Category Archives: Blog

The “Community”. Who Exactly Is this?

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“… the community…”.  We hear these words spoken, often as either preamble to or closing of a strong statement.  “The community is frustrated/concerned/angry about …”.  We also hear, “The community is proud of …”.  There are operative words in these statements, the most important being “community”.  Who is the community being referenced?  Who is the speaker in relationship to the community?  What should we know?

Listening carefully is the first step in all communications.  We need to listen to and note the words spoken.  Better yet, if they are in writing, read them carefully.  Showing respect to the speaker is the second step.  No matter if we agree or disagree with the words, there never is a reason for not showing respect to a person who communicates with school leaders.  There must be something behind the words to overcome the usual inertia of status quo and cause a speaker/writer to act.

The third step is understanding the meaning of the word “community”.  This single word is used and abused in communication from persons in the school district to school leaders.  Sometimes with purpose and most often not.  Who is the community referenced?  Most often, a reference to community” is used to inform the board “I am not alone in this.”  Or, it is used to imply a consensus of opinion.  Or, it is used to imply a very large number of people.  There are implications when people refer to the weight of community.

What should we know about community?

I draw virtual concentric circles around the schoolhouse to illustrate the meaning of this word. 

The largest circle is the community at-large.  They are all the adults who reside in the school district.  There are 8,000-plus souls living in our rural school district.  We reside in seven villages or towns or townships.  Each is a distinct geographic, political, and economic area of the district.  The adult population is 81% of the full population; 19% being 19 years or younger.  Focus on the number 6,480 when thinking about the entire community.  6,480 approximates the number of adults in the community.

100% of the adult population are local taxpayers and potential voters in school elections.  Less than 35% of the taxpayers and electors have had any personal connection to the school.  The majority are spectators of the school, if they think of the school at all.

More than 70% of the voters in school referendum elections vote in favor of proposals that increase their local property tax.  Voter turnout for school elections usually is 65-70% of the registered voters, or 70% of the 70% of adults who vote cast a positive vote on school issues.  Voters with and without personal or familial connection to the school readily provide favorable support to the school. 

The second circle is the community of adults whose grown children attended our school as children/students.  These are older community adults.  Less than 35% of the adult population had their children attend our school when their children were school-aged, or, more than 65% of the adult population has not had a “parent of a student” relationship with the school.

The third largest circle is the community of adults who attended the school as students.  Our community retains many of our high school graduates.  This is a good place to live and raise a family, if an adult can find and sustain employment in a predominantly tourist industry.  Less than 25% of the adult population attended our school when they were school students, or, more than 75% of the population did not have an “I attended this school” relationship with the district.

The fourth circle is the community of adults who have children attending our school currently.  Less than 15% of the adult population has a school-age child attending our school, or, more than 85% of the adult population does not have a child attending our school.

The smallest circles, and there are several inside the fourth ring, are the communities of parents whose children participate in the various school programs.  Small circles are elementary or middle school or high school parents.  Small circles are parents of children in sports or theater or music or forensics or other specific school programs.  The smallest inner circles are the parents of children in a specific program, such as football or band or students receiving special or gifted education or in a single grade level.  Most small, inner circle communities contain fewer than .005% of the community at-large.

The governance of the school board is transactional.  Although the powers of the board are limited by state statute, the decisions of the board are influenced by the community of its constituents.  Board members vote on recommendations and proposals based upon what they perceive is best for educating the children of the community.  Their votes also are influenced by the wants and desires of the adults within the communities.  Conversely, those adults rely upon the votes of board members to develop “best” practices for educating all children and to obtain wanted programs for their children.

The first intersection of board members and community occurs when board members are elected to their office and when the community votes on school referenda.  Our board is non-partisan.  Board members describe their experience, values, and the focus they will give to their board work in anticipation of election and the electorate chooses board members that best match the electorates values and focus. That is the theory.

Most board/community intersections are informal and casual.  These are the comments and questions that are shared at the grocery store, gas station, pharmacy, hardware store, restaurant, church, and anywhere a board member and other communities of adults come into daily contact.  It is natural and non-confrontational, and usually just conversational in nature.  Most of the time, these casual exchanges allow board members an opportunity to inform and clarify understandings about the life of the school.  They also give a board member a measuring stick of issues.  If few are talking about the same issue, the measure is different than if many talking about the same issue.

