Motivated by the belief that the best way for teachers to improve their teaching is to have a pincipal who knows how to help them build their skills, Norwalk-La Mirada school district, on the southeastern edge of Los Angeles County, has enlisted the support of Washington’s Center for Educational Leadership.

The resulting programme sees nine people on a sunny morning observing a lesson in a 1st grade classroom at La Pluma Elementary School - four principals, a University of Washington coach who is helping the principals build instructional-leadership skills, the head of the university's principal-leadership programme, the principal of La Pluma, the district superintendent, and the administrator who oversees elementary schools.

After the lesson the group discusses what they saw, the strengths and weaknesses of the lesson, the best next steps for the teacher.

As the day progresses, the group watches teaching strategies in four classrooms, debriefing after each one. By the afternoon, a consensus is emerging which will enable constructive feedback to be given to teachers to help them improve their work.

As part of the programme, coaches from the Center for Educational Leadership help staff members with both literacy instruction and leadership skills. Each month is punctuated by large-group training, classroom walk-throughs, and small-group coaching.

The center has developed a rubric that measures principals’ mastery of 13 aspects of instructional leadership; it shows the district’s principals making progress.

Stephen Fink, executive director of the Center for Educational Leadership, admits that both principals and teachers endure “a certain level of discomfort” when they commit to learning pedagogical skills together, with colleagues watching. But the payoffs are significant. Speaking of the small group of principals observing at La Pluma, Mr. Fink said he was aware of their growth.

“These principals are far more collectively precise about what they see than they were even last year,” he said.

“Last year, they would not have noticed, for instance, that the text doesn’t match the lesson objective. If leaders can’t get this precise about what they see and what the next steps should be for a teacher, they can’t provide meaningful feedback.”

Honing the ability to define and guide strong instruction builds principals’ educational credibility with teachers, said superintendent Ginger Shattuck. 

“What I saw before was dedicated, hard-working operational managers, but they did not have the skills to make a difference in the classroom with their teachers,” Ms. Shattuck said. “Their ‘next steps’ were weak. Their evaluations were of limited help.

“Teachers would become disillusioned,” she said, “and think 'he doesn’t know what I’m doing'. They wouldn’t take the principal’s feedback seriously because it was too global."
 
Observing in classrooms has helped Ligia Hallstrom provide her teachers with professional development that matches their needs. As part of her training, she visits at least four classrooms a day in her own school, as well as classrooms at other middle and high schools each month with a cadre of principals.

“Finally, professional development has a rationale and a goal,” said Ms. Hallstrom, the principal of the district’s Los Alisos Middle School.

“For instance, I’ve noticed lately that my teachers are struggling with how to manage their students’ independent reading, and that they are weak on questioning kids about what they read. So we can focus on that.”

The observation-and-feedback loop can build trust, respect, and collegiality between principals and teachers, said Laura Williams, the president of the 1,100-member Teachers Association of the Norwalk-La Mirada Area.

As a career teacher, she was none too happy at the prospect of having her own principal - let alone groups of principals from other schools - walk into her classroom to watch her at work. But her attitude changed.

“I used not feel that my principal was my educational leader,” she said. “They were more just running the school operations, like a maintenance kind of person. Then I really saw we could collaborate. We could have professional talk and be peers.”

Ms. Green, the La Pluma principal, said having other principals walk through her classrooms and share their observations helps her see patterns in what her teachers need. It has also changed the culture of teaching in her building, she said.

“Before, it was, ‘Why are you coming into my classroom? Do I have to let you in? I’m going to call my union representative',” she said.

“Now it’s, ‘Why aren’t you coming to my class? We’re going to be doing something really great.’ ” (Source: Education Week)