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Summer of 2013 Speech

Ken Thurston, Director of Education

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

What is our story? Are there several chapters? What are the untold versions? Are there stories within the story? What do we want our story to be? Most importantly – what’s the next chapter?

I’ve thought a great deal about our story lately. And I know many others have as well. In fact that is the focus of our Quest conference this November. We are going to share our story and we’ve invited other high performing school districts to share theirs as well.

“Story” has several meanings. While our story must of course be based on facts, any interesting story has perspective, is interpretive, and is embellished by responsible use of narrative and drama – both factual and fictional!

Today’s speech is a story. It is a reflection on where we’ve been; where we are and where we need to go next. This annual retreat is an opportunity for us to look over our shoulders and then turn to look into the year and years ahead.

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Looking over our shoulders and then turning around enables us to reflect on the past as well as vision the story line or path forward. When I think of paths – and stories - I see inclines and flat stretches; decision points, straight-a-ways, obstacles and opportunities.

And isn’t it interesting that the obstacles on our paths often turn into pillars of strength, pillars we need in our growth – growth of understanding, caring, confidence and resiliency. In a sense, they define us – and become an important piece of our narrative.

Let me share a story. “Out of the Way! Out of the Way!” (authored by Uma Krishnaswami & Uma Krishnaswamy).

Today – and throughout this school year – I challenge you to reflect on what we have achieved collectively. Let’s identify those trees that have grown and in so doing have become our strength, our roots, our meeting places and our energizers for the next steps on our path. Let’s frame our story for ourselves, for our colleagues and for those who will take responsibility for our story when we hand them the pen – or tablet. And, let’s celebrate our progress because it is in the telling that stories become powerful.

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I’ll begin our story with a brief look at the first decade of this century and how it set the stage for our recent chapter. Then I’ll reflect on the story line of the past few years. Finally, I’ll offer my thoughts on our next narrative.

But, before starting on these chapters, I offer a reflection: stories are shaped by what we value. Many things are happening simultaneously in our world. Our values filter and frame our stories. The story of public education has largely been filtered by our quest for improved student achievement.

Improved student achievement must be one filter in the framing of any story of public education. However this, or any, single filter may lead us to miss important dimensions of the story or to misinterpretation; and can cause atrophy by focusing solely on the easily measureable signs of progress.

At the student and classroom levels we hear a great deal about the fear of focusing solely on achievement. Will a student’s program include a balance of the Arts and Physical Education if the measures of achievement are limited to literacy and numeracy? The same is true at a school and department levels. If progress is measured only on the basis of increased “scores,” what will the overall impact be on priority setting, on student and staff engagement, on parent engagement and on public confidence? And will students’ individual stories be fulsome if the metric of success is limited?

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There are similar challenges at the system level. Using student achievement as the only frame leads to challenges of focus and it also has the potential to lead to complacency. Importantly, it fails to honour sustainability and innovation.

Significantly, our Board’s story was front and centre in educational literature in the early 21st century. We improved student achievement relative to other jurisdictions. Others looked on and patterned their plans on our success. This was a good thing. It motivated us and informed the practice of others. But, has there been much attention paid to our work over the past few years? Sustainability is at least as challenging as improvement but it isn’t quite as compelling. Who wants to hear about a board that crept up a few points – or held its own - when others went from 52 to 74 per cent in a given measure?

We’ve not only sustained, we’ve made progress in both the traditional and the more diverse dimensions of improvement. I’ll have much more to say on this but I wanted to put forth this caution up front. The frames and filters of our stories shape our energies, our sense of accomplishment and our next steps. We must keep an open mind to different perspectives, different metrics of success, or our story can be circuitous.

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Recall the work of Collins in “Good to Great” - especially the final chapters on sustainability, or the historical accounts of the fall of world empires. Often a singular focus or measure of success is followed by repetition or complacency. As Hargreaves and Shirley argue in The Global Fourth Way, it is at the very time that an organization is nearing the peak of its game that it needs to be looking at how to change its game. Counterintuitive perhaps – but essential when sustainability and continuous growth are analyzed in business, sport or public service. Within education, we need look no further than neighbouring boards. The highest performing school districts over the past decades have often slipped into complacency. I see few examples of boards – or schools or departments - that have remained at the top of their game over time. Sustainability and continuous improvement on a broad range of measures are important filters as we frame our story.

