Introduction

March 9, 2010 in Welcome | Leave a comment

We have all been inspired, moved or touched by a story at some point in our lives. Stories have the power to communicate not just facts, but also context and emotions. In any complex system that is more than a sum of its parts, stories illuminate the underlying patterns, interactions and relationships that give the system its unique identity. Hence, as the Ball Foundation Education Initiatives (EI) team looked for powerful ways to communicate accomplishments, things learned, and reflections from its work—building systems capacity in school districts to improve literacy for all students—the medium of storytelling became a natural choice.

This unique project, Poised for Change: Stories of Personal and Organizational Transformation, is an attempt to capture patterns of change at the midway point of a five-year partnership between the Ball Foundation and Rowland Unified School District (RUSD). The stories are told by a diverse group of people: teachers, principals, district administrators and parents, among others. The stories are told from a variety of perspectives and relate to diverse experiences that the storytellers had of the Ball Foundation partnership. Taken together, however, a coherent message emerges from the various stories.

It is a message of growth, renewal, and courage to change in the face of increasing adversity. RUSD, like most school districts in the country, is going through a period of severe financial cuts. In addition, an era of increased accountability is calling upon school districts to dramatically improve student performance. The stories from RUSD demonstrate the system’s increasing capacity to adapt and grow, a capacity that is allowing RUSD to face ongoing challenges while maintaining a sense of mission and purpose. The storytellers speak about new ways of thinking; these new ways of thinking are a precursor to changes in practice—what people and the system do in service to their students.

The work of building capacity is by no means complete. Since the time that these stories were collected, the Ball Foundation partnership has deepened its focus on instructional, leadership and organizational practices that lead to positive results for students. Sustainability measures are also being put into action to ensure that the impact of the work continues after the formal partnership ends. Another round of stories with a specific sustainability focus is planned for 2010-2011.

In the meantime, please enjoy this treasure trove of nuggets. We at the Ball Foundation would love to hear your thoughts and comments as you read through the following stories of personal and organizational transformation.

Finally, I want to thank our thought partners in this journey, Vicki Zakrzewski and Hallie Preskill, who first brought the idea to us, tirelessly interviewed people (driving around a 24-foot RV, no less) and most importantly, helped to organize the stories in an accessible and easy-to-read format. We hope you have as much fun reading the stories as we had collecting them. Happy reading!

Srik Gopalakrishnan

Director of Evaluation

Rex Babiera

Director of Learning and Communications

rbabiera@ballfoundation.org

The Ball Foundation Education Initiatives

Brandon Adame

March 4, 2010 in Adame (Brandon), New Ways of Thinking, Teacher | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Brandon Adame is a third grade teacher at Blandford Elementary School. When this story was told, he was a second grade teacher at Blandford.

My first encounter with Ball was when I worked on one of the strategic planning teams for the district. My principal proposed that I be a part of the process, so I said, “Okay. I’ll see what this is all about.” Quite honestly, I didn’t know anything about Ball and I had no idea what I was getting into. Basically, what we did was meet and talk about where the district is currently, and where we want it to be based on our vision.

At first I was really skeptical and felt intimidated. Our strategic planning group was made up of teachers, principals, and parents from throughout the entire district, and I was a first-year teacher – straight from college. But in the end, I think it was good that I had just come out of college. During the process, I remember thinking, “Okay, what do I want?” So I read my old essays that I wrote in college about what I was going to do as a teacher and how the kids were going to do this and be so great. When I read that, I thought, “Wow, that’s so not what it is.” But I knew we could get there – and that’s what I think I brought to the process.

Ball gave us the opportunity to have an open forum to talk as if there were no limits on what we could do. They said to us, “Forget about the limits. We’ll worry about that later. Let’s talk about what you want.” So every day we started by saying, “Don’t have limits. Don’t say we can’t do this.” Instead, we talked about where we wanted our students to be, and about what we could do if there were no testing or monetary limitations. For me, it was really refreshing to sit down and get back to basics, and to see what everyone wanted for the students. We all wanted the same thing, but we all felt that testing prohibited that. The process also changed my thinking to, “Let’s think beyond testing, and maybe eventually we’ll get rid of the things that are holding us back.”