The next intersection occurs at board meetings when members of the community attend a board business meeting in-person to voice their wants and needs, concerns and frustrations, and sometimes anger.  There seldom is a turn out of community at a board meeting to applaud or commend board actions.  In the Time of COVID, this intersection is via Zoom.  Interestingly, fewer that five persons attended most business meetings before COVID.  Now, 50-60 persons are in the virtual audience.  There are more virtual audience members for controversial issues.

An in-person intersection is the most telling and compelling transaction between a school board and the school communities.  The circles really tighten and the power of “perceived community” is distorted.  A small group of vocal adults, for example ten (10), representing one tenth of one percent of the adults in the community, who personally confront the board have a power disproportionate to the number of community adults they represent.  In a small room where the board meets, ten vocal adults have more power than fifty adults who make isolated phone calls to a board member or who send an individual e-mail to the school board.  Ten in-person adults are perceived as a critical number; it feels much bigger and awesome than it is.

There are issues of equity and equality in which one (1) adult making a righteous request or demand of the school board should expect a favorable outcome.  The power of a person speaking for equity and equality should garner board member attention and action.  These issues arise, but not often.

The majority of times when adults address the board in-person are not about equity or equality, but about wants for self- or group-interest and advantage.  Create this program.  Allow this event that current policy prevents.  Hire a preferred person for this new position.  Change a policy or create a new policy.  And, more commonly, redirect or countermand an action by an administrator or teacher.  Most in-person intersections are not macro issues but micro issues.  And, almost all such in-person intersections have unknown and unanticipated consequences. 

These are moments when board members face the issue of their office.  Is the board elected to provide the community with what the community wants when the community wants it?  Or, is the board elected to create policies under the state statutes and rules and recognize that some community wants are not appropriate under those policies, statutes, and rules?  Saying “yes” or “no” to ten in-person community adults defines a board’s understanding of its legal functions relative to various community groups and the relative value of each community.  These events also define the board’s balance between macro and micro governing the school district. 

Board members live and work and prosper within their community at-large and, given their personal and familial interests, populate many of the smaller circles of the community.  These also are realities.

Regarding community, listen, show respect, understand the present use of the word community, and act as an elected school board member.  Easy peasy.  Or, given the community, not.

Room For Many On The High Ground

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A lawyer-friend provides me with insight and advice that is invaluable.  She inserts into our conversation at just the right time, “… there is room for many people to stand on the high ground” or “there is room for more than one person to stand on the high ground.” 

In our democracy, we prize and favor free speech and the right of every person to their opinions and the opportunity to voice their opinions.  We start from this premise in every consequential discussion.  The more opinions expressed, the richer the discussion and likelihood of consensus with an outcome.

Knowing which opinions create the best answers can be subjective.  Today too many public conversations are dominated by loud voices that drown out other voices and loudness should not be equated with best.  Media can be a fog-horn – loud and blaring.  We are equally troubled with strong expressions of self-interest.  Those whose interests are threatened or ignored add to the cacophony of voices and noise.  A democratic process fundamentally is noisy.  As I have written in the past, Occam provides us with a tool for paring possible answers to the best answer.   Occam tells us to maintain the heart of the objective, its simplest expression, as the only objective to be achieved.  High ground is the simplest, most ethical, just-for-all response to the question.

Another writer, Sun Tzu, teaches us in The Art of War, to find and stake out the high ground.  He says the high ground allows a leader the strategic view of all that surrounds him.  He recognizes the low ground and its limitations for seeing all possibilities and for successful advancement against an elevated and often-obscured goal.  The analogy of the high ground translates from a military advantage of higher terrain to finding the highest ideals in a multi-opinioned syllogism leading to a best resolution of a question.  When all things are not equal, we should always seek the high ground.

Many claim they are on the high ground and often do so without examining where they stand.  It is as if the first person to claim a superior position is superior by default.  Not so.  The high ground is not where you stand but what you stand for.

Words help us understand the concept of high ground and I favor one word in particular – transcendent.  To transcend means to rise above or go beyond, to overcome adversity, and triumph over the negative.  Transcendence formulates an “ideal” that describes the “best” for all concerned and then works to make it “real”.  Taking the high ground is to not accept the usual or possible lesser outcomes.  Instead, taking is and strive for better and then best.  To be on the high ground is to have a better argument, one that overcomes negative and destructive comments.  A transcendent statement or belief shuts down opposition because it cuts to the heart of the matter and sheds prejudice, self-interest, and malice .  It is hard to argue against an ideal without painting oneself into the corner of one’s bias.

