School Leader

The role of reflection in school principal effectiveness

Recently my colleagues and I in Western Kentucky University's Department of Educational Administration, Leadership, and Research attended an event in San Diego as part of our Wallace Foundation grant-funded initiative to rethink school principal training for the 21st century. The event was hosted by the educational leadership department at San Diego State University, one of our Wallace grant partners, and spotlighted key features of their principal certification program.

Of particular interest to us was San Diego's emphasis on reflection as a key component of principal training and practice. We had the chance to do a "fishbowl" activity with several of their current principal candidates discussing their Reflective Leader Rubric, which is used to assess aspiring principals' capacity to engage in deep reflection on their practice and their learning experiences.

What we observed in San Diego resonated for me because it closely mirrors work on reflective practice my colleague Tom Stewart and I have done in our principal classes, with teachers and administrators in professional development sessions, and in our research on school principal leadership coaching. Our efforts have been inspired, in part, by the book Reflective Practice for Renewing Schools: An Action Guide for Educators, by Jennifer York-Barr and colleagues, which provides a theory of action for reflective practice captured in the image below. Essential to this model is the idea that reflection requires a pause, a deliberate effort to refrain from activity, both outward and inward, to see what is really happening. From that pause the heart and mind open, and new questions and perspectives can emerge that lead to fresh ideas and more effective action, which in an educational context we hope always pays off in enhanced student learning.

Several dimensions of SDSU's principal program feature components of this reflective practice framework. These were especially highlighted during the fishbowl activity wherein current program participants reflected on these elements of their experience so far. Among the themes that we heard were the following:

• As the word itself implies, reflection is a kind of "mirror," giving the principal or principal candidate an opportunity to see themselves more accurately and clearly. My previous research collaborations around leadership coaching for principals reveals that, without structures for self-reflection, most school administrators lack the opportunities and routines in their daily work to observe their own thought processes in a critical, self reflective way.
• Similarly, reflection involves deliberately seeking out diverse and even contradictory viewpoints and evidence to challenge our core, often unrecognized, assumptions about ourselves, our problems of practice, and our action strategies for addressing them.
• Related to assumptions, like SDSU, WKU's principal program redesign will involve a much more intentional focus on equity. But so much of the equity challenge is bound up in our unrecognized biases and assumptions about ourselves, others, and how children learn. Reflective practices are essential for helping uncover and confront these biases and assumptions.
• SDSU's principal candidates all acknowledged the challenge of making time for reflection, but as the York-Barr theory of practice makes clear, that time commitment is an investment. It takes enormous courage to set aside one's pressing work tasks to engage in reflection with the faith that, if one does it well, the payoff will be improved communication, greater awareness of self and others, and enhanced professional effectiveness.

The final thing that struck me about the SDSU principal candidates was their frequent use of "practice" language to describe their work. They clearly viewed leadership as a practice, meaning that it is a craft requiring a combination of skills, knowledge, and dispositions, and that as such their practice should be constantly growing and evolving based on new data and changing circumstances. Reflection is key to the process, and positive change is the fruit of reflection. As one principal candidate described it, "Reflection is not about what you've been doing wrong, but how you can keep getting better."

Usual disclaimer: Views expressed on this website are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of anyone else affiliated with Western Kentucky University (where I am professor of educational administration, leadership, and research) or the Kentucky Board of Education (where I am a member and chairman of the Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Committee).

Instructional rounds appears in new case study book

I'm pleased to share that a case study co-authored by my recently-retired WKU colleague Ric Keaster and me appears in a just-published book edited by D.D. Warrick and Jens Mueller called Lessons in Changing Cultures: Learning from Real World Cases (Rossi-Smith Publishing).

The book includes 28 real-world case studies exploring how leaders effectively worked to change organizational cultures in a wide variety of contexts, and is currently available in .pdf and .epub formats.  It will soon appear on the iBook Store and also Kindle, and depending on sales may eventually be published in hard copy as well.

