In the South Orangetown Central School District, there are many sources of great ideas that can contribute to innovative instructional practices. One such source of inspiration for strategic innovation is our Extended Leadership Team (XLT). The Extended Leadership Team is a group of approximately 50 teachers and administrators from across the District who meet quarterly to discuss, “forward-focused strategic thinking that builds foundations based on future value, not on past successes or failures (Lichtman, 2014).”
Over the past several years, our District has dedicated resources to ensure that our students learn in an environment where each is engaged in a meaningful (relevant) curriculum by teachers who are trained experts. The driving-force, to a great degree, has been federal laws – like No Child Left Behind (NCLB) – coupled with a funding mechanism that rewards (or punishes) compliance (or noncompliance) with Federal and NYS mandates (e.g., attainment of Common-Core performance standards). However, most of us now are sensing a change in the political landscape that may ultimately prove to be beneficial towards meaningful student growth. As the superintendent of schools, I have engaged our Extended Leadership Team in the mission of true innovation that is not bound by a federally determined performance standard but with the aim of creating future-value.
This week, many members of our community have participated in the online K12 Insight Community Interest Survey. This survey will remain online until the middle of February and can be found at:
http://www.socsd.org/board-of-education/strategic-planning/
The results of this survey will be analyzed by the Extended Leadership Team in mid-April as we continue to “operationalize innovation” as the aim of our strategic planning process. The analysis will provide the information that will allow us to (Rowan Gibson in Kelly, 2010):
- Systemically discover new strategic insights
- Come up with radical new growth opportunities
- Recognize those “really big ideas” that we may have overlooked in the past due to an over-emphasis on regulations.
- Reallocate resources towards improved educational structures (e.g., time, space, grouping of students, and grouping of adults).
- Foster cultural conditions inside an organization to motivate innovation. For example, teachers, students, and administrators should not be afraid to take risks and attempt new learning strategies. The culture coming out of Washington and Albany in recent history has been a “culture of compliance” rather than a “culture of innovation” that has been shaped by a system of rewards and punishment.
I am happy to report that the Extended Leadership Team met on January 19 in the Tappan Zee High School and we had an extremely productive discussion. This coming April, the Extended Leadership Team will review the results of the Community Strategic Planning Survey. We are looking forward to “digging-in” to the results of this survey in order to engage all stakeholders and better align our resources toward the improvement of an educational system that promotes self-evolving learners.
Kelly, B. (2010). “Part 1 of 3: Building a systematic innovation capability,” Blogging innovation (blog), March 15, http://innovationexcellence.com/blog/author/braden-kelley/ .
Lichtman, G. (2014). EdJourney: A roadmap to the future of education.