One of the things we did right in the early 2000s was that we focused. We strategically focused on literacy. We focused on teacher practice including assessment – and on leadership development. We were highly prescriptive. We embedded accountability into our system. We bought heavily into well researched frameworks. There were 13 parameters of effective instruction; Epstein’s six types of parent engagement; both local and provincial leadership frameworks; there were requirements for literacy blocks and well formulated and

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prescribed strategies for student success such as credit recovery. We had precision in our delivery of service to each panel – elementary and secondary. We relied heavily on the expert model of support whereby leaders went to the experts with questions on curriculum, special education, human resources or finance. Board improvement planning was structured with responsibility resting in the hands of a few and without extensive involvement or direction setting by our governing body, the trustees.

This was the “Third Way” to use Hargreaves’ and Shirley’s terminology: highly prescriptive, well researched in terms of high yield but focused on a narrow view of achievement. There was a healthy balance of pressure and support. Great interest was shown in the work that we were doing in our Board. And rightfully so.

In the past few years, you’ve heard our first decade of this century referred to as foundational; as first order change; or as I’ve mentioned, “Third Way.” It was all these but I’d add another descriptor.

This was an era of the expert model. We went to the experts when we needed solutions. At the outset of a change process, this top down approach is effective in moving a system forward. Our structures and our responsibilities reflected our reliance on others. Superintendent portfolios fit this model.

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Specialized support for elementary and secondary schools fit this model. And resting responsibility for direction setting in a central department fit this model. The model was right for its time.

There were consequences to the prescriptive, expert model that needed to be considered as we moved into our next chapter. Were the strategies sustainable? Would they lead to further improvement? Would we be able to accommodate and afford such strategies over time? Could we sustain them environmentally? Were the strategies that worked in moving results in literacy applicable to other dimensions of the curriculum? Who were the students and staff for whom the prescriptive practices were not working? Were prescribed practices building ownership and engaging all students, staff and the public? Were our system departments and our unions linked to our success? Would the system continue to evolve or were we buying into recipes that would limit the innovation necessary in an “ever changing world community?”

These were the questions that I heard early in 2010 at administrator meetings and managers’ breakfasts and in individual conversations. They were also questions that had been rumbling around in my head for a few years.

So, on to another chapter in our story.

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If the first decade was focused, prescriptive and expert driven; what next?

A big part of the next chapter has been in the broadening of our focus. Achievement was the theme of the first chapter. Well-being was added in the second.

This broadening of purpose came about as a result of several factors. The Education Act was amended to include a statement that the purpose of public education was both student achievement and well- being. Our Board of Trustees – following extensive consultation - incorporated a broader understanding of purpose in the newly minted “Multi-Year Plan.” And, my entry included a period of consultation during which you conveyed the need for a broadening of focus. As I said, it was also something that I felt we needed to do.

Well-being must be seen as both a supporting condition for student achievement – and staff performance – and as an important goal in itself. While the attributes of wellness, including mental health, underlie success; well-being is much more. It speaks to lifelong motivation and resiliency as learners and the importance of contributing to the well-being of others and of society as a whole.

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Well-being has enriched the scope of our work – both for our students and staff. I see it daily in schools and in our system departments. So too have our other priorities – the environment, equity and engagement. You have helped to embed these priorities into our everyday practices. These have led to appreciation for broader curriculum content and delivery – the Arts, physical education, digital literacy, the Sciences and inquiry. We have made progress on delivering a more engaging, fulsome curriculum that enables our students to perform at the levels for which we strive.

Accompanying this broadening of purpose has been the broadening of our metrics – or measures of success. We now track and use other data including rich perceptual data from staff, student and parent surveys.

We’ve made progress in shifting from a prescriptive model of priority and target setting to a contextual one. We have done this within the parameters of the board priorities and with increased ownership and responsibility for progress. Being empowered to contextualize priorities is essential. And you’ve responded – but I acknowledge that this is also an area that we need to continue to address.

You may recall the comment in my first system speech that got the most attention and pushback from many – including system leaders – was that we would shift from an emphasis on

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accountability to a balance of accountability and responsibility. This rebalancing must continue.

We have moved to a service model where the go-to person for principals is their superintendent of schools. This has had implications for our system departments. Our service departments have reframed support by building the skill sets of school and system leaders in readiness rather than in response to arising needs -- while being available to directly assist when required.

Many of the changes over the past four years have been structural. We needed to ensure that our structures reflected our values and priorities – rather than driving or limiting our work. The structural change that gets the most attention was our move to a K-12 system. This change was part “ends” and part “means.” It has seemed when we review our story over the past four years, this shift stands out. We must remember that the reason we moved to a continuous K-12 and beyond – let’s not forget our large and ever expanding continuing education – was to ensure that our students and our public experienced one continuous and connected system – not specialized divisions or subsets as was the case to a large extent in the first chapter. So the “end” was a clear and continuous system and the “means” of doing so was to reorganize and restructure.