Our chapter is entitled "Transforming Education and Changing School Culture," and describes work carried out in the Simpson County (KY) Schools during 2009 and 201o to implement the instructional rounds learning protocol.  At the time I was an instructional supervisor there and worked closely with Simpson County superintendent Jim Flynn to learn the rounds process and implement it throughout the district.

Instructional rounds is a collaborative method of inquiry developed by Richard Elmore and his colleagues at Harvard and designed to help schools gather and reflect on data about a vexing, school-wide problem of instructional practice.  It is loosely based on the practice of medical rounds used in teaching hospitals.

The case study details how Jim and I travelled to Harvard with a contingent of leaders from the Green River Regional Educational Cooperative and some of its member districts, learning the rounds protocol directly from Elmore and his partners, and then worked to implement rounds as a district-wide form of professional learning.  Among the key lessons we learned in the process was the great value of engaging classroom teachers in the vision and implementation of rounds from the very beginning. 

We were pleased to pioneer a powerful tool of school improvement that was subsequently implemented in several other GRREC districts.  The coop continues to sponsor regular rounds visits to schools throughout the region where superintendents, principals, district leaders, classroom teachers, university partners and others can learn together and provide specific, actionable, data-based feedback to schools on their improvement efforts.

The chapter includes questions for discussion and reflection, and like many other case studies in the book, could be used in various leadership courses, reading groups, or other professional development activities.

You can order a .pdf copy of the Lessons in Changing Cultures: Learning from Real-World Cases here.  Read more about instructional rounds here.

Presenting research on principal coaching, faculty meetings, and personalized learning at MSERA 2014

Next week I will be traveling to Knoxville, Tennessee to co-present some recent research and other scholarly work at the 2014 annual conference of the Mid-South Educational Research Association.

"Enhancing Instructional Leadership Through Collaborative Coaching: A Multi-Case Study," represents the latest installment in a line of research going back to my own doctoral dissertation at the University of Louisville.  That originally study, also discussed in this piece I co-authored with my dissertation advisor, Dr. John Keedy, used concepts from Chris Argyris and Donald Schon's now classic 1974 work, Theory in Practice, to create a visual map for the thinking processes used by effective school principals as they approach their role as instructional leaders. 

One of my conclusions from that work is that even highly-skilled school principals need intentional, job-embedded structures to help them reflect at the deepest levels about their work.  Inspired by that notion, in 2012 I co-authored a research study with colleagues Janet Hurt, Beckie Stobaugh, and again John Keedy describing our efforts to design a coaching protocol using the theories of practice framework.  That article, which appeared in the peer-reviewed journal Qualitative Research in Education, described how we implemented the coaching process with four purposively-selected school principals.  While the results varied across the four participants, the coaching process proved a highly-useful tool for enhancing principal's self-reflection about their instructional leadership.

In the latest study, which I will present with my co-authors Tom Stewart (Educational Recovery Leader with the Kentucky Department of Education) and Sara Jennings (teacher from the Bowling Green Independent School District and one of my students in WKU's educational leadership doctoral program), is a reiteration of the 2012 coaching study, but with a twist.  For this project, we included six school principals all from the same high-performing rural district and incorporated coaching sessions involving the entire group sharing their theories of practice, reflecting collaboratively, and providing each other feedback.

The results of this new study were also encouraging, further confirming the usefulness of this coaching protocol for supporting principals' leadership development.  The group coaching element proved affirming and rewarding for the participants, though its real impact on outcomes was questionable.  Our presentation will explore the results and implications for future research.

I will also be sharing findings from Dr. Daryl Hagan's dissertation research on "Catholic School Faculty Meetings: A Case Study Linking Catholic Identity, School Improvement, and Teacher Engagement."  Daryl is superintendent of schools in the Catholic Diocese of Evansville, Indiana, and conducted his research under my supervision, graduating from the WKU EdD program in May 2014.  I will share findings from his qualitative exploration on how faculty meetings in a high-performing Catholic school help facilitate the promotion of school-wide academic goals and the protection of the school's Catholic identity.

