Bad weather and the meeting schedule for our Instructional Partners Pilot project seem to be colliding more often this school year. We’ve had ample opportunities to make the best of less than favorable conditions. But you know how it is with lemons? You make hot lemon tea!
This was the case week before last for our Instructional Partners Winter Retreat in Tuscaloosa. More that 80 people planned to meet at Walker Elementary School for two days of learning and fellowship. And then came the weather forecast.
Calls and emails started arriving on the afternoon before the retreat with news about schools’ planned closings the following day. With only a very few exceptions, however, everyone confirmed their commitment to making it to Tuscaloosa either that evening or the next day to participate.
Then, at about 10:00 p.m. that night, Cathy received an email from Walker Elementary Principal Pat Johnson informing us of Tuscaloosa County’s decision to delay the start of school the next day by three hours to allow the storm to pass and ensure the safety of their students.
“What are we going to do?” we wondered together in a late-night meet up in the Holiday Inn Express, where most of us were staying. When Cathy asked the front desk staff whether their meeting rooms were reserved for the next day, the reply was “We no longer have meeting rooms. They’ve been converted into suites.”
So we went into the hotel’s breakfast room and looked around. There were about 12 tables with four chairs each, a sofa, two lounge chairs, and of course the buffet area. Most of our participants were already in Tuscaloosa. It would have to do. We went back to the front desk with our plan and didn’t meet much resistance, in part because we wouldn’t start until 8 a.m., and it turned out that most of their customers were there for our IP meeting anyway!
A real professional community
What happened the next day was nothing short of miraculous. No, let’s rephrase. What happened the next day is what we have come to expect from participants in the IP Pilot. Everything worked without a hitch. No one complained about the challenges presented by our meeting space. Other lodgers seemed to accept in good spirits their “induction” into the IP Community while they ate breakfast.
Everyone was asking what they could do help make the meeting work. One small group took on the responsibility to change our schedule and the assignments for the planned Instructional Rounds at Walker Elementary later in the day. Another group looked for additional chairs so most everyone could be seated. Still others sat on the floor or gathered on the sofa and lounge chairs. And, amazingly, we began at 8!
It is at times like this that one can see the value of building bonds, of developing a genuine community of practice. Everyone was in good spirits and pitching in. We have a history as a community that traces back to the summer of 2011. We’ve developed our community story over many meetings and through our constant engagement online in our private Instructional Partners community space. As Alyson put it, we are really like a family, creating memories of our learning adventures together.
The community comfort level was obvious as principals, partners, and staff members from SDE, ARI, the Regional Inservice Centers and our participating school districts experienced “professional development” while sitting on the floor or standing at the Holiday Inn Express breakfast bar!
It got “even better” when it was time for our role-alike breakout sessions. We needed a place for the principals and discovered that one of the former meeting rooms (now a suite) had been opened for us. It wasn’t optimal, but there was a big conference table and some chairs lined up against the wall. Principals went in search of more chairs and we soon had enough. Now we needed one more space — for our district liaisons. So they gathered in the small exercise room, surrounded by treadmills and other devices, gallantly trying to ignore the “gymnasium smell.”
On to the Instructional Rounds!
When the three hours were up and the delay was lifted, we headed to Walker Elementary School. Imagine for a moment what it must have been like for the Walker’s principal, teachers and students to have more than 70 people descend on them — 15 minutes after school started on a three-hour delay. Yet, it was business as usual. Teachers and parent volunteers were outside (with umbrellas) to make us feel welcome. When we walked into the activity center, we were greeted by a beautiful banner and refreshments.
The Instructional Rounds began and teams divided up and visited three classrooms each, capturing what they saw — and being as detailed, descriptive, and nonjudgmental as possible as they followed the IR protocols. They were look for evidence of the “Problem of Practice” – an area of focus identified by the school based on one of their key improvement strategies. Walker’s Problem of Practice was this:
Walker Elementary students should have opportunities to be engaged in thinking, writing, investigating, reading and/or talking based on the essential question. Our December data from walk-throughs indicate that only 49% of our classrooms are engaging in these activities.
As you visit our classrooms, we would like data related to the following questions:
- What is the nature of the task students are being asked to do in class?
- How does the level of the work reflect the verb required by the essential question or learning outcome?
As our teams returned to the school’s Activity Center after visiting their assigned classrooms, participants noted that this seemed to be just a normal day at Walker. A middle school principal was very impressed: “This [smooth operation of school] would not have been the case at my school after a three-hour delay. I want to learn more about this school’s culture and how they are able to pull together and make school run so smoothly in spite of unpredicted disruptions.” More evidence of a community of practice in action.
Our First Day Ahas
So what did we learn from this day? Empowered people with a common purpose will rise to any occasion. What might happen if everyone in our schools and districts were empowered to learn and share in community this way?
After the retreat ended, we did some online reflection inside our Ning group. Debby Smith, Instructional Partner at Munford Elementary in Talladega County, summed it up so well:
My aha for the retreat was the resource we have created for each other through this Instructional Partner Pilot. I am now able to put faces with strengths…it just all seemed to come full circle at this retreat. I enjoy being surrounding by principals and IPs… knowing that I have the opportunity to learn from them and be a part of their learning as well. It’s just so powerful.
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Cathy Gassenheimer is Executive Vice President for the A+ Best Practices Center. Alyson Carpenter is the ABPC Instructional Partner in Residence and an educator in the Madison City Schools.
