Leadership magazine Jan/Feb 2016 V45 No 3 | Page 36

true driver behind each of these strategies.
•  Developing a “network of learning.”
To build capacity of personnel to improve instruction, the Superintendent’s Zone central
office team and schools staff participated in an
inter-connected network of professional learning. For example, the Superintendent’s Zone
utilized the structure of Instructional Rounds,
as envisioned by Elizabeth A. City and colleagues, similar to a practice used in the medical field, to examine a problem of practice and
study the solutions to the problem.
Additionally, all schools in the Superintendent’s Zone developed Instructional
Leadership Teams made up of their principal, teacher leaders and other important
leaders in the schools. These teams worked
together to guide instruction. The ILT
structure is also complemented by Grade
Level Collaborations across schools, a network of coaches and specific professional
development cycles based on data analysis.
• Guiding learning through frameworks. At all levels, we found evidence of
the Superintendent’s Zone schools using
specific frameworks to guide and improve
instruction. In this case, frameworks are
defined as the essential supporting structure
underlying a concept.
At the systems level, SFUSD used the
Bryk Framework to guide the needs assessment for the schools in the Superintendent’s
Zone. At the classroom level, the balanced
literacy framework stemming from the
Fountas and Pinnell definition of Guided
Reading and Writing was used extensively
to guide literacy instruction across the Superintendent’s Zone elementary schools in
the Mission neighborhood.
The systems frameworks are just as important as the frameworks working at the
classroom level, as they set up the conditions
and reduce barriers for executing the practices espoused within the classroom frameworks. This attention to frameworks at all
levels, district, school and classroom, helps
build a coherent focus on elements that need
to be in place to improve instruction.
•  Using data in a smarter way –
within a continuous improvement
cycle. Within these networks of learning
and grounded in frameworks, there are specific strategies for learning that helped cen36

Leadership

When the schools
within the
Superintendent’s
Zone saw strong
gains in student
achievement,
it prompted
administrators to
ask questions about
what elements were
working and how
these elements
could support school
improvement efforts
across the district.

tral and school-site teams use data to better
understand their student needs and solve
problems using a continuous improvement
cycle.
The Superintendent’s Zone leveraged the
district’s introduction of a new benchmark
assessment, the Common Learning Assessment, and in the Mission neighborhood
schools, its early literacy assessment, stemming from its Balanced Literacy program
(Fountas and Pinnell).
This new data was incorporated into
teams at all levels of the Superintendent’s
Zone, using cycles of inquiry. From Grade
Level Collaborations and ILTs to the central teams supporting the Superintendent ’s
Zone schools, data was used to examine and
improve practices happening across all levels
of the system, from classroom instruction to
leadership coaching.
•  Building collective efficacy in our
schools. To accomplish the intended improvements, central and school teams must
have a belief in their capacity or power to produce a desired effect, also referred to as a sense

of collective efficacy. The theory of collective
efficacy stems from Bandura’s (1977) theory
of the importance of self-efficacy. To develop
collective efficacy, central office teams and
school teams said they established clear vision
statements for their work, aimed at being responsive to the needs for capacity building related to the five elements of the Bryk Framework and the instructional frameworks used
in the Superintendent’s Zone.
•  Strategically matching resources
to needs. Allocation and use of resources
also emerged as important themes. The infusion of $45 million from the SIG made resources a very visible part of the Superintendent’s Zone. Further, how the district used
those resources school-by-school, but also
across the Superintendent’s Zone, including
schools that were not receiving SIG funds,
seemed to play an important role.
Teacher survey responses differed based on
whether or not they received SIG funds, and
their responses highlighted the importance of
the additional resources to making improvements within their instruction and schooling.