Leadership magazine Jan/Feb 2016 V45 No 3 | Page 37

Conclusions and discussion The data in this case study suggest a set of implications that could be used to guide future systemic improvements in San Francisco and beyond. •  Leadership distribution. Structures and practices should distribute leadership across all levels, from the classroom to the school and to the central office. Interviewees referred to a feeling of distributed leadership across schools more so than their experience prior to the establishment of the Superintendent’s Zone. According to one principal, “Give a person a fish, they eat, but instead we taught them how to fish. This approach was instrumental in teaching our teachers to be coaches. We identified teachers as peer coaches. We empowered our teachers to be leaders.” The different structures of Grade Level Collaborations or even the practices of Instructional Rounds allow various members of a school and district community to take leadership roles. This sense of leadership among all people involved in school improvement processes empowered them to take risks in new roles and have confidence in building their capacity to reach and meet high expectations professionally. •  Networks of learning. School systems need to be organized around effective frameworks supported by a network of learning. The interview data and survey data from this case study suggested that frameworks helped these schools with their improvement efforts. In this case, the frameworks existed at the systems level and at the school or instructional level. For example, within each of the five essential elements in the Bryk Framework there was an analogous identified role in the central teams assigned to support schools in the Superintendent’s Zone. For the essential elements of leadership, the district gave each central team not only an assistant superintendent, but also an executive director to support the facets of leadership, allowing for differentiated support across schools. For building professional capacity, schools had a series of coaches for different content areas to support teacher learning. For building school parent community ties, they hired a community schools coordinator for each area team. •  Cycles of improvement. There is a need for structures and practices that allow for cycles of continuous improvement. As the Superintendent’s Zone looks to sustain and improve, its leadership must also look for ways to cycle through a process aimed at continuous improvement. Fortunately, a number of structures established at the beginning of the Superintendent’s Zone, and more frequently seen in the Mission neighborhood schools, supported this process. For example, the most frequently cited structure by all interviewees and stakeholder surveys was the continuous improvement cycle within Grade Level Collaborations. The district found this strategy so important that it adopted an early release policy one day a week to help the collaborations happen. In all of our findings coming from teachers, Grade Level Collaborations continue to be the most requested strategy. •  Flexible supports. Schools requiring strategic interventions and intensive support need to work with central teams that have the capacity to provide differentiated supports. One way that SFUSD central teams gave schools intensive support is by hiring additional support staff. Yet, often schools receiving these standard allocations of resources had difficulty finding the right person for the position. For example, some schools received funding for an English language development coach, but were not able to find the right candidate. When school sites had trouble filling these additional coaching roles, the role was perceived as a burden, rather than a support for instruction. When schools were given a sense of defined autonomy from their central team, the right mixture of autonomy for personnel in their day-to-day work combined with clearly defined expectations and differentiated supports, schools reported feeling most supported by central teams. When central teams were able to give schools some f lexibility related to the use of additional personnel, schools seemed to be able to match the right person with the right role. As San Francisco and other districts think about how to integrate these implications into their efforts, we hope they think about the time and resources it took to get the Superintendent’s Zone off the ground. Similar to Michael Fullan’s (2011) foc us on the “right drivers” in education, the Superintendent’s Zone focused on building capacity, emphasizing a collaborative culture, centering efforts on instruction, and creating synergy across efforts at every level of the system – central office, school and classroom. Within the large system of the Superintendent’s Zone, there were tiny decisions and leadership moves made along the way to make it possible. While these implications attempt to describe these leadership moves, there are many small steps districts can take to infuse these implications at a pace that promotes sustained organizational improvement. It is our hope that documenting the efforts in San Francisco supports districts in their endeavor to provide the highest levels of learning for all students. Resources • Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191-215. • Bryk, A.S., Sebring, P.B., Allensworth, E., Luppescu, S., Easton, J.Q. (2010). Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. • Fountas, I.C., Pinnell, G.S. (1996). Guided Reading: Good First Teaching For All Children. Heinemann. • City, E.A., Elmore, R.F., Fiarman, S.E, and Teitel, L. (2009) Instructional Rounds in Education. Harvard Education Press. • Fullan, M. (May 2011). Choosing the wrong drivers for whole system reform. Seminar Series Paper No. 204. Centre for Strategic Education. • San Francisco Unified School District, www.sfusd.edu. Laura Wentworth is director, StanfordSFUSD Partnership; Ritu Khanna is assistant superintendent, San Francisco Unified School District; and Regina Piper is a director in SFUSD. January | February 2016 37