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In recent years, we have set five priorities as a system: literacy and numeracy, well-being, environment, engagement and equity. These were set with your input and while they broke the rule of three, they were strategically designed to capture your highly consistent input and to force us to look more broadly as a system. Each department and school has reflected these priorities in plans and actions – shaping them to serve different contexts, strengths and needs. They have served us well. Each in its own way has transformed our places of work and learning.

Equity for example has moved from a focus on anti-racist education to a much broader strategy of ensuring that the strengths and needs of those marginalized for any reason are addressed. Our equity story is a significant one. I can’t help to think back to some of the opposition experienced at the outset. There was sincere and well-intentioned opposition to broadening our understanding of equity. It reminds me of the tree in “Out of the Way! Out of the Way!” It threatened status quo; looked like a threat to our progress, but has in many ways led us to understand the breadth of factors that can marginalize staff and students and helped us pull together and share strategies and commitments that will be our strength going forward.

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The other dimension of this plot line is our shift from equity to inclusivity. Inclusivity will be our tree. Inclusivity will be the milestone at which we shift from celebration and the implementation of strategies to the fundamental restructuring of our organization – our schools, classrooms, departments and Board. Inclusivity isn’t just inclusion. It isn’t just about belonging. It is about the constant evolution of the environments in which we belong.

Inclusion is causing angst in our system as it challenges traditions, privileges and power. It was fine to celebrate and accommodate our differences but for some making fundamental changes to our workplaces and learning environments is threatening. Inclusive environments cannot be the same as they were. This is our ultimate goal. We aren’t going back and “Out of the Way!” is not the answer. Embracing and celebrating change is the way forward.

Similarly, our work on the environment and engagement has affected how we work and learn – the models we set for our students and the examples they set for us. We have moved the bar on 21st Century literacy and learning – and there is need for continuous innovation in this area. Our progress in innovating along with the ever-evolving digital world will be fundamental to our next chapter.

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I mentioned earlier the importance of our story reflecting our broader range of priorities. Our growing number of eco-schools and workplaces is worth celebrating. The enhanced feelings of pride in our Board and increased levels of engagement are noteworthy. There is significance to the progress we have made in our commitment to equitable and inclusive places of learning and working. We must find ways to share these stories and to do so in ways that celebrate our progress and make them relevant for our audiences – students, parents, the education sector and the public. We won’t be doing so solely out of pride. It is essential to measure and celebrate our success in order to maintain momentum and challenge ourselves as we move forward.

Another important theme in our story – one that bridges all three chapters – is the relationship we have with our employees and their representative unions and associations. Positive relationships are one of our defining features and needs to be referenced in our story. These partnerships have been tested – particularly over the past year. But in the end they stood up to the test to a high degree. I haven’t forgotten how challenging this test was, however, it reminded us of how important it is to invest in relationships, and to build trust and resiliency. Later this morning you will have an opportunity to reflect on the leadership attributes that mitigated or exacerbated your experience last year.

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Leadership is a classic example of the evolution that has occurred in the past few years. Recent visions of effective leadership have shifted from practices to attributes – and in particular personal attributes that are essential for resilient leadership. Responsibility for leadership development has evolved from a departmental responsibility focused on formal leadership to a shared ownership, which addresses the needs of all staff and leaders across the system.

In keeping with the theme of ensuring that our story reflects the wide range of activity going on in our system, recent work by Ken Leithwood is instructive. Until recently, there has been little attention paid in educational research to the characteristics of high-performing jurisdictions. Often research that purported to do so focused solely on improved student achievement and cited examples of individual schools within these systems that exemplified increased achievement. Leithwood’s work sets forth nine features of district school boards that perform well over time – therefore addressing the sustainability dimension while admittedly relying heavily on student achievement measures.

This work demonstrates that systems – school boards – need to think about the complexity of processes and structures within them, thereby forming the basis for a broader and well-rounded story. These nine features also serve as useful

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measures of our progress as a Board and what we must consider when drafting our next chapter.

The nine features of high performing school districts are:

• A broadly shared mission, vision and goals founded on ambitious images of the educated person.

• A coherent instructional guidance system. • Deliberate and consistent use of multiple sources of

evidence to inform decisions. • Learning-oriented organizational improvement processes. • Job-embedded professional development for all staff

members. • Budgets, structures, personnel policies and procedures,

and uses of time aligned with the district’s mission, vision and goals.