One thing we started talking about was technology. A lot of students have access to computer labs, but not their own computers. So we said, “Imagine a day where kids have their own laptops and can access the internet at any time.”

I think the greatest thing that we talked about was changing the whole report card system. Instead of having letter grades, have an individualized action plan for each student based on their strengths and needs, and actually have students demonstrate their knowledge through different means – not just test taking. For example, if students like to work with their hands, say to them, “Build this for me.”

Talking about the whole structure of education, and especially the report cards really made me think, “Wow, I’ve been stuck with the same model and haven’t thought of other ones. But thinking about these new models – wouldn’t that be a great thing to see happen with the kids?”

The hardest part of the process was the word-smithing that we did. We would develop a couple of objectives for our action plan, and then someone would say, “I don’t feel comfortable with that word, let’s change it.” Or we’d say, “We agree that we all believe this should happen for kids,” and then someone would say, “You know what? I don’t quite believe that.” So, we’d go back to the drawing board day after day, and we’d e-mail each other, “Is this okay? Do you think this would work?” We’d think we were done with our action plan, and then the next day someone would say, “Well, I don’t quite feel comfortable.”

So that was the hard part. We kept going back and changing it. Every single time we did that, my ideas changed. In fact, everyone’s ideas changed and we’d be back at square one. At first, it was pretty annoying. I was like, “Come on, guys, just settle for it.” But I think that was the best part because people had so much buy-in – they didn’t want to just settle for it. They wanted something that everyone was proud of, and that everyone felt comfortable with. I think that’s what we ended up with, too. So that was a very good thing.

I’ve been able to implement some of the things that came out of the strategic planning process, like the APA principles that we talked about. Honestly, I may have heard about the principles in college, but here we actually looked at them and dissected each one. I have them on the wall in my classroom now, and I look at them when I do my lesson plans, trying to accommodate the students’ needs. I also have little notebooks in which I make notes about the kids and what their strengths are. For example, in a science lesson I’ll let the students use different ways to show me what they learned. That’s really helped me out a lot.

I’ve noticed that the enthusiasm of my students is changing because now I’m targeting their strengths and letting them show me that they know something. A lot of my kids can’t pass a paper and pencil reading comprehension test, so instead I’ll ask them verbally to explain what’s going on in what they read – which is something they can do.

My relationship with other teachers has changed as well. During meetings, I now express different points of view, and I open my mind to new things. I also participate more, and I think I add a little more to conversations because of what I’ve learned and what I’ve learned from others.

Being part of this process was a great experience for me. I’ll be honest with you, it wasn’t the easiest thing. It was a lot of work, but at the end, I think we all looked at each other like, “Wow, we all gained a lot from this.” So, it was definitely worth it.

Word cloud created at wordle.net.

Rosemary Aguilar

March 4, 2010 in Aguilar (Rosemary), Challenges of Change, District Administrator | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Rosemary (Santos) Aguilar is Director of Curriculum and Staff Development.

I think that we are fortunate to be in a partnership with Ball right now, because they have helped us go through the budget crisis. Our district, as we know it, has been — I do not want to say destroyed — but pretty much decimated in the sense that it is going through some difficult changes.

At this point, we are in the process of rebuilding, and part of that rebuilding is creating a strong foundation on which to build. I think that this year Ball has been very instrumental in helping us build that new foundation by helping us see new ways of working, new ways of thinking, new ways of designing.

The new way we are working is more organic. We are more relaxed. We are more concerned now with the content and the quality of the conversations, and we have allowed ourselves the time to think, to share, to question; whereas in the past, that was not really the practice.

We do not know what next year is going to look like. We have some ideas, but they are changing every week. Part of what we have had to deal with is the uncertainty and being okay with the fact that we do not know. I personally have not been told what my role for next year will be. However, it is okay, because I know I am going to be part of the new Rowland. Therefore, whatever role I end up in, I feel that it is going to be a place in which I will be able to continue to grow and develop as a professional.