Public education contains many solid high ground positions.  In each, there is an aspiration for transcending what has been to what needs to be in order for the ideals of public education to live.  Equitable access.  Equal opportunity.  Just and fair treatment.  Free.  Diversity of opinion.  High standards.  Many chances.  Individual potential.  Universal literacy.  Each is an ideal we build practices to attain.

In every instance when education has moved to higher ground it has been the result of individuals and groups of people who have made aspirational arguments and pointed the way upward.  As an institution, public education tends to rest at a status quo – institutions are only what they are required to be. 

Schools, as expressions of their communities, have not always sought the high ground.  Often the judicial system of government has helped schools transcend lower ground practices regarding race, gender, poverty, and special education.  Even with legal decrees, it still takes local initiative to move an institution to higher ground.  Aspirational people are needed to hold an institution’s feet to the fire of doing what is right.

There are inherent problems with taking the high ground.  The high ground becomes personalized.  Those who claim it, assume a superior status over others.  The high ground becomes moralized.  Those who claim it assume a moral superiority over others.  It becomes possessive.  Those who claim the high ground want to personally own it and fight, often wrongfully, to retain it.  There is an assumption that the high ground is reality – it is not.  The high is an ideal to be striven for.

The power of a high ground position is when more and more people take a stand for it.  Some may think that the gravity of numbers defeats high ground.  Additional people necessitate compromise and compromise dissolves the clarity of high ground.  Too many people weigh down and flatten the argument.  Too many people look like a crowd and crowds do not comport with our conception of high ground.

To the contrary, when more people want to affirm a high ground ideal, they create a new standard for better practices.  This new standard becomes the base from an even high ground ideal can be postulated.  The higher the number of people who affirm a high ground ideal, the more likely higher ground can rise to new heights.

My lawyer-friend says, “affirm a high ground ideal and then move over so others can join”.   

Mission Creep Happens

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One day you take a pause, look around, and wonder, “How did we get here?  Is this where we are supposed to be?”.  You find yourself in a place and circumstance you had not anticipated.  A school is not immune from this wonderment.

Organizational creep is a phenomenon not a person though there may be similarities between the two.  The verb to creep is to move slowly and carefully and to creep has many applications in our language.  The botanical verb to creep is to grow by the extension of roots and branches.  Creeping is natural in nature.  In human endeavors, children creep to become taller and more adult-like over time.  Habits creep up on us, especially the late-night snack’s effect when we step on a bathroom scale in the morning.  Groups and organizations also creep, especially in their mission, purpose, and goals.  Mission creep occurs when an organization’s actions stray beyond the stated mission of the organization.  The outcome of creeping means the organization may no longer be faithful to its initial and stated mission, but become bit off-centered in trying to be something it isn’t intended to be.

Life gives us many examples of organizational creep.  As a micro example, an idea for a new project is presented to a group of decision makers.  In the initial explanation, the idea is straightforward.  The focus of the new idea is to create new eco-friendly space that people in the organization can enjoy in a relaxing moment – a break area.  Every person enjoys breaks, lunch, before and after work moments and this place will be enhance their relaxation and be eco-friendly to boot.  Keep it simple.  A budget of $1,000 is approved and the idea is launched.

Ah, but after a few months the tables and chairs no longer fit the concept and benches and tall boys are wanted.  An eco space calls for greenery and plantings are ordered and installed.  The new space is appealing and more folks use it.  At the close of year one, expenses total $5,000, well over the approved budget, but because the space is popular and used no one points to the budget over run.  During year two, users ask if they can bring some of their work to the eco area and work there.  Just a few users initially are interested, but the space will need new infrastructure.  WIFI and electrical outlets are installed.  Now more users are interested and management of the eco space is required to efficiently schedule its use.  And, to do increased maintenance.  And, to be present to support users who have work-related needs.  At the start of year three, decision makers are asked to approve hiring an eco space facilitator at $15.00 an hour.  That wage is $31,200 a year.  Mission creep achieved.  Break room becomes new work environment and $1,000 per year becomes $30,000-plus.  Simple is as simple does; it creeps toward complexity.