Finally, WKU colleagues and I are co-authors on a number of papers that have emerged from our involvement as external evaluators of the $41 million Race to the Top grant being administered by the Green River (GRREC) and Ohio Valley (OVEC) Educational Cooperatives.  My greatest involvement was with a paper describing our efforts to conceptualize and evaluate the grant's personalized learning component, a topic of increasingly intense interest for me.  Doctoral student and graduate assistant Trudy-Ann Crossbourne will co-present.

The Self-Aware School - New CLS Training Session

Note: This post originally appeared on the website of Contemplative Learning Solutions, my school leadership consulting and professional development venture with Dr. Tom Stewart, professor of education at Austin Peay State University.  Visit the CLS webpage, www.contemplativelearning.org and "Like" us on Facebook more about our work at helping schools, districts, businesses, and non-profit ventures deep their work through reflective practice.

Please join us on Wednesday, November 6 as we present our training session The Self-Aware School: Using the Enneagram System to Enhance Instructional Leadership to the attendees of the Mid-South Educational Research Association’s (MSERA) Annual Meeting.  (MSERA is a regional division of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), which hosts what is arguably the pre-eminent annual educational research conference that attracts national and international presenters and advances important research in our field.)  We are eager to present a synthesis of our past and most recent Enneagram work at MSERA, combining elements of our general introductory training sessions with school leader-specific connections using our original school leader Ennea-type profiles. 

While researching, designing, and facilitating a new ongoing workshop series, we were recently reminded of the strong connection between the kind of self-awareness that an Enneagram study can provide and deep, transformational reflective practice.  We sincerely believe that school leaders can use this training to become even more effective reflective practitioners, and highly-effective instructional leaders.

We hope you can join us on Pensacola Beach next week for further information.  If not, though, contact Tom or Gary to see how your school/district/organization might benefit from similar work.

(Photo:  Tom and Gary presenting at the 2012 Canadian Institute for Enneagram Studies conference.)

Less is More

Time management is an age-old challenge for leaders of all kinds of organizations, but the problem seems particularly acute for school administrators.  While educators have a strong sense of their core mission, constantly-changing policies, mandates, and curricular goals leave many teachers and principals grasping for a unified sense of purpose in their work.  The structure of schools and the school day contribute to a rushed, fragmented, and unsustainable pace of activity.

The result is not just stress and burnout, but also a loss of efficiency and effectiveness both for individual educators and for schools as a whole.  There is a surprising dearth of good resources on how to address this issue.  John C. Leonard's Finding the Time for Instructional Leadership is a notable exception, but most authors, including Leonard, focus primarily on better ways to delegate responsibility or manage one's calendar.

There's nothing really wrong with such a technical approach, but it overlooks a more fundamental aspect to the problem of our break-neck, harried, frenetic approach to work and life.  Working and living this way separates us from our deepest selves, cuts us off from our feelings, limits our relationships, and deprives us of opportunities for more fulfilling lives of purpose and joy. 

Marc Lesser's excellent little book, Less: Accomplishing More by Doing Less, addresses the issue of time management from this kind of contemplative perspective.  Lesser, a former business executive who now consults world-wide, draws heavily from his ten years as a full-time student of Zen in offering a rich, thoughtful perspective on our unsustainable work habits and provides a wealth of practical, down-to-earth strategies for slowing down so that we can actually be more productive at the things that really matter.

Lesser (who acknowledges the irony of his name) starts by noting that as societies and individuals we have become addicted to our unrealistic agendas and ubiquitous digital distractions at least in part because we are convinced that our self-worth is tied up in the accumulation of our accomplishments.  In this era of Perpetual Recession we may not rely as much anymore on our wealth as a sign of our worth, but we have perhaps doubled down on the assumption that if our lives are to be useful and meaningful, we must be busy. 

