For more than a decade, we’ve had the opportunity to partner with schools across the United States. Some, like Delta High School in Washington State, were start-ups where we could help with the planning of the school from the ground up. Other schools, like Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore, Maryland, are steeped in history and we’ve been charged with partnering with school staff to help make the school more successful. In Reynoldsburg, Ohio, we are working with schools K-12 to help implement STEM principles and our interest-based academies, with great success.
No partnership is the same, and yet there commonalities among our most successful schools.
- Strong Leadership: For a school to be successful, strong leadership is a must. When building-level principals have the autonomy to make decisions regarding budget, curriculum, staffing, etc., they are also in a better place to innovate and push for success. Even better is when a principal reports directly to a Superintendent. This give them and their school the visibility they need to make progress.
- Accountability: At EDWorks we talk about having high expectations for all of our students. When a student is held to high expectations, they will often meet or exceed them. That same philosophy holds true for school staff as well. We need to have goals and benchmarks in place, as well as a clear sense of what will happen if goals are not met. By having high expectations for people, we’re putting them in a position to succeed.
- Support: We have all been in positions where our leadership enabled us, or impeded our ability, to succeed. When the staff of a central office play the role of a “supporter” and “enabler” of a building-level model or plan, rather than the role of a micro-manager, results greatly improve.
- Community: By partnering with the community on a school plan, schools will have more community and engagement, involvement and support.
- Patience: As I’ve already said, having clear goals is essential. Equally important is having reasonable expectations about when those goals can be met. It can take time for a new model to take root and show results.
- Teamwork: No successful school plan can be implemented by one or two people. When agreements / MOUs with union(s) regarding staffing have been implemented, it insures that staff at a school are best-suited for the work and that people want to be part of particular plan / model being implemented.
Where we see significant progress in achievement and success for our target populations, it is almost always with the above-mentioned conditions in place. It is hard work for large systems to change and achieve success. They need to be in the business of recruiting and / or developing great principals, resourcing and staffing buildings according to the particular principal’s vision and model, and holding them accountable for results.