• A comprehensive approach to leadership development. • A policy-oriented board of trustees. • Productive working relationships with staff and other

stakeholders.

I won’t analyze all nine but will share a few reflections. I leave them with you to reflect upon further. Overall –we are doing well. Our strength over time has been in our instruction, our learning orientation, our leadership development strategies and the alignment of our budgets and structures – including the

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work of all service departments – with the core goals of our Board. As mentioned, we have positive working relationships that must continue to evolve. We have made progress in the renewed focus of our trustees setting strategic direction for the organization. We continue to broaden the metrics used to measure success. Among our immediate next steps is the renewal of our Mission, Vision and Values and this, in turn, will affect all other dimensions of our work.

So what are our next steps? How do we build on where we are today? What’s our next story line? How do we ensure that this story line is reflected in our schools and departments and that it resonates with our students, their families and our public? And, what does this look like for you as leaders in our system?

If prescription, accountability, a literacy focus and reliance on experts were a part of the first chapter; and contextualization, broadening of purpose, service orientation and collective responsibility were key to the second, then what should be the defining features of the next chapter? We won’t do all this in the next school year – I’m talking about the next five years or so - but we must get underway.

First – we must reframe our story by renewing and sharing our Mission. This process is underway and we look forward to launching our Mission, Vision and Values statements – along with a motto – within this school year and hopefully during the

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week of Quest. This renewal must be replicated and reflected in each and every school and workplace. We must ensure that every member of the YRDSB family – including our public – sees themselves in our Mission and is able to see it in their work and the programs and services they deliver and receive. Co-missioning – the art of building on the Board’s mission through contextualization and tailoring to specific departments and services – is one of many ways we can ensure that this renewal happens everywhere. Celebrating and telling the stories of our progress – basing the script on our renewed Mission, Vision and Values – will be a big part of sustaining our momentum and achieving our collective vision.

Second – we must build on the positive relationships we have with all stakeholders including staff members, leaders, students, parents and the broader public. Professional trust will be key. Trust must lead to empowered professional judgement. Everyone, and especially leaders, must tap into the power of lateral learning and lateral responsibility. In a digital world, expertise lies neither above nor below. It doesn’t just come about in formal settings. Knowledge and understanding are built laterally through formal and informal channels. We as leaders must be a part of this knowledge creation and exchange – so too must our unions and professional associations. By doing so, we will continue to break down “we” and “they.” We must be part of the

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knowledge creation and exchange but even more importantly we need to be enablers and facilitators of lateral sharing and learning. This is the promise of instructional rounds. Networked learning and ensuring staff work collectively to identify challenges, and to set goals and strategies holds promise - providing everyone is authentically engaged.

Third, we must continue to broaden our vision of success and the measures we use to monitor our progress. We must look with scrutiny on what and how we’ve measured progress in the past. We must determine what is congruent with our renewed goals. We need to make bold additions to the data we gather including the long promised and carefully planned student census data that will reflect all dimensions of diversity. We must empower staff to make professional decisions on the measures they need to carry out their responsibilities. While retaining the right to ensure we have consistent ways to measure our organization’s progress, we must also support and have confidence in our people to make strategic decisions on what needs to be measured, when and for what purpose. Remember that empowered professional judgment requires support from us as leaders and from our system. And empowered professional judgement only works when professionals work collectively. This applies in the context of classrooms, schools and departments alike.

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Fourth, we must continue to benchmark ourselves against the stories of others. We must never miss an opportunity to reflect on what and how other jurisdictions and other sectors are making progress. We must think strategically about the stories of others to discern what might have applicability; what might be adapted or what we can learn about ourselves by observing others. We must continue to contribute in return, with other jurisdictions and with our community and Ministry partners.

Next – we must put back together things we have taken apart. It was important to look at the environment, equity, literacy and numeracy, safe schools, well-being, and engagement separately – as well as the Arts and other dimensions of student learning and our work. Each needed attention to gain momentum but it is time to reintegrate them. We must not lose them in doing so as they all lead to student achievement and well-being. Whether we are talking about the importance of staff wellness or staff or student engagement, equity and inclusivity, social justice, or the protection of our environment – we are ultimately talking about the purpose of public education – student achievement and well-being.