The fallacy of this kind of thinking is nearly self-evident.  Our busyness does not result in a greater happiness or even a sense of accomplishment, but rather frustration and a feeling that, whatever we may have done today, there is twice as much to do tomorrow.

Less offers a way out of this cycle of frustration and fear by first emphasizing the power of sitting still to figure out what we really are seeing, hearing, feeling, fearing, and hoping for in this present moment.  The act of just sitting with ourselves is in itself a radical break with the busyness addiction, and open us up to a vast universe of self-awareness and new possibilities.  The author offers instruction on a variety of simple mindfulness techniques through which we can begin this journey of self-discovery.

The "Less Manifesto" is Marc Lesser's framework for what to do with this self-awareness when we begin to slow down and listen to our own hearts.  The author explores, through a series of straightforward exercises, how we can get in touch with the inner fears that motivate our incessant busyness (a direct link to the Enneagram of personality), and from a new place of openness begin to identify, test, and challenge our own (often unrecognized) assumptions (a strategy that perfectly echoes Argyris and Schon on the concept of theories of practice).

Such self awareness work does not come easily, of course, and Lesser also offers great wisdom on how we can come to recognize our patterns of resistance - the ways in which we flee from our own fears and aspirations, usually through some intentional distraction or through the busyness of work itself. 

By breaking through these layers of resistance and distraction, we can reflect on our work in light of three fundamental questions: 1) What is my purpose for being here on this planet? 2) How am I doing in relation to this purpose? 3) What steps do I need to take to align my purpose and my actions?  In slowing down to ask these questions, we build capacity to change our work habits so that we are investing our time in the things that really give us life and joy.  Lesser emphasizes that in the end we may appear just as active (and certainly more productive) before we began the less-is-more journey, but our activities will be farmore closely aligned with our values and life purpose.

Less is a book that is both philosophical and practical.  The perspectives and strategies offered could enrich the work of teachers and school leaders, especially since schools as workplaces seem to be so resistant to reflection and contemplation.  It isn't a silver bullet, however, even if a reader were to faithfully implement all of Lesser's recommendations (not that any silver bullet really exists).  One key source of our busyness is the relentless demand that others place on us to complete tasks associated with their key priorities.  The author doesn't address this challenge specifically, but it seems the key to meeting this problem is in first being perfectly aware of our own priorities and patterns, so that we might then more effectively work with the (often misplaced) priorities and frustrating patterns of others.

Self aware (contemplative) living is a journey and a lifestyle rather than a technique, and the recommendations of Less are a starting point for the reflective practitioner.  Consider this book for your personal and professional library.

You can get a sense of Marc Lesser's teaching and approach in this 50-minute video that summarizes key points from his book:

 

Note: This post originally appeared on the Contemplative Learning Solutions website.

Preparing for your principal interview, Part III

In the first two parts of this series, I discussed key aspects of leadership that aspiring school principals should consider when preparing for an interview, and the critical role of vision in integrating these aspects of leadership into a coherent picture of yourself as a leader.  I suggested that while vision is sometimes context specific, meaningful visions of school improvement have broad universal dimensions.

When it comes to an entry plan, however (the key priorities you'll pursue in your first months on the job), context matters a lot more.  Interview committees often want to hear about your entry plan, and here you have the opportunity to seamlessly unite your vision for school improvement with the specific needs of the school.

An excellent point of reference for entry plans is Marazano's classic book on the characteristics of effective principals, School Leadership That Works.  Marzano distinguishes First- and Second-Order change situations.  In First Order contexts, the school is already fairly high functioning and just needs some adjustments to continue on its path of improvement.  In Second Order contexts, the culture is weak and performance is poor.  These situations call for more sweeping changes.

I would argue that, given the near-obsolete structure of traditional schooling, most schools actually need transformative overhauls to make them far more student-centered.  But as a principal interviewee you may not have the luxury of presenting your most sweeping ideas for school renewal.  This may seem to contradict my previous post on vision, but this is where vision meets the reality of where your school is right now.  Vision only works when you can contrast it with a very clear picture of present reality, and then build realistic, meaningful steps toward closing the gap between what is and what might be.

