school, I saw very innovative strategies filled
with formative assessment, and that’s one of
the things our district is working on. I then had
a principal go and visit that school:’
Connected Growth
Seeking further growth in their role as
instructional leaders of their principals, mem
bers of the region’s original network reached
out to the expertise of higher education. The
superintendents network initiated a long-term
partnership with the University ofWashing
ton’s Center for Educational Leadership, led
by Stephen Fink.
Fink’s center had performed work with
schools in other states that were interested in
using Elmore’s instructional rounds method.
Fink and his team helped local administrators
understand instructional practices alone in a
school district will not attain the high levels of
achievement desired. Network members also
must improve their own leadership skills and
strengthen their ability to observe and analyze
instruction in the classroom.
With the center’s leadership, the original
network has expanded its monthly gatherings
to include presentations and dialogues on how
the region’s school district leaders can become
master mentors of their principals. Presenta
tions based on research by Meredith Honig, an
associate professor at University ofWashington,
focus on central-office transformation.
The latter calls for all central-office leaders,
notably superintendents, to become teach
ers of others to build systemic capacity. The
effort centers on group reading assignments of
research, examinations of problems of practice,
sharing of professional development plans for
individual principals and constructing theories
of action to propel school leadership.
The network’s professional development
activities are framed under the Center for
Educational Leadership’s research-based Five
Dimensions of Teaching and Learning. These
dimensions relate to purpose, student engage
ment, curriculum and pedagogy assessment
for student learning, and classroom environ
ment and culture. The center underscores the
need for reciprocal accountability in instruc
tional leadership. Teachers will grow profes
sionally only in relation to the quality of the
instructional leadership of their principals, and
principals’ instructional leadership will be no
better than the support they receive from their
superintendent.
The expanded focus on the superintendents’
role in improving principal performance is a
natural evolution from the network’s initial
goals of the instructional rounds in each other’s
school classrooms. Once leaders develop their
capacity to observe and analyze what good
instruction looks like, they then must turn their
attention to developing their own instructional
leadership skills.
“Teachers will grow professionally only in
relation to the quality of the instructional
leadership of their principals, and
principals’ instructional leadership
will be no better than the support they
receive from their superintendent:’
Collaboration’s Fruits
In the years since taking those first steps in
2005
to launch a professional development
experiment based on regionwide teamwork,
local school administrators are seeing excellent
results in area classrooms and schools.
The classroom visits and conference-table
discussions in neighboring districts have pro
vided a vibrant, authentic, hands-on living labo
ratory for educators to apply their new learning.
They also have changed how central-office lead
ers interact with principals. Collegiality, curios
ity and inquiry have elevated the professional
connections between superintendents and their
principals, between principals and their teachers
and between teachers and their students.
The learning network that Educational
Service District
105
and the district superin
tendents first transplanted from Harvard and
then expanded through the University ofWash
ington’s Center for Educational Leadership is
now a central component revolutionizing daily
instruction. Local school leaders have seen how
the power of interconnectivity helps to elevate
colleagues into national-level recognition for
their work (See related story, page
42.)
Most importantly, though, this networking
across districts has accelerated the teacher and
administrator practices, which is maximizing
the learning of students inside every classroom
throughout south-central Washington.
m
STEVE MYERS
is superintendent of Educational
in Yakima, Wash. E-mail: steve.
DAVID GOEHNER
is the agency’s
officer.