Further, the nature of teaching and learning must fundamentally change. This is parallel to the previous point and is the promise and demand of the digital age – an age when knowledge is holistic. Conceptual thinking and learning are

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intrinsic to the digital world – a world in which arbitrary boundaries and artificial time requirements have no place. Inevitably this must be reflected in the curriculum and program delivery in our schools. Traditional disciplines – arbitrary content boundaries and conceptual structures – are irrelevant in the digital world of today’s and tomorrow’s learners. As no one has exclusive access to information, the content and delivery of schooling and the nature of the workplace must change. This will change relationships in our classrooms, in our schools and in our workplaces and it is already well underway. It is a revolution for which the next generation, which includes many of you, will take ultimate responsibility but we must accommodate and adapt to a fundamentally different view of knowledge, learning, working, leading and teaching – now. Among the many implications will be the increased importance of incorporating social values and norms into learning and working. Neither access to information nor the platforms for expression are limited in a digital world. Not all information is appropriate or accurate. We must learn and ensure that others – especially our students - understand how to make the most effective and appropriate use of both the tools and content available.

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There are immense implications from these and other shifts in schooling and society for us as leaders.

• We must consider the increasing importance of influence versus power; and understand that “why” is usually more important than “how.”

• We must inspire and build ownership in a world where responsibility and trust will trump accountability.

• We must reflect on the implications for our practice in a world where knowledge is no longer power.

• We must understand that including others is not just about making them feel safe or even welcome.

• We must recognize the importance of our personal and professional well-being – and instilling it in others.

• And we must have the courage, resiliency and optimism to address the challenges that come our way, knowing that they may soon be the stories we tell.

What does all this mean for you, for me, for our system in the year ahead? What are our immediate next steps? I’ll answer this in part by sharing four goals for the upcoming school year:

1. We will continue our focus on student achievement and well-being by broadening how we define success and the measures we use. We will integrate the important work we have underway on such priorities as literacy, numeracy, equity, environment and engagement. We will

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ensure that our programs and services continue to support and engage all learners. We will continue and step up our work in identifying those students, those families, those schools and those staff who are most in need of differentiated support to achieve our overall purpose as an organization. Innovation combined with sound research will be essential in selecting the right next steps in each context.

2. We will renew our Mission, Vision and Values and begin the process of embedding them in the goals of each school and workplace. Our Mission will capture not only our vision and commitments but frame the story of where we are and where we are headed. Each department and school will reflect on how the renewed Mission, Vision and Values call for renewal within their department, their school and their practice. We must engage all staff, students and the broader public in both framing and telling our story and there is no better way to do so than renewing what we believe in and are committed to.

3. We will ensure that the journey from diversity and equity to inclusivity continues. Not only will all students and staff be safe and supported, they will be included in all classrooms, schools and workplaces. And in the true sense

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of inclusivity, contexts and processes will be enhanced, enriched and constantly evolve given our rich and ever-evolving diversity. Prescriptive practices and contexts will be sensitive to the socio-economic, gender, racial, cultural, religious and sexual orientation of our staff, students and communities.

4. We will further enhance our relationships with our staff, our students, our unions, our communities and our parents. This will involve further empowering staff; enhancing trust in professional judgments and building resiliency into our work as leaders. Specifically, all schools will authentically decide upon challenges of practice as well as enhancing job-embedded professional exchange and development. All departments will engage in similar processes to ensure their services and their work align with the Board’s renewed goals, the needs of staff and students and the best thinking within and across departments. And we will find renewed ways to ensure that the voices of all students inform our evolving practices and priorities.

As in the past, these goals which form the Director’s Annual Plan are aligned with the Multi-Year Plan set by our trustees. The goals will inform but not prescribe what each of you will do

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in your departments. You will consider your context, your students, your services and your staff, and establish renewed priorities and strategies for continued success.

It is challenging to capture and comprehend the YRDSB story in one sitting, but I wanted to share with you this version of our story and provide my thoughts on the next instalment.

If I were to leave you with one key message, remember that stories are not only told, they are experienced and they are framed and filtered by our perspective. As leaders we have the pen, or tablet, at our fingers. The best stories leave us with many things including hope and optimism as well as both clarity and uncertainty. Great stories leave us wanting more. And the best stories – just as “Out of the Way! Out of the Way!” – reveal how our greatest challenges and obstacles often turn out to be our strength as we move into the next chapter.

Your leadership is key to our story and I’m looking forward to the workshop session later this morning – a session that will exemplify the power of lateral learning. We will explore successful leadership attributes by reflecting on our individual and collective experiences. What an excellent way to demonstrate that learning today is neither top down nor bottom up. It’s from the side.

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All the best in the 2013-14 school year. Thank you for your continued support in bringing our story to fruition and in telling it along the way.

Thank you.