Before your interview you'll want to study as much about the school as possible: its achievement history, its culture, and its place in the district's own renewal processes.   Then, once you are on the job, consider the following questions as guidelines for development of an entry plan:

1.  How is the school culture?  How does this culture support or hinder student achievement?

2.  What is the quality of instruction on a daily basis?

3.  What do teachers perceive as their number one need in helping them improve their practice?  What do they perceive as the number one obstacle?  (If they tell you student discipline or lack of parent involvement, take that and work with it, but push them to identify something else they have more direct control over; they do have control over discipline, of course, and so they need to be working on schoolwide Positive Behavior Instructional Supports or similiar initiatives if they aren't already).

4.  What do parents and students perceive as the greatest needs and obstacles for school improvement?

You get at all this through lots of conversations, both formal and informal, with teaachers, parents, and students.  It might be worth having a scheduled inteview with every staff member to explore the questions.  Use Danielson's framework for effective teaching (which is also embedded in Kentucky's new Professional Growth and Evaluation System), or Marzano's (which I like a little better), to establish the quality of teaching via lots of formal and informal classroom walkthroughs.  Instructional rounds are also an excellent tool.

Once you've answered these guiding questions (and you'll have to cut through a lot of contradictory information and useless static), you can establish your own understanding of where the school is, and then respond accordingly, always with an eye toward your long-range vision.

The last point I want to make on this topic regards how to prepare yourself psychologically for the interview process.  In truth, this is essential to your work as a person and a professional, and it is an ongoing process that begins long before you are ever called for an interview. 

In the hectic, frenetic pace of our work days, few of us take time to stop, breath, and reconnected our minds with our bodies, or our activities with our larger hopes, dreams, fears, and aspirations.  I am an advocate that every person regularly employ reflective practices to re-energize themselves and stay connected to what they are feeling and needing in each moment as well as uncover our underlying, unconscious assumptions and motivations that may be contributing to our success or failure.  A wide variety of mindfulness techniques are useful in this regard.  In coming weeks I'll be reviewing two books I've found very helpful on this topic, Michael Carroll's The Mindful Leader and Marc Lesser's Less: Accomplishing More by Doing Less.  These are both excellent resources.

Mindfulness practices can help you become more calm, centered, and focused which is of course extremely useful in a potentially nerve-wracking situation like a job interview.  But ultimately these techniques are most helpful for developing a deeper self awareness.  And self-awareness is the best gift you can give yourself personally and professionally.  When you can compassionately recognize and embrace your strengths and weaknesses as a leader, then you are in much better position to develop a meaningful plan to improve your effectiveness. 

One of the best tools I've found for enhancing self awareness is the Enneagram personality typing system.  You can read more about the Enneagram on this blog, including a series of profiles exploring how each of the nine personality types described by the Enneagram tends to function in the role of school administrator.

As your self awarness grows, your capacity to lead also grows.  Get to know yourself starting today, and you'll be in a much better position when you present yourself as the potential leader of a school.

Previous posts in this series:

Part I: Consider your capacities as an instructional, managerial, and collaborative leader

Part II: Articulating a meaningful vision for school improvement

Just published: My latest research on coaching protocols for enhancing principals' instructional leadership

I'm delighted to share that my on-going research on the use of coaching protocols to assist school principals in enhancing their instructional leadership has just been published in the online journal, Qualitative Research in Education.  Congratulations and thanks to my co-authors, Janet Hurt, associate superintendent for the Logan County Schools; Beckie Stobaugh, assistant professor in WKU's School of Teacher Education; and my advisor and mentor John Keedy, University of Louisville.  You can read full text of the article here.

