The vision has a place . . .

Yesterday's post mentioned the state capital budget including revenue to support our purchase of 35 acres in Maple Valley's donut hole, a large tract of land owned by King County that includes the Elk Run golf course.  We have been working with King County for about a year on this purchase, but for a number of reasons were not able to finalize it.  We then made a collaborative decision to engage with city staff, council members, and state legislators to explore the possibility of expanding the network.  Yesterday's capital budget brought success to this work.

There are many people that have contributed to this success, some I know and some I'm sure that have been working in Olympia behind the scenes that I don't know.  I'll start with our School Board who made the decision to explore this possibility and President Tim Adam for being part of our team in conversations with county staff and state legislators.  Also, to board member Mary Jane Glaser our legislative representative who has over the years developed a positive working relationship with our state representatives that was an important contribution to this effort.

Locally, Mayor Allison and city manager David Johnston played an active role in conversations with legislators including how our vision aligns well with the city's long term vision for this property.  At the county level Executive Constantine, Roads Division staff, Carrie Cihak, and especially Lauren Smith were key contributors to this effort.  At times, lobbyists for both the city and county were important contributors to the outcome.

At the state level, we spoke with multiple elected officials.  Not knowing how exactly our request made it through the difficult interactions we have witnessed with two special sessions, I know that without the leadership and support of Senators Mullet and Fain and Representatives Sullivan and Dunshee success would not have been possible.  Also in the House, Representatives Rodne and Magendanz provided support in their caucus as did others we did not meet with.

We owe all of these important people thanks for allowing our vision of a high school and regional learning center in the city of Maple Valley to move forward.  It has been a very complex process with highs and lows that I would go through again for this vision to have a chance at reality.  We can now move forward and answer the question in the minds of many.  Where will this school be built?  In what we in our community have come to call the donut hole. So, I guess its time for even me to celebrate.

fistintheair.com

The session ends . . .

Sixteen days into the second special session brought agreement on an operating budget.  This Seattle Times article captures what many of us are thinking about this budget.

Our finance and Human resource offices have been developing a budget on assumptions.  They can now move forward knowing what the budget drivers will be.  We know that MSOC (Materials, Supplies, and Operating Costs) have been increased as well as movement to fully fund transportation in this biennium.  These are two areas we wanted to see funded that I blogged about here so this is good news for us.

On the not so good side are decisions to reduce class size in K-3 and to fully fund all day Kindergarten. Though these are positive and needed changes, we will not qualify for this additional funding in this biennium.  I believe that the quote below captures the reality the legislators have created with this operating budget.


Dan Steele, government-relations director for school administrators, said he wonders what will happen next biennium when, to meet the court’s order, the Legislature will have to look at adding another $2 billion to $3 billion to the public-school budget.

“The ramp,” he said, “is that much more steep.”

In a separate and important decision for us, agreement on a capital budget has also been reached.  I have been told that money was included for us to complete the purchase of property in the donut hole from King County. I want to celebrate, but haven't been able to confirm.  Keep your fingers crossed.

Proud to be a BEAR . . .

Cassandra Houghton

Tonight was another of one those evenings for me to be proud of being a member of the Tahoma School District.  I attended the E3 Washington Awards ceremony as a board member of the organization to congratulate those individuals and organizations at the state level being recognized for contributions to environmental education.  One of those awards went to Cassandra Houghton a 2013 graduate of Tahoma High School.  Cassandra was also given an opportunity to address the group and got a standing ovation for sharing her Tahoma journey and aspirations for engaging youth in sustainability.  It was a major highlight of the evening.

Representatives of OSPI were also in attendance to honor those schools and districts recognized as state and federal Green Schools that I blogged about here.  That meant that Tahoma was well represented in the awards category and in attendance as we had staff and two board members, Mary Jane Glaser and Tami Henkel there to support our teams.  It was another time when "Papa Bear" could sit back and be proud of the work being done in our system represented by those in the pictures below.

Tahoma School District

Glacier Park

Tahoma High School

Value added . . .

Reading this Boston.com article reinforced my belief in our Outcomes and Indicators as value added for our young people as they venture from post secondary learning to work. The focus of the article is on what the world's top employers are looking for in college graduates seeking employment.

The world’s top employers are pickier than ever. And they want to see more than high marks and the right degree.

They want graduates with so-called soft skills — those who can work well in teams, write and speak with clarity, adapt quickly to changes in technology and business conditions and interact with colleagues from different countries and cultures.

‘‘Soft skills tend to differentiate good college graduates from exceptional college graduates,’’ says Joseph Krok, university research liaison at Britain’s Rolls-Royce.

What employers are looking for are young people with the knowledge and skill sets embedded in our Outcomes.  

A survey of employers released in April by the Association of American Colleges and Universities found that 93 percent of the respondents reported that a capacity to think critically, communicate clearly and solve complex problems was more important than an undergraduate major.

‘‘Many technical programs around the world have historically focused more on technical depth,’’ says Paul McIntyre, vice president in charge of global recruiting at oil giant BP. ‘‘We've been communicating to universities the importance of soft skills.’’

The work that we started in May to review the Outcomes and Indicators to focus more intentionally on work ready skills and a global context is supportive of what we are learning from this article.  I blogged about the evening event starting this work here.  As can be seen below, our current document aligns well with what these employers are expecting from entry level workers.  We now need to continue the process to create deeper alignment so that our graduates become value added for any future employer.

