Collaborative Leadership
Collaborative Leadership
WHAT IS COLLABORATIVE LEADERSHIP:
"Collaborative leadership and practices, the fourth pillar of community schools, provides the relational “glue” that connects and reinforces the other pillars, making it foundational and critical for the success of a community school strategy. By developing a shared vision and goals and creating participatory practices for distributing responsibilities, a community school leverages the collective expertise of all of its stakeholders. In many schools, collaborative leadership and practices are central to the work of the professionals in the building—teachers, administrators, nonteaching staff, and union leaders. Examples of this include professional learning communities, site-based teams charged with improving school policy and classroom teaching and learning, labor-management collaborations, and teacher development strategies, such as peer assistance and review."27
Collaborative Leadership Implementation
Context:
San Diego Unified has strong collaborative leadership structures already build into our negotiated contract. Site Governance Teams (SGT) contractually allows for the community (teachers, staff, students, parents, & community members) to have the power/ability to make decisions regarding the design and implementation of effective strategies for learning and teaching. One of the strategies that SGT has the contractual ability to advise and oversee is Community Schools. Some schools have very strong diverse SGTs with clear meeting norms and protocols; others need help with recruiting members from different educational partner groups and/or building up meeting norms and protocols.
Designated Community School sites need to also figure out where the bulk of the work is going to take place. The Community Schools initiative is inherently collaborative (due to the nature as well as the size and scope of the work), and therefore a shared decision-making body must be identified to aid in the completion of the different benchmarks throughout the community schools journey. Sites must figure out if their Community Schools Team is going to be their site's SGT itself or if they would prefer to create a sub-committee of their SGT to engage in the work. Predominately small schools have opted to just use their SGTs, while larger schools (predominately high schools) have decided to create a sub-committee.
Goal/Purpose:
One of the most important pillars of Community Schools is collaborative leadership. Who knows what is best for the community? The community? Who knows what services are needed and how they should be rendered? The community. Who is needed to ensure the sustainability of solutions, programs, and protocols? The community. In order to ensure that the community is empowered and in control of its future and growth, all community members should be represented throughout the different benchmarks of the Community Schools process. That said, representation is not sufficient to gain collaborative leadership; structures and procedures are necessary to ensure the uplift of those who are often times crowded out by the larger voices in the room. The aim of the work is to build up educational partner voices in collaborative leadership bodies as well as ensure those voices have the space to have a meaningful impact within not just the community schools initiative but also throughout the decisions that affect the community.
Component 1: Building Up SGTs & Establishing Your Community Schools Team
Initial Evaluation - Based upon the site coach's prior knowledge, we had site coaches provide an initial evaluation of their SGTs to see if they have sufficient representation from the different educational partner groups as well as identify if there are clear structures/protocols in place to help the meeting flow.
Note: This evaluation informs what groups need to be intentionally recruited to join the SGT while Community Schools site mapping and onboarding is occurring.
Secondary Evaluation - Ideally, this occurs after the first SGT meeting of the year. Site Coaches were once again asked to evaluate their SGTs via our Site Governance Team: Self-Evaluation in Collaborative Leadership.
Note: This secondary evaluation informs what particular structures can be put in place to help remedy issues that might be popping up within the culture and/or systems of the current SGT. It also functions to evaluate the recruitment measures of the past months work and identify what work is still needed in bringing in educational partner representation.
Creation of Action Plans: Create clear actionable and achievable steps to strengthen the areas of growth that came out of the second evaluation for your SGT.
Community Schools Team Identify: Where is the Community Schools Team going to be located? Is it going to be your SGT or is it going to be a sub-committee of your SGT? Identify which body will be doing the bulk of the Community Schools work. Does it make sense on the size and functionality of your SGT to house the Community Schools Team or another body under the oversight of your SGT?
Note: If you decide for your team to be a sub-committee of your SGT, make sure to have a clear vote approving its creation.
Recruit: Recruit a diverse array of educational partners during the site mapping and onboarding process to help construct your Community Schools.
Create Protocols/Norms: Create clear norms, expectations, and protocols for your team.
