This document summarizes the key discussions and activities from a principals' retreat held on August 11, 2011. The retreat focused on strengthening collaboration and commitment to norms, sharing learning about professional learning communities (PLCs), exploring the purpose and structures of the district leadership team (DLT), proposed revisions to the teacher compensation (Q-Comp) program, and connecting expectations to commitments. Participants engaged in reflection activities, discussion of meeting procedures, explored components of the school improvement plan and professional development plan, and committed to focusing their PLC work on collaboration, learning, and results.

1. Principals’ Retreat
August 11, 2011

2. Start Talking About What We Care About
Human conversation is the most ancient and
easiest way to cultivate the conditions for
change. If we can sit together and talk about
what’s important to us, we begin to come alive.
We share what we see, what we feel, and we
listen to what others see and feel. . .The simplest
way to begin finding each other again is to start
talking about what we care about.
~Wheatley, 2002

3. Bracketing
• Create a “to-do”
list for the things
you would be
doing if you were
not here today.

4. Revisiting Norms
• Review the emerging norms
that were generated
yesterday.
• Identify a norm that you
want to work on during
your learning today.
• Share the norm and your
reason for focusing on it
with an elbow partner.

5. Meeting Procedures and Routines
High Five
Look for the “high five” as a signal to
come back together—a signal to wrap
up your final point during a discussion
as a sign of transition
Meeting Documents
Go to subfolder “Administrative
Meetings” in shared folder for
“Continuous Improvement” –look for
meeting date to locate materials and
processes and protocols
In Case of Emergencies
For meetings at DEC, have
administrative assistant contact Judy
Sherin at ext. 6279. At ASC, contact
Jan Larsen at ext. 2005
Meeting By Memo
Look for a “meeting by memo” that
communicates information, shares
resources, and provides updates that
don’t need to be addressed at our
meetings

6. Clear to Partly Cloudy
• What became clearer as a
result of our learning
yesterday?
• What is still partly cloudy?

7. Key Objectives for August 11
• Strengthen our commitment to norms
• Share learning about leading PLCs
• Explore 3 Big Ideas and 4 Focus Questions for PLCs
• Explore structures and purposes of DLT
• Learn about proposed revisions to Q-Comp (Pro-Pay) program
• Connect expectations to commitments

8. Collaboration “Lite”
• Avoid collaboration “lite.” Collaborative time
can’t be about sharing. It has to be focused
on student learning. Continue to keep the
focus on learning and always ask, “How does
this help kids?”

9. Clear Expectations
• Schmoker states, “Clarity Precedes
Competence.” If we are to be clear about
expectations, then how do we structure our
PLC time so that focus on collaboration,
learning, and results?” How do we not turn
our PLC time into book studies?

10. What’s Our Focus?
• Fullan writes, “Collaborative cultures, which
by definition have close relationships, are
indeed powerful, but unless they are focusing
on the right things, they may end up being
powerfully wrong.” What is the caution for
what we need to be focusing on?

11. Collaboration
• Collaboration, teamwork, and norms. Our
collaborative teams have to work with one
another if we are going to make a difference
for kids. How will we (the adults) behave in
order to accomplish our purpose? How will
we hold each other accountable?

12. Interventions
• If you are going to make a difference, you
must put interventions into place--no excuses!
“If you have lots of kids failing (or not doing
well), you don’t have an intervention problem,
you have a ‘what you’re doing all day
problem.’”

13. Common Assessments
• The power of common assessments comes
not from giving them, but from what we do
with them after we give them. We need to
develop a school-wide systemic plan to filter
all decisions through the lens of their
(common assessments) impact on learning.

14. Learning for ALL Mission
• Our most complex and difficult challenge is
how to ensure high levels of learning for all
students, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender,
socio-economic status and language. What
will it take if we really had a learning for all
mission--not just in words, but in action?

15. Focus on Students and Learning
• We have to develop and sustain a positive
culture of collaboration where we develop
and monitor norms and where our time is
spent with a laser-like focus on students, their
needs, and their learning.

16. Reflection on Learning
• When you reflect on the themes that were shared
and think about your role in leading collaborative
teams, what do you want and need from TLLT to
be as effective as you can be?
• Document your wants and needs as a table.