This study built on research Janet and I initiated in our doctoral dissertations on theories of practice, which are mental maps people use to solve problems. The concept was first articulated by Chris Argyris and Donald Schön, who argued that by becoming more aware of the underlying (often subconscious) assumptions we bring to our problem solving, we can gradually develop more effective action strategies in the workplace.

In my dissertation, I used the theories of practice model to "map" the instructional leadership strategies of effective school principals.  But what I discovered is that even highly effective school leaders had difficulty reflecting on their assumptions and action strategies.  I concluded that without some mechanism to help them do that, most principals would continue to just react to problems in a trial-and-error sort of way that prevented them from understanding how their own thinking about the problem might be hindering their efforts to find an effective solution.

In response, my co-authors and I developed a coaching protocol that could help principals become more self-reflective about their instructional leadership.  Inspired by the growing body of literature on teacher coaching, we used theories of practice to help principals develop a plan for assisting a teacher who was struggling to improve his/her instruction.  Using a qualitative research approach, we met with these principals several times throughout a single school year, documenting their efforts to support the teacher's improvement and creating opportunities for the principals to reflect on their own thinking and behavior and modify their own strategies as a result.

While each of the four principals had varying results in their efforts to help the teacher improve (two of the four targeted teachers were non-renewed at the end of the year), all the principals reported positive perceptions of the protocol, and found it greatly enhanced their self-awareness as leaders.  The study documented a dramatic change in one principal in particular, who used her efforts with her target teacher to launch a more concerted, school-wide initiative for instructional improvement.

In a subsequent study, I've been duplicating the protocol described here but with all the principals in one single district, adding the element of group coaching.  This study will explore how this cohort model and collaborative group coaching can enhance or hinder the process and how it influences the principals' overall instructional leadership.  I'll be sharing tentative results of this study with co-author Tom Stewart of Austin Peay State University and representatives from the Monroe County Schools at the upcoming AdvancEd Innovation Summit in Lexington, November 29-30.

We hope to continue this line of research, applying the theory of practice framework in a wider array of school contexts and with other administrative roles like superintendents.

To read more about the conceptual framework for the study, go here.  Contact me for more information about this study and related research.

EDAD 696 (for Principal Level II) offered in Winter term 2013

For WKU education administration students, I'm pleased to share that I'll be teaching EDAD 696, Advanced Organizational Theory, in the Winter 2013 term.  The full three-hour course will be offered online between January 2 and January 18, 2013.

EDAD 696 is required for Level II Principalship certification.  As a reminder, by state mandate current principalship students must complete all Level I and Level II coursework by December 2013, as the revised principal preparation program is rolling out next fall.  The Winter term course would allow students to quickly complete one of their required courses during a relatively quiet time of the school year (if any such thing exists), allowing more time for other needed courses in the Spring, Summer, and Fall 2013 terms.

EDAD 696 explores how organizations work effectively, applying classical and contemporary theories to the specific work of P-12 school leadership.  Topics include organizational culture and climate, change leadership, decision-making, and motivation.  The culminating assignment requires each student to develop a theory of practice for his or her instructional leadership applying all course concepts.

Students will read the textbook, Organizational Behavior in Education (Owens & Valesky, 2010) in its entirety.  I'll elaborate on course concepts via online Tegrity lectures.  We'll cover three to four chapters of the text each week through online discussion activities, and the final paper will be due on January 18.

While the course will require an intensive amount of learning in a short period of time, students get the benefit of completing a three hour course in about two and a half weeks.

You may review the syllabus via TopNet, or email me for a copy or with questions.  Priority registration for Winter term begins October 1.

I look forward to learning with you in January!

Theory of practice coaching study to be published

I'm pleased to report that a year-long research study I recently completed with several colleagues will be published in an upcoming edition of Qualitative Research in Education, an international, online, peer-reviewed journal.

Based on my on-going research using the concept of "theories of practice" to understand the instructional leadership, my co-authors and I designed a coaching protocol to help school principals enhance their professional effectiveness.  My fellow researchers included Dr. Janet Hurt, associate superintendent of the Logan County Schools; Dr. Beckie Stobaugh, assistant professor in WKU's School of Teacher Education, and Dr. John L. Keedy of the University of Louisville (and my dissertation advisor and research mentor).

