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Stages of Development

BASICS Toolkit

 

 

 

 

 

Session 4: Shared Leadership

Session 4: Shared Leadership What is it? Tools Organized By Purpose Shared Leadership for Community Schools: What Does it Take? How Does it Look? Developing Community Schools: Moderated Discussion Shared Leadership: Taking it to the next level Moving forward on the Community School Continuum Additional Tools and Resources: Why is this important? Why this module now? What did we do? How did we do it? Reflections and Lessons Printable Version of the Contents of this page:  090323_S4_BASICS_toolkit_LR.pdf

 

 

What is it?

Community schools are structured as partnerships among schools, families, youth, community members, and in some cases funding agencies. Shared leadership calls for true collaboration so that partners work together to coordinate and agree upon various planning, implementation, evaluation, advocacy, and decision-making responsibilities. In order for a community school to thrive shared leadership is a must.

 

 

Academy Session 4’s primary objectives were to help participants:

1.      Define shared leadership for use in community schools development at their schools.

2.      Understand the concept of shared leadership and acknowledge how imperative it is for implementing successful community schools (locally and across sites).

3.      See and understand models of shared leadership from other regions.

4.      Create working agreements regarding next steps for building shared leadership at their community school in the following year.

 

Tools Organized By Purpose

 

 

Time	Purpose	Description	Tools	Notes on Tools
45 min	Arrival/Breakfast/Welcome		S4 Presentation - Welcome and Overview-JGC.ppt
105 min	Shared Leadership for Community Schools: What Does it Take? How Does it Look?	Interactive panel led by SUN Schools team (Schools Uniting Communities) from Portland, Oregon followed by application exercises by teams and citywide leaders	S4 Sample - List of SUN Schools Panelists.doc
15 MINUTE BREAK
30 min	Developing Community Schools: Moderated Discussion	Facilitate conversations between community school teams and the SUN Schools on challenges, lessons, and strategies for implementing community schools and building shared leadership.	Moderator's Questions for SUN Fishbowl.doc  Moderator's Questions for SUN Fishbowl.doc
60 min	LUNCH and Role Alike Discussions including SUN School counterparts	Brainstorm strategies and potential strategies
60 min	Shared Leadership: Taking it to the next level	Applications exercises by team focused using shared leadership to identify and address concrete site-specific issues	S4 Tool - Shared Responsibility-CCCSP.ppt
15 MINUTE BREAK
30 min	Next Steps and Evaluation
15 min	Moving forward on the Community School Continuum	Interactive exercise to celebrate our accomplishments and focus on growth areas for the coming year (for homework)	S4 Presentation - Stages of Development in a Community School-CAS.ppt
60 min	Time for Teams to work together
15 min	Closing Thoughts

 

 

Additional Tools and Resources:

use in the original ACSD session in September of 2004

Agenda:

S4 Agenda.doc 

 

Training Design:

S4_040929_Training_Design.doc

 

Tools:

S4 Tool - One Year Implementation Plan.doc

S4 Tool - Research Indicators Brainstorm-JGC.doc 

 

S4 Sample - Research Update Presentation.ppt 

 

Readings:

S4 Readings - Casey Report.pdf

S4 Readings - INFED Article.doc

S4 Readings - Lambert Article.doc

S4 Readings - ORGDCT.doc

 

Evaluation Summary:

S4 Evaluation Summary.doc

 

 

 

 

Why is this important?

·         Shared leadership is a necessary step in undertaking the stages of development of community schools

·         “Leadership can and should be explored as a social process–something that happens between people. It is not so much what leaders do, as something that arises out of social relationships. As such, it does not depend on one person, but on how people act together to make sense of the situations that face them.” From Shared Leadership by Michele Erina Doyle and Mark K. Smith.[1] In this article, the authors explore the theory and practice of shared leadership and the significance of ethical practice.

·         It is difficult for one administrator to serve as the instructional leader for an entire school without the substantial participation of other educators and partners that support a comprehensive view of young people’s development and the partnerships needed to promote it.