17. 3 Big Ideas of PLCs
• Focus on…
–Collaboration
–Learning
–Results

18. 3 Big Ideas of PLCs: Inventory
• Complete one the
inventory for one of the
Big Ideas for PLCs
• Think about how the 3
Big Ideas inventories
can be used as school
processes/program
data.
FOCUS ON…
Collaboration
Learning
Results

19. Identifying Goals:
Long Range and Quick Wins
• As you review your responses to the self-
assessment, identify a quick win goal and a long-
range goal.
What is something
that you could do to
improve to get a
“quick win.”
What is something that you
want/need to do that will
take more time?

20. Turn & Talk: Why a Quick Win Goal?
• What are the
benefits of setting
quick win goals?
• Turn and Talk with
one of your table
mates.

21. Go See Vera!
• Be back and
ready for more
highly-
caffeinated
learning in 10
minutes!

22. Aligning PLC Work to SIP: An Example
From “Self-Assessment for a Focus on Learning” Item E:
ITEM E:
We use the data from
formative assessments to
guide instructional
differentiation decisions,
pacing decisions, and
intervention decisions.
SIP Goal:
100 % of classroom teachers will
incorporate and document the
increased use of formative assessments
to guide instructional differentiation
decisions, pacing decisions, and
intervention decisions during the
20111-2012 school year.

23. SIP Components
Current Reality/Needs Assessment
Bold Stretch Goals
Action Plans
Budget Summary for Interventions/Enrichments

24. Action Plan:
Components and Implementation
Required Components:
1. Core Instruction
2. System of Interventions
3. Climate and Culture
4. Community
Engagement
Implementation:
1. Actions/Strategies
2. Evidence of
Implementation
3. Evidence of Impact
4. Resources Required
5. Persons Responsible
6. Tools and Timelines for
Progress Monitoring

25. About the SIP…
• The development of the
plan is a process.
• The plan is a living, learning
document influenced by
data analysis, by PD, by
progress monitoring…aka
continuous improvement.
• The components of the plan
will be more deeply studied
and developed throughout
the year.

26. Aligning SIP and AYP
• TLLT will assist with AYP plan
updates and development.
• Needs assessments MAY require
minimal updating for MDE.
• Other generic components of the
plan will be “crafted” by TLLT.
• Buildings should only need to
“cut and paste.”
• The AYP plan should not be part
of any “crazy making.”
JUST A THOUGHT…
If we are doing the
right work and
asking the right
questions, then
requirements for
MDE are taken care
of.

27. Got Questions?
• What questions do you
have about the
development of the
SIP?
• Record questions that
your horizontal
collaborative team
generates…think about
how TLLT can support
your leadership.

28. Reflection on Learning
Walk and Talk
– Join a colleague with
whom you have not
had a chance to
process your learning
– Spend 5-7 minutes
walking and talking
about what you
learned and/or plan
to do

29. Aligning SIP and PD
SIP Goal: 100 % of classroom teachers will incorporate and document the
increased use of formative assessments to guide instructional differentiation
decisions, pacing decisions, and intervention decisions during the 20111-2012
school year.
PD Strategy:
All staff will learn more
about the benefits of
formative assessments
and incorporate
strategies into their
instructional planning at
late starts.
PD Monitoring Strategy:
All staff will bring
reflections on their
teaching and learning
copies of formative
assessments to their
collaborative team
meetings when talking
about student data.
PD Monitoring Strategy:
All instructional staff will
contribute to a formative
assessment “toolkit” in
shared folder, including
only those assessments
that have informed their
teaching and impacted
their students’ learning.

30. PD Plan Components
• Develop SMART
Goals for PD
• Create an Action
Plan
• Identify PD Dates
• Create a Budget
Think About…PLC Work
How do your PD dates
differ from your PLC dates?
Think About…Alignment
Is what we are planning
directly and tightly aligned
with our SIP goals?

31. Required Component: SMART PD Goals
Professional Development
SMART Goals
– Specific
– Measurable
– Attainable
– Realistic
– Timebound
• Site goals need to emerge
from your SIP's current
reality and be aligned
with the District PD goals.
• Determine the
professional learning that
is required in relation to
the four focus areas of
the SIP: core instruction,
system of intervention,
climate and culture, and
community engagement.

32. Required Component: Action Plan
• Create an action plan that
details how the learning for
adults will be implemented
and monitored.
• Include the components in
the bulleted list to the right
in your action plan:
• The specific learning that your
site will engage in
• The timeline for when the
learning will occur
• The timeline for monitoring
the learning (getting at impact
and results)
• The processes you will use for
monitoring learning (i.e.,
reflections on learning,
reflections for action, student
learning, etc.)
• The resources required to
support your PD
• The person(s) responsible

33. Required Component: Sustainable Focus
• Schedule building PD for
workshop week and late
starts (9/28, 11/16, 2/1,
3/21, and 5/16).
• PD may be scheduled
during some PLC meeting
times if the learning goals
fit with the work of the PLC.
• Teaching and Learning will
coordinate PD for 10/17,
1/23, and 2/20.
The focus of PLC work is for
teams to focus on
processing the four
questions that guide PLC
work:
1. What do we want our
students to know?
2. How will we know they are
learning?
3. How will we respond when
they don't learn?
4. How will we respond when
they do learn?

