Shadowing as an effective model of observation and organizational change in schools

1. Shadowing Students
An Effective Observation Strategy for
School-wide Leadership and Change

2. A Little About Me…
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heading into my seventh year as a principal
elementary educator for 8 years prior to that
grew up in a house of educators
elementary age children of my own
just a guy that wants to learn how to be better
at his job and life!

3. My Professional Goals
• Goal 1: I will increase my capacity to actively close the
achievement gap.
To reach this goal I will:
• Conduct an action research study seeking to
understand existing and necessary academic,
environmental and social resources associated with
scholars within the achievement gap
• Participate in shared discussions with the CESU
administrative team specific to the data collected
within the study.
• Partner with CHMS administration to create a proposal
for improvement by the end of the 2013-14 school year

4. Professional Goal 2
• Goal 2: I will work toward improving the achievement and learning of all
members of the community.
To reach this goal I will:
• Provide meaningful and relevant data and feedback to educators, families
and school board.
• Utilize existing supervision and evaluation systems to provide thoughtful
guidance to staff
• Improve communication systems to allow for more direct contact and
involvement in curricular, instructional and programming decisions
• Participate in and the support the implementation of embedded
professional development within grade level and content teams
• Maintain and improve lines of communication with community, families
and staff
• Incorporate Common Core State Standards professional development into
school-wide professional development systems of learning

5. Professional Goal 3
• Goal 3: I will implement a shared leadership model and increase
the internal leadership capacity of our school community.
To reach this goal I will:
• Create structures of shared leadership that provide opportunities
for educators to increase shared responsibilities within the school
community
• Support professional development in the area of leadership for
various teams and individuals in the school community
• Encourage shared accountability for outcomes within the school
community
• Solidify a common mission, vision, set of values and goals for the
educators and families within the learning community.

6. Where did this all start?
• Visiting schools
– The Harlem Children’s Zone
– The Riverton Street Charter School
– The Mission Hill School
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Goal obsession
Some more goal obsession
Just a little more goal obsession
Superintendents
– @alberghinij John Alberghini
– @jencesuvt Jennifer Botzojorns
• The Article

7. The Article
•
Lytle, J. H. (1996). The inquiring manager. Phi Delta Kappan, 77(10), 664-670.
• “Mr. Lytle describes a three-year effort to lead a group of
urban principals and a group of middle management
support staff toward the design of demonstrably effective
educational organizations.”
Image from https://scholar.gse.upenn.edu/tlytle/

8. Changing Leadership Paradigms
• Modeling intensive field study
– first impressions
– classrooms and subjects
– focused on students and how they were
“experiencing” classes and school in general
– challenged what superintendents were “supposed to
do”
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What are the themes? What are we
seeing? How do we change it?
• (Lytle, 1996)

9. Bringing the Concept to
Administrators
• Student studies to understand why students behave
and perform the way they do
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single student
shared with staff
shadow the student for a whole day
interview (student and family)
record review
interview teacher
keep a journal
report out
• Changes the culture of reflection
(Lytle, 1996)

10. And On And On And On…
• Principals studying principals
• Openness to learning from each other teachers training principals
• Examining systems, models, instruction

11. Our Administrative Team
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Everyone read the article
Discussed and formed a plan
Agreed to shadow at least one student
Discuss and share data and reflections at
monthly administrative meetings
• Connecting with our goals, missions, action
plans, etc.

12. Partnering Up
• The middle school principal and I have
partnered up in this endeavor, taking it one
level higher. As one of our professional goals
for the year, we plan to use the reflections and
information gathered through the process of
shadowing to help us formulate a proposal to
our town, district and supervisory union in an
effort to close our achievement gap.

13. Back To My Professional Goals
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Goal 1: I will increase my capacity to actively close the achievement gap.
To reach this goal I will:
Conduct an action research study seeking to understand existing and necessary academic, environmental and social resources associated with
scholars within the achievement gap
Participate in shared discussions with the CESU administrative team specific to the data collected within the study.
Partner with CHMS administration to create a proposal for improvement by the end of the 2013-14 school year
Goal 2: I will work toward improving the achievement and learning of all members of the community.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
To reach this goal I will:
Provide meaningful and relevant data and feedback to educators, families and school board.
Utilize existing supervision and evaluation systems to provide thoughtful guidance to staff
Improve communication systems to allow for more direct contact and involvement in curricular, instructional and programming decisions
Participate in and the support the implementation of embedded professional development within grade level and content teams
Maintain and improve lines of communication with community,families and staff
Incorporate Common Core State Standards professional development into school-wide professional development systems of learning
Goal 3: I will implement a shared leadership model and increase the internal leadership capacity of our school community.
•
•
•
•
•
To reach this goal I will:
Create structures of shared leadership that provide opportunities for educators to increase shared responsibilities within the school community
Support professional development in the area of leadership for various teams and individuals in the school community
Encourage shared accountability for outcomes within the school community
Solidify a common mission, vision, set of values and goals for the educators and families within the learning community.

14. Needed To Create a Timeline
– September - shadow students, observations and review paper records
• (student observations continue throughout the year)
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October - Interview students
November - Interview students’ parents or guardians
December - Interview teachers
January - compile information
February - Draft Presentation and report review
March - Draft/Edit
April - Roll out to admin
May - Roll out to staff
June - Summer planning based on findings and implementation plan
• In addition we met weekly to determine data collection themes

15. The Volume Got Turned Down…
• As you start this process, there’s a level of
calm and clarity that comes along. The
volume on a lot of outside stressors gets
turned way down and you realize how
important it is to focus on the students. It’s
very powerful.

16. Where to start with groups?
• Scholars can be grouped any different way:
– one student
– A group of students
– based on data
– Demographics
– history
– challenge
– instructional experiences
– randomly

17. How we grouped students…
• We chose to select one student in each
classroom as an anchor student. Our reason
was that this:
– would give us an opportunity to provide feedback
in every classroom (buy in from all teachers)
– could help us identify trends across the school
setting
– would passively motivate staff toward
improvement

18. Day One
• I started observations on the very first day of
school
– Wanted to see how that first day went from a
student’s perspective
– Spent about thirty minutes in each room,
observing through the experience of the anchor
student
– Took copious notes!

19. Discoveries
• Scholars – There were several immediately
significant themes that I observed in that first
day:
– The anchor students I identified had challenges
associated with food
– Adults didn’t consistently connect with the anchor
students as easily as with other students
– I became hooked on the process!

20. Nuts and Bolts
• There were some things that helped in terms
of set up:
– Folder on my computer for each student
– Color coding notes (red = something that could be
measured, blue = significant, etc.)
– Connecting with guidance counselors, social
workers, etc.
– Brainstorming with other admin
– Taking lots of notes!

21. Weekly Data Themes
• In partnership with the middle school
administrator we’ve weekly chosen a data
theme or question. Some examples are:
– Record review – we reviewed the records of each
student (quality of records and interesting
connections)
– School readiness (preschool experience and
readiness for middle school)
– Attendance information (tardy, absent)

22. To What End…
So, why do this?
• Encourage and model a culture of
introspection and reflection
• Find ways to design organizations, pedagogy,
programs and curricula that are responsive to
our students’ needs
• Be a better leader, connect with students and
staff on a deeper more pertinent level

23. My Contact Information
• Michael Berry
• Email - Michael.Berry@cesuvt.org
• Twitter- @principalberry
• Google + - Michael Berry
• Future of Education:
www.futureofeducation.com/profile/MichaelBerry412
• Blog - http://principalberry.wordpress.com/