Resource - Project Charter Template
Decide on Decision-Making Protocols: Suggestion - Consensus Model Decision-Making
Component 2: Building up Consensus Model Decision-Making
Review Evaluations: Based upon the site's evaluation of the decision-making process for their SGTs, CORTs (Central Office Resource Teachers) offer consensus model decision-making as a possible tool to bring more equity, efficiency, and structure to the SGT meetings.
Process for Rollout:
Step 1: Onboarding & Soliciting Interest - Show the structure to the ARs as well as other SGT members prior to the meeting to see if there is a clear desire for the structure.
Step 2: Present to SGT - Present the structure as well as the gives and the gets of implementing the consensus model decision-making process.
Step 3: Vote for Trial Run - At the end of the presentation, have a proposal for the SGT to run the next two SGT meetings according to the consensus model decision-making process.
Note: The rationale behind doing a trial run of two meetings is that the first meeting might be a little more difficult because people are just getting used to the culture and protocol of consensus decision-making. Having the trial last for at least two meetings allows people to have multiple experiences with the process as well as hopefully experience a more refined and truer run-through during the second meeting before voting on whether to adopt, modify, or abandon the process.
Step 4: Trial Run Meetings - For the next two SGT meetings, CORTs facilitate the SGT meetings according to the consensus model decision protocols.
Step 5: Adoption, Adaption, or Abandonment - At the top of the agenda for the following meeting, have someone propose to adopt, adapt, or abandon the consensus decision-making protocol.
Sustainability:
Component 3: Markers of Collaborative Leadership
Diverse Educational Partner Representation - All educational partners (Students, parents, teachers, classified staff, admin, community partners) need to be present so that they can offer their unique perspective to the items that are discussed and decided upon. The different perspectives allow for the molding and shaping of policies to best fit all educational partners who are affected by those decisions.
Meeting Minutes - Here is a template - Meeting notes are necessary to ensure that everyone has a clear understanding of what transpired as well as what was clearly decided upon by the decision-making body.
Prepared Agenda Ahead of Your Meeting - It is helpful for people to have access to the information as well as the items that are going to be discussed ahead of the meeting time because: (1) it allows members to be ready with questions/comments, (2) decreases the time in the meeting necessary to review materials, (3) allows other educational partners to understand what is being decided upon and decide whether to show up and voice support or opposition.
Transparent Posting of Minutes - Posting the minutes of the meetings is necessary for all educational partners to have access to the information and decisions that are being made that affect their community. Posting the minutes can take many forms: (1) posting the minutes on the school website, (2) posting them on your community schools website, (3) having them sent out by your principal if they have a weekly update email they send to the staff, (4) sending out a summary of the minutes in a parent newsletter.
Public Notifications of Meetings - Posting the dates of your meeting times well in advance allows for all educational partners to plan in order to attend the meeting.
Resources: Collaborative Leadership Resource HUB
Resources: Consensus Model Decision-Making Docs
Meeting Facilitation guides
General Meeting Facilitation Guide/Flowchart (English)
General Meeting Facilitation Guide/Flowchart (Spanish)
SGT Facilitation Guide/Flowchart (English)
SGT Facilitation Guide/Flowchart (Spanish)
Consensus Model Decision-Making Guide/Flowchart (English)
Consensus Model Decision-Making Guide/Flowchart (Spanish)
Community Schools Team
Context: The journey of the Community Schools initiative is a long one that takes a decent amount of work. It is meant to ensure the the voices of all educational partners are heard and acted upon. A necessary component for this journey is the construction of a Community Schools Team. Each school needs to make a decision about the construction of their Community Schools Team: (1) Their SGT becomes their Community Schools Team or (2) they construct a Community Schools Sub-committee via their SGT.
Purpose:
(1) Work together to ensure all voices are heard in the planning and implementation process of our needs and assets assessment.
(2) Ensure the highest levels of transparency when it comes to vetting spending of our site's Community Schools funding for proposed project.
(3) Work together to identify and help the formation of working groups to address the areas of growth that arise from our needs and assets assessment.
(4) Act as facilitators for the working groups to ensure implementation of science-based problem solving is followed with fidelity.
Resources: See below for (1) a list of current members, (2) past meeting notes & agendas, (3) future meeting notes & agendas