34. Required Component: Budget
• Use the template in the
PD guidelines document
(part of SIP plan).
Questions to Consider:
• How will the use of PD
funds connect to
and/or extend work on
our SIP goals?
• Do the expenditures
align with high-quality
PD?

35. Monitor Learning and Impact of PD
• As part of the professional development session at your
site, be certain to allow time for individuals, teams, and
your building to respond to the following questions:
1. What concepts, strategies, or practices did I/we learn?
2. What will I/we do with what we learned? What is our plan to
implement our learning?
• After learning has been implemented, individuals, teams,
and buildings should respond to the following question:
1. What did I/we learn as a result of what I/we implemented?
How has my/our practice been changed? How did my/our
learning impact my/our students?

36. The Whys of Reflection
Reflection on PD
• Allows the narrative or story
of individuals, teams, and
buildings to be
systematically documented
• Aligns with expectations for
reflective processes
connected to the proposed
updates for Pro-Pay (Q-
Comp)
• Is required for the teacher
license renewal process
required by MDE as of July
2012

37. Lunch Break
Be back and
ready to
continue our
learning at…

38. DLT: What’s NEW
• What do you NEED,
EXPECT, and WANT
from our work as a DLT
next week?
• Work with your
horizontal collaborative
team to document
expectations that will
shape our agenda.
NEED
EXPECT
WANT

39. SIP and PDP: DLT, BLT and Other TLAs
• What needs to happen during and/or with DLT to
support the development, implementation, and
ongoing assessment of your SIP and PD plans?
• What do we need to do to support the work of BLT
with regard to the development, implementation,
and ongoing assessment of your SIP and PD plans?

40. Proposed Revisions to Q-Comp
• At your table, view the frameworks by
wearing different hats.
• As we work our way through the
proposed changes to Q-Comp,
approach the plan as teachers.
– What questions would you
(teachers) have?
• Think about the implications for you.
– As administrators, what questions
do you have?
• Record your questions on the Q-Comp
Questions Form at your table.
Process Overview
deBono’s Thinking Hats
Encourages multiple
perspectives
Looks for gaps…potential
problems…undiscovered
possibilities

41. Love the Questions
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your
heart. Try to love the questions themselves.
Do not now seek the answers, which cannot
be given you because you would not be able
to live them. And the point is to live
everything. Live the questions now. Live your
questions now, and perhaps even without
knowing it, you will live along some distant
day into your answers.”
From poet R. M. Rilke

42. PLC Planning
• Meet with your vertical collaborative team
and discuss…
• How you are going to shift the focus for your
PLC work to a focus on learning, collaboration
and results?
• How you are going to use your PLC time?

43. To the Moon!
A group of US Senators
were visiting NASA at the
time when funding was
under threat. One Senator
asked a man cleaning the
floor, “So, what are you
doing here?” The man
answered, “I’m here putting
a man on the moon.”

44. The Journey of Organizational Change
The journey isn’t linear. It’s a journey—a
process of continually asking, “So, how are
the children?” It’s an opportunity to be
and become better for our students.

45. Connecting Expectations & Commitments
• Given what we have
learned as a community
of learners the last two
days, what are we
collectively committed
to doing for our staff,
our students, and each
other this year?

46. • 8:30 – 11:30 Secondary
• 1 – 4pm ElementaryAdministrivia
• 9:30 – 12:30 in clusters
• Rotate sites
Vertical
Collaborative Team
• 8:30 – 11:30 Secondary
• 1 – 4pm Elementary
Horizontal
Collaborative Team
• 9:30 – 12:30
• ASC or Great RoomDistrict Alignment
Meetings focused on the
“Right Work”
Site Visits, DLT work, and PD calendar aligned to support the
work of principals and BLTs

47. Norm Check
• How effectively
did you follow the
norm you were
focusing on?
• How effectively
are we doing?

48. Key Messages
Think about…
Creating collaborative
culture
Deepening our
understanding of PLCs
Clarifying our DLT work
Exploring Q-Comp
revisions
Connecting expectations
to commitments