Leadership magazine Nov/Dec 2014 V 44 No 2 | Page 18

ministration, certificated teachers and classified staff. If there is a minimal or tenuous
trust level, then these conversations will not
take root, or worse yet, can create further
negative tension and counter-productive interactions.
So, take the time required to build trust
first so that staff are more willing to take
risks in conversation and pedagogy. Hand
in hand with trust comes the need for study
and facts about issues of race and equity.
Make the concern about issues, not people.
Group reading and study, site visits together,
guest speakers for staff (who can bring issues
in from the outside so that staff can dissect
them without personal ownership), action
research about the school community – all
can help to create suitable conditions for
staff to start the dialog. Pending productive beginnings it will become necessary to
monitor dialog, help guide the direction and
persist with topics that try to go away.
n  Patrick Sweeney: The principal is in a
position to model the commitment to edu-

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Leadership

cational equity, use data, promote effective
practices, and make it a part of the goal-setting process for the school. Principals who
work with their staff to analyze the needs of
students, and develop a shared vision, create
the framework to have courageous conversations. Conversations can look at student
academic and social-emotional trends.
Ask questions about student referrals,
suspensions, who is in the advanced classes
and who is in the intervention classes. What
do the best teachers do to inspire students?
How do we make every student feel part of a
larger purpose? What are the words and tone
that inspire our young people? How can we
find ways to give all students a voice in their
learning and their school?
There are times we need to find new messengers to promote similar messages. If we
are asking people to look at practices, policies, processes and structures with new eyes,
we need to learn how best to engage the educator. We differentiate based on the educator’s needs, as a teacher would in the classroom.

Q

UESTION: What key initiatives are you
implementing in light of the new Local
Control Funding Formula?
n  Ramona Bishop: After an intense stakeholder engagement process, our community decided to provide additional instructional and extracurricular support to ensure
that all students have equitable access to
quality instruction.
n  Will Ector: Our Local Control Accountability Plan is a direct overlay of our
district-wide strategic planning objectives.
We will be focusing this year on the social
and emotional development of our students by adding a social worker at each of
our middle school campuses. We also have
added new instructional coaches who will
be supporting our teachers with our English
language learner student population and
content-specific coaches for science, math
and technology.
We are expanding our parent and community involvement education focus. Ber-