A storm water focus . . .

Last night at Glacier Park Elementary I was fortunate to attend the Storm Water Neighborhood Workshop.  It was an opportunity for our students to show those in attendance their understanding of the storm water problem in the city and in the Puget Sound region.  Once again we need to thank Peter Donaldson from the Friends of the Cedar River for his leadership and support in this work and in other initiatives in our school system.  Through Peter's leadership we have partnered with the City of Maple Valley to educate our young people and our community about the importance of managing storm water.

We finished the evening by visiting the newly constructed rain garden and the Glacier Park gardens.  Cathy, Kyobi, and Susie were gracious hosts and the Glacier Park students were the stars of the show.

A potential game changer . . .

I received an announcement today on a favorable ruling by a King County Superior judge that Initiative 1053, the one that requires a super majority of the legislature to raise taxes is unconstitutional. You can read about it on the League of Education Voters web page here. It is not often that you see the League and WEA on the same side of an issue, but they did partner on this lawsuit.


“This lawsuit is another important piece in making sure our kids have all the resources they need to get an excellent education,” Chris Korsmo, Chief Executive Officer, said. “LEV was founded on the principle that our kids deserve fully funded schools.”


“This decision is a victory for the children of Washington state,” said Mary Lindquist, WEA president. “If it is upheld, this ruling will pave the way for the Legislature to fully fund K-12 public schools as mandated by the Supreme Court’s McCleary decision and the state Constitution. We hope it will be settled soon. Our kids can’t wait any longer.”

I am excited about the potential for this ruling to change the pace of education reform in our state. Legislators can now take the action that we elect them to take without this undue burden. Lead counsel Paul Lawrence shares his thoughts on the ruling below.

“This is a victory for the Constitution” said Paul Lawrence of the Pacifica Law Group, lead counsel for the plaintiffs. Lawrence explained: “The Constitution establishes the fundamental rules for how our governmental works. The framers considered what types of laws require a super majority vote for passage. Taxes were not identified as requiring a super majority vote. Fundamental changes in how the government operates have to be accomplished by constitutional amendment, not by passage of a law or initiative.”

Like many lawsuits we will more than likely need to wait for the ruling to be appealed to the State Supreme Court. For today, however, we can celebrate a ruling with the potential to positively influence our work.

One more charter vote . . .

washingtonstatewire.com

Last week a coalition of education groups led by the League of Education Voters filed an initiative on charter schools.  The initiative is similar to the bill that did not make it out of the recent legislative session and has the support of legislators who sponsored the bill.  It will be our fourth opportunity in this state to determine the fate of charter schools as initiatives have failed on three previous occasions. 

This is not going to go away as these education advocacy groups see this as one of the necessary components of reform and it doesn't hurt their cause when the federal education department makes it part of grant requests.  There is foundation money behind this initiative and support from a more diverse group than what we saw with previous attempts.  For example, a new organization Democrats for Education Reform are in favor of charters.  Charters are also now the norm in many states so I believe that this initiative has a greater chance of success than the last vote in 2004.

It will be another opportunity for the reform groups to take on the educational establishment, especially WEA who opposes the initiative.  Come November we will see who prevails.

From the Association perspective . . .

I asked Scott to share his thoughts on the collaboration conference.  It is timely considering a comment to my recent post that suggests our system is not as collaborative as I want to think. 

I am a teacher in your buildings who believes you need to take a better look at the so called "collaboration" that happens here in Tahoma. From what I have seen from the collaboration in your department is a joke. They gather people together under the facade of collaboration. To hear opinions, when decisions have already been made and then when you do question or give your opinion your are told you are not a team player! How is that fair? The collaboration you speak of is a House of Cards.

I am both concerned and saddened by the comment, but pleased that the writer was willing to share.  Without more context I would only be assuming the experience(s) that have led to this mental model, but I believe that they have been outside our work with the bargaining units.  Below are Scott's comments based on his work in our system over time and his experiences with leaders from Associations in our region and state.  I'll look at the possibility of pursuing the previous comment at a later time.

The 2012 Labor Management Collaboration Conference was a unique experience for our team (Mike, Mark, Didem, and myself). The biggest take away for me was the validation that the culture that we have created in Tahoma around collaboration is ahead of the times and is a model that I believe many of the districts in attendance are working to achieve. In my conversations with other districts at this conference and in our own state, I am proud to be able to share the uniqueness of our relationships between TEA, TSD, and the school board. It is an honor to work in a district that respects each other, the differences we bring to the table, and places the success of students in the middle of the table.


The conference itself had numerous highlights for me and I would like to share two that will have me reflecting over the next several weeks.

1) Sullivan County Department of Education in Tennessee-I spent a good deal of time talking to this district, since they were right next to our booth. It was interesting learning the hardships of not having collective bargaining and how this affects their rights as workers. In addition to this, they are struggling with new evaluation model in which principals are being criticized for their lack of visibility in the school and a huge impact of the written portion that is taking an extraordinary amount of time outside of the school day. It concerns me because I see these being two major hurdles that we will face in Tahoma. How will our professional learning communities be affected by the amount of time our principals will be doing several observations on all of their staff members? The last point from Tennessee that I took away was how tests scores are used in the overall rating of a teacher. Test scores count for 50% of their evaluation. In Washington state, student data has to be used in 3 of the 8 categories in our new model. Fortunately, local districts have autonomy over which data to use and how. TEA and TSD will be having these conversations over the next few months as work collaboratively to make the model work for Tahoma.

