To Build
Supervisory
Skills
A network of superintendents in Washington
starts with instructional rounds practices
to grow the oversight of principals
BY STEVE S.
MYERS AND DAVID L.
GOEHNER
ow rewarding
—
and “awarding”
—
can collaboration be as a catalyst for
improving instructional leadership?
Superintendents in south-central
Washington’s
Educational
Service
District
105
reached across their borders
more than seven years ago to launch a system
of administrator instructional networks to
improve teaching and learning practices in the
region’s schools. In doing so, they committed
to three key goals: turning around low student
test scores, boosting the learning potential of
their students and establishing methods with
their principals to stimulate more effective
classroom instruction.
At the request of area superintendents, our
service
district convened a 14-member delega
tion of
its
K-12 school administrators to attend
Harvard
University’s Summer Institute for
Educational Leadership in
2005.
During that
weeklong session,
Richard Elmore, professor of
educational leadership at the Harvard Univer
sity Graduate School of Education, advocated
the use of data-gathering concepts and prac
tices of medical rounds
—
the collective effort
doctors use to diagnose the problems of their
hospital patients
—
as a method educators
could apply toward improving instructional
practice and, ultimately, accelerating learning.
Elmore’s instructional rounds system brings
educators together to tour and observe the
activities of school classrooms and
take
notes
40
SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR JANUARY 2014