Or, is this example an example of a good idea becoming a better idea?  Retrace back to the initial purpose: an enhanced space for moments of relaxation in a workday.  Retrace back to the initial cost/effect: $1,000 for a small concept.  Retrace the decision making: instead of the mission driving decisions the space drove the decisions.  Creep.

Schools see unintentional organizational creep all the time.  Most creeping is additive and addictive.  A classroom wants new shelving for more reading materials for children to read while in the classroom.  Done.  Materials go digital and the classroom wants several computer carousels.  Done.  Tech goes personal.  The classroom wants an IPad for each child.  Done.  The new tech needs more WIFI and electrical outlets.  Done.  A behavioral study indicates that in class reading time increased with the addition of more reading material and remained at that level with the addition of computer carousels and IPads and WIFI and electricals.  The mission of reading improvement was overcome by the mission to change with the times. 

We also observe mission creep by inadvertently altering time for instruction.  An elementary school has a balanced approach to academics, arts, PE, and foreign language instruction.  The balance is that children receive instruction in all these subjects each day of the school week.  When annual assessments indicate that many K-5 children are not making expected progress in numeracy and mathematical problem solving, a school conducts a study looking for improved curriculum.  The new adoption requires more minutes each day for math instruction.  Done.  On another front, children whose reading achievement is below expectation are assigned to work with a reading interventionist.  The time for this additional work is carved out of the full instructional day and children who do not need intervention are provided time for personalized reading.  The upshot to these changes is that instructional time for art, music, PE, and foreign language are reduced.  At first the reduction was in minutes per day for these “specials” and later a shift to alternating day instruction in specials and then to once-a-week instruction.  Achievement assessments indicate that performance in math and reading improved with additional time.  Learning and individual growth in art, music, PE, and foreign language diminished with the loss of time.  And, interest in art, music, and foreign language decreased.  At no point did the school evaluate its mission for K-5 education or proclaim a change from a balanced time approach to an increased focus on academics approach.  The school crept from balance to imbalance.  After the fact, we find our creeping has inadvertent outcomes.

How to prevent creep?  Regularly check yourself in the organizational mirror.  In the left hand, hold up your adopted mission statement.  In the right hand, hold up a snapshot of your organizational structure including where you spend time, money, and resources.  Does your right hand reflect the priorities and commitments of your left hand?  If these align, your organization still has fidelity with its stated mission.  If not, your organization is experiencing creep.  It is time to reconsider your mission or to rescale your organizational behaviors.  Either reconsideration or rescaling may be appropriate as doing something is required to re-achieve organizational fidelity to mission and purpose.  Sometimes we outgrow our mission and the mission must change.  Sometimes we creep beyond our mission and we must realign our work to the continuing mission.

My Yesteryear Peers Are Gone. What Do I Do Now?

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Eventually, every educator leaves school.  Some retire.  Some move to another professional opportunity.  Some leave the profession.  The longer an educator’s tenure in a school, the more likely the outcome of being the last of your original peer group.  What does a veteran educator do when all in her peer group have left the school?

A teacher’s first year in the classroom can be traumatic.  Regardless of prior work experiences or the richness of student teaching, the first weeks of a first teaching assignment in an “I don’t know anyone” new school can create extreme anxiety and tension.  On the outside a rookie teacher may look well-put-together, but underneath the skin lies a tempest of frazzled nerves.  Will my students like me?  Will they do what I ask them to do?  Can I gain and maintain reasonable classroom controls?  Is my lesson plan good enough to cause them to learn?  What will I do if the answer to all these questions is “No!!!”? 

Classroom teaching is unbelievably personal.  A teacher stands alone before wide-eyed children, some wild-eyed, and begins the teaching and learning dance of instruction.  Most first-year teachers have tunnel vision.  All they see, hear, and feel is their aloneness.  It takes a bit of time for a rookie to look up from these very personal daily challenges and realize there are other rookie teachers in the school.  Not many, but there are other first year teachers “enjoying” the same first-year challenges.  And, there are last year’s rookies who survived and are in their classrooms for a second year.  This group becomes a natural peer group for a first-year teacher.  No matter where they come from, their gender, race, or background – first-year teachers who find each other are bonded in friendship and kindred spirit forever.  The word “kindred” fits this bonding exceptionally well.

