Leadership magazine Nov/Dec 2014 V 44 No 2 | Page 32

On 11 of those 18 items, the school rose by
two or more stages on the six-stage scale.
The third part of our equity toolkit –
regular, on-site support – helped Redwood
achieve this progress. That support came
from two of our School Innovation Partners (SIPs), our key change agents. The SIPs
helped the school build capacity in using
data, setting goals, planning, implementing
strategies, assessing, and adjusting in cycles
of inquiry. Combined, our SIPs spent about
3.5 days per week with the school during the
academic year.
Redwood’s success derived from a true
partnership between the school and Partners, and the principal deserves much of the
credit. In his first year at the school, he spent
a great deal of time visiting classrooms, talking with teachers, and learning what they
value. This engendered support and trust.
The next year, he created systems that
would foster teamwork and support the
changes he wanted to bring about. For example, he asked teachers to form committees to tackle specific issues, letting them

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develop a sense of ownership of the projects.
The principal provided the committees with
strong support but was also clear about expected outcomes and priorities. His focus
was on three areas: English Language Development, parental involvement, and monitoring student achievement data.

English Language Development
Because more than 60 percent of Redwood’s students were English learners, the
principal devoted much of the school’s limited professional development time to English Language Development. He made sure
that teachers learned the ELD standards
well, and he pressed teachers to support English learners in multiple ways.
For example, the principal made sure that
teachers had students’ English proficiency
levels at their fingertips so they would know
what their students needed to work on when
they were called on in class. In addition, he
expected instruction to be differentiated according to students’ fluency levels.
The principal also brought in an external

provider of physical education to work with
whole grade levels of students so that teachers of the same grade could be freed up to
collaborate on a variety of issues, including
ELD strategies.
In addition, the principal modeled an
ELD lesson for his staff and had some experienced teachers do the same.
We complemented the principal’s expertise in ELD by helping systematize professional development. Our staff helped set up
feedback loops so that the principal would
learn from teachers what professional development strategies were working and not
working, and why. We then helped the staff
adjust its approach to professional development throughout the school year.
These strategies paid off: on ELD-related
essential practices, the school improved
from the “no evidence” or “readiness” stage
to the “implementing” or “transforming”
stage in just two years.

Parental involvement
The principal was also very effective at