Wow!! We worked in Washington County
Schools in GA yesterday as they focused on the Certified School Improvement
Specialist Standard Five, Manage and Organize Efforts and Results. This
district serves around 3,600 students, and all of the principals, assistant
principals, district leaders and instructional coaches have either completed
the Institute LAUNCH! program for facilitating systemic,
sustainable school improvement.
The evidence of the application of their
learning is everywhere! Schools have the right processes and tools in place to
support teaching and learning, and to deeply engage teachers in the improvement
process. With a strong focus on literacy and math, the team members are working
to ensure students have the foundations for academic success.
Yesterday they developed and applied a
distributed leadership assessment to evaluate how pervasive and consistent
their team-based improvement efforts are, and how effectively they are engaging
teachers, and giving them the support, responsibility and autonomy to make
needed changes and sustain progress.
WACO Superintendent Dr. Donna Hinton has
participated in every session, and has actively supported and coached each participant, ensuring that their
learning transferred to on-the-job action, and achieved the targeted outcomes.
As the Institute for Performance
Improvement has taught and coached each participant, Dr. Hinton has focused on
supporting application in practice, and recognizing the significant progress
they are making individually and collectively. Way to go, WACO!