We all respond to change differently. The fear in change is not knowing or not having the information or the knowledge about the change. The fear is based on the unknown. I think that is the piece. That is the bloodline that Ball is giving us, because they are constantly talking to us about the change process, about how it is chaotic and it is uncertain. Therefore, instead of just experiencing all the confusion, the chaos, the uncertainty, and not having anyone, Ball staff is telling us, “It’s okay. This is what happens. You are going to feel this way. These reactions are normal.”

If it were not for the Ball staff, I do not know that I would be able to say what I’m saying. I don’t know that I would be as hopeful. You know how when somebody is not doing well and cannot take care of himself or herself that they actually need somebody else to help them through those hard times? That is how I see Ball for us.

The next two years are going to be important because they are going to create the foundation of the new Rowland. I see Ball playing a very important and critical role as our partners in this process. Our critical friends – that is what they are – critical friends.

I am very hopeful for our district, because we have to go through this. We don’t have a choice, but we’re in good hands with the Ball Foundation.

Word cloud created at wordle.net.

Terry Amaya

March 4, 2010 in Amaya (Terry), Power of Collaboration, Teacher | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Terry Amaya is a history teacher at Giano Intermediate School. When this story was told she was a seventh grade math and science teacher at Giano.

It’s been nice to have had a chance to talk with teachers from other schools at the district-wide meetings arranged by Ball. I taught in elementary before this year, and the only teachers we ever communicated with during workshop trainings were from elementary. So it was really interesting to hear the perspective of high school and middle school teachers, and what problems they were dealing with. A lot of their issues were similar to what we were dealing with at an elementary level, like motivating students.

We tried to come up with ideas of how to motivate students, but first we discussed why this lack of motivation exists. What is it that happens to the students? Why do they lose their motivation to learn? What kinds of experiences can we create for them to become motivated? One of the high school teachers felt that some programs were made too available for the kids. For example, the Mt. Sac Community College program that helps Nogales High School students catch up with classes. They’re allowed to take night classes when they fail a subject at school. So we thought, “The students know they can make up the class so they relax about doing well at the high school, and then later try to make it up during the summer or in the evening.” I thought that there are probably many students who actually need to re-take those classes, but I could also see how some would rely on that opportunity. The next time the teachers get together, I would love to hear about some strategies for motivating kids that other teachers have tried that I can take back to my class right away and use.

It’s been interesting and beneficial working with different people. You don’t realize that there are so many other people with so many ideas. And that’s what I’ve enjoyed – talking to others and seeing the excitement in their eyes about what they want and plan on doing. It motivates me to say, “Okay, I’m going to try this.”

Word cloud created at wordle.net.

Rob Arias

March 4, 2010 in Arias (Rob), District Administrator, Power of Communication | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Rob Arias is the Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources.

The work with Ball has made me more cognizant of the idea of having more people involved in discussions and decisions regarding what we do on a daily basis. I think I’ve been trying to encourage that more. Personally, I feel like I’ve always been pretty collaborative in the way I do my work, but I think I recognize now that it’s not just a matter of having a collaborative leadership approach. You might have that, but in order to make that real, you almost have to make a conscious effort to get more people involved. I’ve always known this, but I think it has become clearer that a lot of people don’t have access to information that could be helpful.

For instance, there have been times this year during some open public meetings where questions were being asked about delicate and difficult matters regarding layoffs. Some of the questions didn’t have to be answered, and I had a choice there, personally. I could have done the administrative two-step and shuffled my way through those questions without answering them. But I thought it would be better for me to be very upfront about the challenges that the district was facing – to try to be as clear and transparent as possible.

Now, was my choice to do that a result of the work that we did through the Ball Foundation and our strategic plan? You know, it’s hard to say exactly. But I think it did have some impact. I think you have to practice those behaviors of being clear and transparent, and I think I’ve been practicing them because of the work I did with strategy eight. And I think as you begin to practice that, it becomes part of a fabric of what you do.

So, the impact of me being open, transparent, and just laying it out there for folks was very positive. I don’t think anybody was crazy about my answer or said, “Way to go!”, but I think it settled that particular audience. They could accept the reality that we had to deal with because they understood it. I also think the fact that I didn’t have to answer any more questions about the subject once I spoke about it in a very open way was evidence that the approach was the appropriate one.

Word cloud created at wordle.net.

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