As a professional courtesy, many administrators serve on Western Schools and Colleges (WASC) teams to evaluate other schools so that they can make recommendations of strengths, weaknesses and term of accreditation. Despite three grueling days of writing, I gladly volunteer my time to do this because I always come home with more than I have given. We are trained by WASC to evaluate these areas: Organization, Curriculum. Instruction, Assessment, and Culture. Each area has very specific subcategories that the Visiting Committee (VC) must research and report back in writing. Because of my current job assignment, I always volunteer for the “bug- a- boo” area… Assessment/Data.
Now before you start feeling sorry for me, last week I was assigned a small school in Central California’s wine country. This school was a National Blue Ribbon award winner for Excellence and they are probably doing more with intervention programs than any school in the state. It took me three hours to drive PCH (Hwy 1) and Hwy 101 through Pacific coastal towns and later the hills ofwine country. I have often laughed at the California “Happy Cow” commercials, but on this trip I found them, and would you believe they were smiling!!! WASC doesn’t know it, but I would have paid them for such an assignment!
The visit usually begins on Sunday afternoon, with various meeting and a tour of the school. We were met by a very charming principal who took great pride in his school and showing it off to visitors. I felt very confident because our chairperson had "front-loaded" the writing. This time she required that we write on “two areas” as well as our primary area. As stated, my primary area was “assessment/data” and my second was “curriculum.” I had already done much reading and research about this school before I ever entered their door. While leading a grueling day of staff development training at our school the previous Friday, I remarked that I was looking forward to this visit because they were about a year ahead of us in developing “Professional Learning Communities” (DuFour, DuFour) and I wanted to see them in action.
You see, the purpose of Professional Learning Communities is to disaggregate data to measure student achievement. Good schools use this as a measuring stick to gage areas of the standards that need to be “retaught.” I was attempting to explain this concept to my own staff before I left when I was reminded, “Teachers behave worse then students in meetings.” (Administrators are even worse)! I had prepared my Power Point presentation for a challenging staff development session complete with my favorite Rick DuFour quote, “Formative Data (benchmarks) is to Summative Data (state tests, unit tests) what a physical exam is to an autopsy.” I was loaded and ready to go, but…
My first session was with my “boys,” the social studies department. I use this term because the department is made of primarily men with three incredible female teachers. We had fun in the opening session of the day and they were not ready to turn it off. Now being a former social studies teacher myself, I understand that we are the “Mavericks” of the school. I have actually cultivated an honest open relationship with these folks because they are not afraid to point out where the holes in the school are located. Moving to the administration building gives one a tunnel vision, and it is important to listen to teachers to understand the workings of the organization.
Getting them to “settle down” was impossible. I had a compacted presentation without much wiggle room (my mistake) and attempting to get through it following the comment “You can’t say that we make instructional decisions, when we are forced to teach to a test,” was impossible. Ok… this opened the Pandora’s box! While I attempted to explain that the test is the skeletal structure what the teacher adds is the muscle and the organs… there were conversations about reading glasses, who wants to sit by whom, and only God above know what else.
The Fine and Performing Arts and Career –Technical Departments sat frozen embarrassed by their colleague’s behavior. After the session several of them apologized to me for the group. Now completely frustrated, it through the rest of my day off kilter. During the remaining sessions, I was no nonsense and did not entertain leading questions… not my normal style. “My boys” had never behaved this way and I scratched my head wonderingwhere exactly I lost it? Ok I admit I was “one of those teachers.” I sat in the back with the coaches and laughed about the nonsense of the world, I had to be reminded over the PA system to get my grades in the computer, I had rolling chair races down the breeze-way with my students... during class time, and I would routinely answer the phone, “Grand Central Station… I’m trying to teach here.” Ok… so I deserved this! The only saving grace is that I know that the social studies department had already designed formative assessments and are now leading the pack with the information that I was now sharing. Ok…forgiven.
The short of it is that I was ready for a break and this WASC visit was just what the doctor ordered! It is very nice to go to someone else’s house and point out the faults leaving my own behind. I was having the time of my life, when I noticed a text message from my “It’s all Good,” boss which read… PLEASE CALL! Ok… this is the most laid-back human on the planet, what could this possibly be about I pondered? I snuck away from the VC to call. It seems that in all the nonsense of the prior week, counting and boxing up CAHSEE exams, talent shows, cheerleader tryouts, stolen I-Pods, staff development agendas and setting up for the EAP exam… I had forgotten to load the answer sheets in the bins for the teachers. Of course no one discovered this until the day of the exam, and I was three hours away!
So… “Castleman you got some splaining to do”!! I have been assessment coordinator at my school for seven years and nothing like this had ever happened. What was I thinking? Personally, I think it was a Freudian slip because I think Cal State should be giving their own placement exams! Regardless, our lead campus supervisor (I do not want to be in this world without her) and an awesome counselor quickly covered my ample behind and it had all worked out, even though it totally disrupted two days of instruction for six teachers!
This made me think… just how quickly we are to point out the errors of other people. Granted I had to dig really deep to find critical issues for this school, but I didn’t have to look very hard at in my backyard to find my own. However, this incident did make me a more humble committee member. When a VC colleague became too critical I would quickly remind him, “Stick a fork in it… it’s done” and we would all start laughing. Who knows, perhaps this makes us better leaders when look at each other through the eyes of humanity and see that at any given moment we are all just a step away from forgetting the answer documents.