Kindred first-year teachers resemble young mothers who find other young mothers in their neighborhood and become kindred in the raising of children.  Or younger couples who find other young couples in their community and become kindred in friendship and support of each other.

Within a school faculty it is easy to identify kindred groups.  The rookie class of 2001 and the rookie class of 2011 still seek each other during the school day and sit together in meetings.  They lunch together and attend professional conferences together.  When asked for professional opinions, they look to each other first.  They are their own reference point even after ten and twenty years in the school.

Becoming a veteran teacher in a school carries gravitas.  Younger teachers take professional leads from veteran teachers.  Principals rely upon the leadership and insight of teachers with greater and wider experiences.  As a kindred group becomes more veteran, they may hold more sway in a school faculty.  “Sway” is an interesting concept.  By their nature, teachers seldom tell other teachers what to do, but they do influence each other.  Sway is an informal influencing. 

As time passes, however, life paths that were converged at school years before start to diverge.  Some of the kindred group leave a school for life in another community.  Some leave teaching.  Some retire. 

A time comes when a veteran teacher looks around as she did in her first year for her kindred group and finds she is the last of her group in the school.  Her “group”, her “dream team”, her peers are no longer present.  What does she do now?

To paraphrase Tim Robbins in Stephen King’s Shawshank Redemption, “…get busy staying or get busy moving on…”.  These things are true for you in your school home.

  • A quality teacher never knows more about teaching than on her last day in the classroom.  Your talents are needed and wanted.  You are the aggregate of your professional training and experience, and you bring tremendous value to your school and colleagues.  Get busy adapting and stay.
  • If you are not ready to retire or move on, don’t.  Retire or move on for the right reasons not a single, wrong reason.  Get busy adapting and stay.
  • Senior teachers make bona fide connections with younger teachers all the time.   Younger teachers will not replace the camaraderie of a kindred, first-year peer group, but they still are bona fide as strong, professional, and personal friendships.  Younger teachers need you.  Get busy adapting and stay.
  • There are other roles for you in your school besides the classroom.  Your talents may produce strong results in an interventionist, specialist, or director role.  Get busy adapting and stay.
  • School cultures evolve.  The culture that you and your kindred group experienced as younger teachers is not a forever culture.  If the culture has changed so much that you no longer find your professional home in your school, get busy moving on.
  • Perception is reality.  If your perception is that professional life without your kindred group is no longer tenable, get busy moving on.

Teaching is a highly productive profession.  A teacher causes children to learn.  Sometimes the engine of a teacher’s productivity comes from her engagement with a kindred group.  When a teacher finds herself as the last of her group in her school, it is a decision time.  Get busy adapting and contributing to your school or get busy moving on. 

The Full Monty

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A small parade of thirteen kindergarten children walked single-file down the right-hand side of the hallway to the elementary school office.  Their teacher was last in line.  When the parade pooled around the office door, a child in the middle knocked on the door.  The door held a large glass panel and the children could see their school secretary rise from her desk area, walk to the door, open it, and stand before them. 

The teacher quietly said, “One, two, three…” and her class of tykes sang Happy Birthday to their school secretary who beamed through the first singing and the teacher’s “Now, let’s do that again”.

There were tears and laughter and a heart-felt “Thank you!”. And, smiles on every face.

As their kindergarten education concludes in this year of pandemic, each child in this particular class will have succeeded in reaching the teacher’s goals for reading and language acquisition, counting and beginning numeracy skills, and writing words and small sentences on paper.  Each will have begun a K-5 thread of investigations into plants and animals; family, neighborhoods, and community; the sun and  moon, and stars; and, will have filled page after page with drawings, and pictures, and words – enough to cover the refrigerator at home for years to come.  Within the teacher’s play-based curriculum, each will have advanced in a skill set of cooperating with others, following rules, and childhood problem-solving. And, learning how to learn.

The smile and tears a singing of “Happy Birthday” brought to their school secretary was just one more example of the full monty of kindergarten education that their teacher causes for her children every school year.  She also teaches children they are never alone in their school.  There are many adults who care for and about them everyday.  Everyone matters in the education of these children.  Singing Happy Birthday was just one moment of caring for each other. 

This teacher is the full monty.  We are fortunate in our school to have many teachers who are the full monty.