2) Effective Techniques That Support Collaborative Bargaining- in this breakout session put on by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, I was left with some new thinking regarding bargaining and also felt validated once again about our work in Tahoma. The speakers of this session spoke about the importance of interest based bargaining and that it takes a lot of work for it to work effectively. They talked about how there can be no non-negotiables in interest based bargaining and that you have to go into bargaining willing to discuss anything. They shared the importance of having the president of the association and the superintendent at the bargaining table for negotiations (which is not common practice in most districts). I feel very validated in our work in Tahoma based of these thoughts. My new thinking comes with my desire to improve our interest based model. We call what we do inTahoma interest based but it is a hybrid that includes some positional moves during the negotiation process. We have worked several times in the past to start in this fashion but as we get deeper into the process, the interest based principles can get lost to give way to getting to the point and reaching a final tentative agreement.

There were many other highlights I could write about and maybe in a future TEA newsletter I will share those thoughts. The conference overall was a wonderful experience for our team to gain knowledge from others and build on our collaborative efforts through our conversations with each other.

Scott

We are at the airport in Cincinnati with a four hour wait for a flight to Chicago where we have about a half hour to catch our connecting flight home landing about 11 tonight.

Below are some thoughts from Mark about his experience at the conference.

I know that collaborating and building positive working relationships are critical to being successful in my new role as HR Director this year. The Collaboration Conference has enabled me to listen and learn from educational practitioners from around the country. A few things have resonated with me as I reflect on the last few days.

1. SHARED DECISION MAKING: I am convinced that Tahoma's model of consensus is a critical piece of the puzzle. Many of the districts here have shared the importance of shared-decision-making and, in fact, named it as THE most important piece of the puzzle. I feel encouraged that we have embraced this concept in our district more than a decade ago.

2. EVALUATIONS: Almost every state is struggling with implementing new evaluation models for teachers. It was interesting to hear that other states are dealing with similar implementation issues as we will be in Washington. I could hear the emotion in the voices of teachers and superintendents lamenting the struggles they have. Ohio (50% of teacher evaluations based on student test scores) and Tennessee (one state rubric to use with no flexibility for individual districts).

3. TIME: As we all know, time is finite; there are only 24 hours in a day. I was encouraged to learn about some creative ways districts are utilizing and organizing their time to better meet the needs of kids. Olathe, Kansas and their use of Professional Councils. Meriden, Connecticut's use of assessment data and Teacher Leadership. These are all similar to what we do in Tahoma but offer a slightly different approach that merits consideration. As does Ada School District's use of their My Voice survey data.

All in all it was a tremendous opportunity to learn and grow with Mike, Didem and Scott. I also came away thinking that Tahoma should be a presenting district in the future!

Mark Koch

Collaborating to transform . . .

Mike, Didem (School Board President), Scott (TEA President)

It was a very good day for me at the Collaborating to Transform the Teaching Profession conference.  Being close to retirement I have seen and experienced many times how policy and initiatives from the state and federal government can drain energy from our system so I tend to be a little cynical, but today was different.  I was energized by what I heard and about the potential for true collaboration to significantly influence our profession.

Other than being asked by WEA to consider sending a team, I questioned why we were one of about one hundred systems in attendance.  After a very short amount of time in the opening session I realized that we have earned the right to be here.  Our deep belief in the need for collaboration within a culture of learning and support is at the heart of this work.  Representatives from eight diverse organizations this morning signed a paper commiting their organizations to work collaboratively to transform the teaching profession. The seven core elements of the plan can be found here and speak to the following needs that should sound familiar to those in our system.  Policy makers are finally seeing the need to focus on the system and culture within which learning and teaching take place.

• A culture of shared responsibility and leadership.
• Top talent, prepared for success.
• Continuous growth and professional development.
• Effective teachers and principals.
• A professional career continuum with competitive compensation.
• Conditions for successful teaching and learning.
• Engaged communities.

The signees represent organizations often in opposing camps so this is truly a potentially transforming moment.

• Arne Duncan, US Secretary of Education
• Anne Bryant, National School Boards Association
• Michael Casserly, Council of the Great City Schools
• George H. Cohen, Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service
• Daniel A. Domenech, American Association of School Administrators
• Dennis Van Roekel, National Education Association
• Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers
• Gene Wilhoit, Council of Chief State School Officers

We are aligned with the beliefs driving this initiative and have the foundation in place to take advantage of the supports that should emerge from the work.  We are and can be a model for this collaborative work.  We are capacity builders commited to supporting growth in our teachers and principals and increased student achievement.  I am encouraged and excited about the opportunity to partner in this work and to support improved instruction through practice, the focus of our Classroom 10 initiative.

Finally, a focus on collaboration . . .



creatingdigitalhistory.wikidot.com

 Just as I sat down to do this post I received an e-mail notification that John had posted a comment to my last post on who is influencing education policy in our state and nation.  His comment is partly about the topic for this post on our team attending the 2012 Labor Management Conference in Cincinnati sponsored by the Department of Education, teacher associations, and others.  Funding was provided for each participating team through donations by foundations focused on school reform.

In John's words.

I, for one, am thankful for the collaborative nature of our district and local association. When I hear these groups talk about unions being roadblocks to reform, I have a difficult time empathizing. Our district is the greatest example of what can be achieved when a district and an association work together to improve education for our students. Currently, our superintendent, human resource director, school board president, and association president are all attending a US Department of Education conference focused on collaboration. This does not happen in every district. I give credit to both parties agreeing to value the other side's contribution to the over-riding goal: the best education for our students. I also appreciate the open conversation we are able to have every month at labor management. This is an important component to our success.

As John indicates, we are here because of the relationship and common focus that we have developed over time.  I don't know that we will meet the federal department's need for creative ways to use student achievement data in teacher evaluations, but through our story we can share how a solid foundation is necessary for achieving a collbaorative culture that sustains over time. 

I will share more from the conference and yes, John, I will ask Scott to guest blog.  I'll also try for Mark and Didem to share their thoughts as we engage with others from about 100 districts across the country.