warehousing program that will allow teachers and leaders to manipulate data to answer customized queries. Leaders and teachers have been trained in the use of Baldridge tools and continuous improvement processes. District, campus, and classroom mission statements are posted for all to see. Many teachers engage students in tracking their own performance in data folders using formative and summative assessments. Data walls greet visitors in campus foyers. Principals engaged in an in-depth study on using formative assessment to transform classroom instruction. James Popham, author of Transformative Assessment (ASCD, 2008), will be the keynote speaker at this year's administrator retreat.
By using data to make decisions in the past five years, BISD leaders have reallocated funds, changed requirements, and created programs to boost academic excellence. As a result, the number of National Merit Scholars has increased from 5 to 22. The district pays for PSAT examinations for all 10th- and 11th-grade students. Selected students are invited to participate in a new Superintendent's Scholars program that provides recognition and preparation for PSAT success. Students enrolled in Advanced Placement courses now take the AP exam as an expectation of participation in the college-prep program. BISD allocates money to cover AP examination fees.
BISD has added a program to its three high schools that addresses the needs of an increasingly diverse student population. Site teams support minority students in advanced academic opportunities and college preparation.
LOOKING AHEAD
Is the team of Birdville leaders satisfied with where the district is today? No. The good news is that because of the focus on staff engagement in small learning communities and the use of continuous improvement tools and high-yield strategies to transform instructional practices, student achievement results are beginning to reflect movement in the desired direction. Implementing simple professional learning principles has positioned the district to make a big turn ahead. BISD teams stand ready to lead that transformation.
MARGARET N. MILLER (Margaret_Miller@birdville.k12.tx.us) is director of professional learning.
ELLEN V. BELL (ellenbell@earthlink.net) is former associate superintendent for curriculum and instruction.
DAVID F. HOLLAND (David_Holland@birdville.k12.tx.us) is director of accountability, research, and program evaluation at Birdville Independent School District in Fort Worth, Texas.
REFERENCES
Covey, S. (2008).
The leader in me: How schools and parents around the world are inspiring greatness, one child at a time. New York: Free Press.
Jolly, A. (2005).
A facilitator's guide to professional learning teams. Greensboro, NC: SERVE.
Popham, J. (2008).
Transformative assessment. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Reeves, D.B. (2006).
The learning leader. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Schlechty, P.C. (2002).
Working on the work: An action plan for teachers, principals, and superintendents. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
- National Staff Development Council's Journal of Staff Development (Fall 2009)