Growth of a learning organization . . .

Thanks Scott for the comment to my last post on applying system tools to an issue that has evaded previous attempts to resolve.  In the comment, he captures one of the reasons why it is sometimes difficult for these tools to become part of the usual way of doing business.  The road to becoming a learning organization is difficult and takes time.

My biggest problem is that I am not a big process person, I am a problem solver and product person. The whole time through these meetings, my mind keeps floating back to, let's create a product, let's make the list of things we are expected to do, let's get this thing done.

Most of us are similar to Scott in that we want our time together to be efficient and effective and for many that means a product and resolution to an issue.  I am no different.  In the last committee meeting there were times when I was thinking if we just made this change or put this new structure in place we can put this problem behind us.  What I have come to understand, however, and Scott is learning is that we must first get to the bottom of the iceberg to understand the mental models driving the structures that create the results we want to change.

Putting new or revised structures in place without understanding the current mental models and preferred mental models necessary to change the results may for a time mask the issue, but often it will return.  This happens because what we have always done has created the results we are experiencing and somewhere in the system there will be a tendency to maintain the current reality by resisting the change.  This process takes time and the capacity of those involved to share their private thoughts.  Again, from experience I know how difficult this is and I also know that it is possible as I observe the capacity growing in our work.  We have a long way to go as a system, but we are learning.

New tools for an old issue . . .

This morning we had a meeting with TEA, Teaching and Learning staff, elementary teachers, and principals to continue looking at the teacher stress caused by having more content than can be covered in a student day.  From my experience, if I were to graph the stress over time it might look like the graph below.

The graph is based upon feedback to TEA leadership over time and assumptions that many of us have made from our experiences.  The committee was formed because of the perception that much of the stress level for many, if not most of our elementary teachers, is a result of the many expectations placed upon them, especially those that are curriculum related. From my experience, I believe that the stress level is high and that we have over time attempted to address this issue by forming teams of teachers to review current reality and make recommendations for changes to align expectations with the available time.  Forming the committees resulted in a very brief and small change to teacher stress levels that did not sustain, but our efforts have not resulted in reduced levels of stress leading to my perception of the graph over time.   Other factors such as introducing new and revised curriculum units would also result in some change, but again the stress level would remain or grow higher.  I would be interested in how others would graph stress over time.

So, what makes this effort any different than those we have implemented in the past?  We are using system tools to process the issue in a new way. The tools are designed to focus on creating a common understanding of our current reality and the structures and mental models in place that create these results.  Once we reach this point, we can then begin to identify new preferred mental models and structures with the potential to change the results that lead to high stress and that will sustain over time.  The process takes time and perseverance as these conversations are not the norm and they require not only balancing advocacy with inquiry, but reflection and the capacity to truly suspend assumptions that drive our mental models and ladders of inference.

The figure below, developed by a local systems thinking consultant, captures the process.  The model gives the perception of a linear process, unfortunately in reality with an issue of this complexity it will be anything but linear.  We have already begun to experience this in our work.

Using these tools I believe will lead us to new structures with the potential to change our results.  This is the mental mode that I bring to the work.  It will take time and commitment on the part of all committee members as we experience a process that will not feel efficient because the structures (product) will not emerge without significant conversation, reflection, and engagement than we normally give to an issue.  Another mental model that I hold is the belief that if we don't use these tools whatever modified or new structures we put in place will not significantly sustain change that reduces the stress felt by elementary teachers.  Our graph would be similar one, two, three, or more years into the future without changing our practice to include these tools.

 I'll share more of my thinking on the need for using these tools in a later post.

Following up on declining support . . .

Adding to my last post on the Common Core would be this report that I learned about at EDUWONK.com done by Whiteboard Advisers measuring the year-to-year level of support for a number of education issues including the Common Core. Information for the report comes from "policy insiders", described below in their language.

Who Are The Insiders?
Influential leaders who are shaping federal education reform, including individuals who have or are currently serving as key policy and political “insiders,” such as: • Current and former White House and U.S. Department of Education leaders;
• Current and former Congressional staff;
• State education leaders including state school chiefs and former governors; and
• Leaders of major education organizations, think tanks and other key influentials.

There are two sections of the report related to Common Core.  The chart below captures one set of information from these key stakeholders on the shifting support for Common Core over a seven month period of time.  Of particular interest to me is the State Education category that includes legislators showing a decline in the Strong and Very Strong range from 44% to 24% and a growing number that are neutral.  This is a key category as this group has a significant influence on the final decision that states will make.

The second report concerns the status of the two testing consortia developing tests aligned with the Common Core Standards.  The consortia are the SBAC and PARCC.  Our state belongs to the SBAC that had a significantly favorable shift from May to June of this year while PARCC broke a four month declining trend.  Based on this report that is similar to posts I have been seeing we are aligned with the organization best positioned for success.

Below are two comments included in the report.


“If you had to bet it all, SBAC would be the bet at this point but they still haven't proven they can deliver everything and the recently released questions are fine but not all that different from what's on some standardized tests now so they may face a ‘let down’ problem.”


“Smarter Balanced is full of bad ideas competently organized, PARCC replete with good ideas incompetently managed.”

None of this information creates a comfort level for the future considering the amount of time and resources we are devoting to this work.  We need to follow these "policy insiders" as they make predictions on the fate of this initiative that so many have embraced as a component of "fixing" our broken public school system.