·         This session is also intended for existing community school stakeholders to re-examine their notions of what it means to be a leader, who is and should be a leader, and challenging conceptions of the various roles young people can play regarding various leadership functions in a community school, just as with parents, administrators, service providers, teachers, and other stakeholders.

 

 

Why this module now?

Session IV was important to introduce Academy teams to the concept of shared leadership so administrators and Leadership Team members clarify what they are committed to doing together. To achieve this, teams had to arrive at a common definition for their team’s function and responsibilities and explore the unique and shared functions that individual members have to play in a shared leadership approach. These principles are critical to the pursuit of the seven domains of a community school: Management & Governance, Staffing, Programs & Services, Parental Involvement, Community Involvement, Evaluation, and Sustainability.

 

 

What did we do?

This session involved a carefully sequenced series of presentations, discussions and activities. A panel of cross-sector leaders from the SUN (Schools Uniting Neighborhoods) Schools in Multnomah County, Oregon was invited to share how they demonstrated shared leadership when developing and expanding community schools across their county. A “fishbowl[2]” discussion comprised of city, county, district, and community based organization leaders allowed team participants to learn more about how shared leadership evolved across sectors and what types of agreements were made to institutionalize and sustain their community schools effort. Leadership teams were then asked to reflect on and identify who has responsibilities and authority in decision making at their sites, examine the difference between the two, and how that works to promote or hinder effective decision making. A lunch discussion (Role-Alike Lunch) was designed that assigned participants to tables with SUN representatives who shared similar roles or positions to those of Leadership Team members. Teams then engaged in an activity where they charted their respective roles and responsibilities and then ranked the degree of decision-making authority and power that they had in their positions. Once introduced to the four stages of a community schools development process, Leadership Teams charted their own progress according to:

• Where are they?
• What do they most need to work on this year?
• Who will commit to work on what?
• What "in-between" work will they commit to do?

 

 

How did we do it?

·         Presentation on a framework for shared leadership and its application to community schools.

·         Fishbowl discussion presented the shared leadership experience of SUN School leader which was followed by a moderated discussion amongst Academy participants.

·         A “Role-Alike” lunch offered teams the opportunity to sit with SUN School counterparts to discuss different aspects of leadership for a community schools effort.

·         A team exercise permitted participants to discuss and chart the degree of authority and power school representatives held with respect to different areas and roles of responsibility.

·         ACSD teams presented timelines for developing community schools strategies–from previous Academy sessions–to plan the development of a community school that addressed positive changes stressed by teams. Presenters outlined the key points of research and joint work for JGC and community teams and what they hoped to learn. Teams then brainstormed key outcomes and indicators.

·         Presentation on the stages and domains of community schools development.

·         Site team work: teams discussed their progress on the stages of development chart (Where are they? What do they most need to work on this year? Who will commit to work on what? What "in-between" work will they commit to do?).

Reflections and Lessons

·         The fishbowl experience was particularly effective at providing teams with an opportunity to explore issues common to the community schools development process from the vantage point of veteran community school representatives.

·         The Role-Alike lunch worked well in engaging participants in one-on-one discussions with counterparts from SUN Schools.

·         Many participants raised issues around the struggles they had in gaining the authority and power to impact final decision-making.

·         This session probably didn’t impress enough upon participants the importance of developing a plan for establishing and sustaining a culture and expectation around shared leadership.

·         A number of schools indicated in their session evaluations that they needed better consistency and follow-through from administrators in supporting the development of their community schools. Though the district superintendent was communicating to principals about this work, more discussions with ACSD school principals early on in the process may have helped make discussions during the sessions more useful. In addition, a more intensive set of sessions and conversations with both school administrators and also with district leaders could have further helped them explore barriers and strategies to support their site teams.

·         According to the assessments done at the midway point, the constant communication between community liaisons and Leadership Team members was essential to the steady progress along the community schools continuum.