What can I expect from the Executive Cabinet Thursday Walks?

How will we as a district accomplish our vision: "Students prepared to make positive contributions and thrive in an ever-changing world?"  What does it even mean to "be prepared"?  One year ago, we embarked on a partnership with Learning Sciences International.  Michael Toth, CEO of LSI, spoke at our welcome back event and articulated why we need to shift our mental model of instruction where the work is student/team centered, students are working on challenging group tasks and there is a high level of cognitive engagement. The world that we are preparing our students for is much different than the world we grew up in.  To ensure our students have the skills, tools, and competencies to be successful will require us to change our habits.  The end result is definitely about generating better learning outcomes and preparing our students, however, I will also reinforce Michael Toth's words that it is also about bringing the joy back into teaching.

The components of our district's Strategic Plan outline the "how" to achieve the vision.  By empowering educators to be instructional leaders, personalizing learning for all students, designing our decisions based on data, and partnering with our stakeholders, we will prepare our students to thrive! We believe our biggest levers initially for continuous school improvement centers around our district priorities: implementation of "Professional Learning Communities, Standards-based Planning, and using Data to Design Decisions".

Thursday Walks provide the opportunity for the executive cabinet to observe the outcomes of the implementation of our priorities and the shifts in our model of instruction as a system.  In addition to observing the shifts, we are also becoming more familiar with all campuses, making connections with staff, students, and principals, celebrating achievements, and identifying possible supports for continuous school improvement.
 

We do collect data on what we observe in classrooms, however, the observations and data are not evaluative.  The data provides information around progress towards systematic implementation and needs for possible supports.

For example, this first round of observations, we are looking for target-task alignment and if students can articulate the target.  We are currently not collecting any data as an executive team on success criteria as we know this is new and we want to you feel comfortable practicing and using it with students. Every Friday I update principals on the collective data overall and I will also periodically update you in future newsletters.

During the visits, you can also expect cabinet members to ask you questions, provide a summary of what was observed to your principals, and posts pictures on twitter to celebrate you and the students. We may periodically leave you a note, but this may not occur at every visit. Please know that where we are is ok, we just can't stay there!

We are on our journey to be "GRAND"-ER than ever before!  The transformation is to benefit all of our students so they can THRIVE in an ever-changing world! Thank you for leading the way!