Theories of practice are intentionally-crafted "game plans" used to solve professional problems.  What distinguishes theories of practice from generic action plans, however, is that the individual articulates her underlying values, beliefs, and assumptions that shape her approach to the problem.  This gives the practitioner the chance to make revisions to the game plan based on feedback, not just in terms of action strategies but also in the way he thinks about problem. 

My dissertation research found that most people can't adequately identify their own tacit assumptions, or work to quesiton them, without the assistance of a coach.  Thus, we devised a coaching protocol to help principals think through their approaches to a particularly vexing and common instructional leadership problem: how to help a struggling teacher improve his or her practice.  We found that the theory of practice framework was particularly helpful in helping principals shift their thinking about their instructional leadership, or in shedding new light on principals' thought process about how to support high-quality teaching.

Results of this study were shared at the 2011 Kentucky Association of School Administrator's Summer Institute, which you can read about here.  For more on theories of practice, including a full list of previous blog posts, click here.  I'll post a link to the full study as soon as revisions are complete the the article is published.

Monroe County Schools' Falcon Academy named Best Practice Site

I learned late last week that Monroe County's Falcon Academy will be recognized as an alternative school Best Practice Site by the Kentucky Department of Education.  More information will be forthcoming on the KDE website and the school will receive official recognition at an upcoming meeting of the state Board of Education.  I want to extend my congratulations to the staff of Falcon Academy and to the Monroe County Schools for this impressive accomplishment.

In an effort to highlight and promote high-quality learning in alternative school environments, since 2009 KDE conducts a rigorous annual nomination and on-site visit process to discover and celebrate the state's best examples of schools that serve at-risk students.  Awards are given in three categories, including (1) Curriculum, Instuction, and Assessment, (2) Culture, Support, and Professional Devleopment, and (3) Leadership, Resources/Organization, and Planning. 

I'm familiar with this award in part because Simpson County's Learning Opportunity Center alternative high school, where I formerly served as principal, was recognized as Exemplary in Category 2 in 2010.

Falcon Academy will be recognized as Exemplary in Category 1 (Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment).  I can attest to the Academy's accomplishments and worthiness for this designation because I spent time there during the last school year working closely with Principal Max Petett on a research project that provided professional coaching designed to enhance instructional leadership.

In an era when so many districts are relying more heavily on computer programs to provide credit recovery and fill hard-to-staff subject areas, Mr. Petett and the staff of Falcon Academy have pursued a deliberately different strategy.  Concerned that students in online courses were not receiving a sufficiently rigorous exposure to curriculum that is assessed on End of Course assessments, Mr. Petett initiated a new effort to provide regular, teacher-facilitated instruction in almost all core area classes.  The goal was to provide routine instruction and formative assessment that would ensure students were exposed to the same curricular standards as students in traditional classes, and to offer enrichment and intervention for students based on their progress.

The Falcon Academy still utilizes online courses, but relies on it as a supplement to instructor-led learning.

Full outcome data won't arrive until the fall, of course, and given the transient populations of most alternative schools it will be difficult to fully assess the impact of this strategy in the short-term, but Mr. Petett reports gratifying results on portions of the End of Course assessments, and is confident his staff is now providing a richer, more rigorous learning opportunity for Academy students.

Additionally, the Academy boasts an impressive aviation program offered in conjuction with the Monroe County Airport in which students get real-world experience working with aviation technicians and flight instructors to learn about airplane mechanics, aerospace engineering, and piloting. 

All of these programs reflect an alternative school that has high expectations for student learning and has faith that all students can learn and achieve at high levels.

I commend Mr. Petett, the staff of the Falcon Academy, and the leadership of the Monroe County Schools, for their dedication and success. 

Update: Official KDE announcement here.