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Illinois School Board Journal
November/December 2003
Aim for improvement by targeting policies
by Linda Dawson
Linda Dawson is IASB director of editorial services and Journal editor.
When boards of education discuss ways to improve student achievement, they usually focus on teachers and curriculum. They contemplate new schedules and additional professional development. They ask for data and analyze trends that can be accelerated or reversed, depending on the direction needed.
But as boards look for additional improvement tools to bolster student success, they might be overlooking a tool they already have in place: their district policy manual.
Policy manuals, which should be the guide for a district through any situation, often have the stigma of "that big, foreboding book on the table that's to be referenced only when a problem arises."
However, school boards and superintendents could find that an up-to-date policy manual functions as a rudder to steer the system through the rapidly flowing river of change that is education.
And now, a process has been developed to help boards use their policy manuals in just that fashion. Through this process, policy manuals become living, guiding documents instead of bulky books on the shelf collecting dust. So what is this process? How can boards make it happen? And what are the benefits?
History first
The process, known as Targeting Student Learning, is a joint effort between state school board associations in California, Illinois, Maine, Pennsylvania and Washington state. Originally, however, it was the brainchild of then-executive director of the Maine School Management Association, Paul Brunelle.
When learning standards with grade-level expectations were adopted in Maine, Brunelle realized that very few school boards had approached student achievement as a policy issue, said current MSMA executive director Dale Douglass.
"And if boards were ever going to influence student achievement, he (Brunelle) knew they would have to act through their area of policy," Douglass added. In 1996, Brunelle took his idea to executive directors in the other states that eventually came on board with the Targeting project, and they agreed.
Members of this original group were on the "cutting edge," Douglass said, because the TSL project predates NSBA's "The Key Work of School Boards" project. And as executive directors changed in other states, those new to the job came to embrace the "cutting edge" ideas as well.
"Targeting Student Learning is an incredibly effective training tool," said MarthaRose Laffey, now executive director of the Washington State School Directors Association. "I encourage school board members and administrators to take advantage of the training, because it is a step-by-step guide to policymaking strategies that will positively impact student learning and lead to greater organizational effectiveness."
"We wanted to get involved because we realized it was an area of policy development that boards needed some help in learning how to do, especially in this era of accountability and assessment," said Judy Cias, assistant general counsel with the California School Boards Association. "Now with NCLB, it's even more important."
When it comes to meeting those federal requirements, Michael D. Johnson, executive director of the Illinois Association of School Boards and a former superintendent, sees the project as being helpful from another perspective: "Targeting Student Learning will help board members to ask the questions of administrators that need to be asked and considered as they try to meet the NCLB guidelines."
For two years, executives and policy staff from the five associations worked to identify those school board topics that directly relate to student learning. They looked at broad categories, such as governance and planning; academic standards and assessment; education programs; curriculum; instruction; learning environment; professional standards; and parent/community engagement.
From there, they broke each category into topics, such as board philosophy, specialized learning programs, instructional goals, student activities and shared decision-making. And under each topic, they looked for components to help board members frame the issues they would want to address in a policy on those topics - components like the board's primary responsibility to students; individualized learning plans; providing adequate resources for staff; student participation criteria; and composition of school decision teams.
The result was an 85-page, soft-cover book: Targeting Student Learning: The School Board's Role as Policymaker. Part I of this book provides a framework for effective school board policymaking, according to Cathy Talbert, senior director of policy services with the Illinois Association of School Boards. It includes:
Part II provides the key policy categories, topics and components that will focus the board's work on student achievement.
But after the book was made available, Talbert said, "It became apparent that boards and board members could use more assistance in beginning these critical policy conversations and in narrowing those broad conversations."
While the authors recognized that they had a useful document, they also recognized that boards might need additional guidance in working through the process. They needed a "how to" workbook to go along with TSL.
The Targeting Student Learning Workbook builds on the first publication, Talbert said, by providing comprehensive questions for boards to ask when discussing one of the policy topics and its components.
With the original book and workbook published, it became a goal for policy and field service staff in Illinois to develop a workshop to acquaint school boards with the TSL process and materials, she said. By late 2002, this new workshop was ready to pilot, and boards in Salem School District 111 and Brooklyn-Lovejoy School District 188 agreed to be the first to work their way through the process.
Why would we do this?
One of the first questions boards may ask is: Why should we do this?
The best answer may be found on the TSL Executive Summary page: "It is not enough to expect teachers to adapt to new expectations and ways of teaching, or to recreate the job of principals. Targeting student learning must also include school boards, especially in their policy work."
J. Curtis Rose, assistant executive director for school board and management services with the Pennsylvania School Boards Association provides another:
"Targeting Student Learning forces boards to look at achievement as they work through their policies. And student achievement is the basis for everything the school board does."
To have positive effects on student achievement, the Iowa Lighthouse study found that school boards in high achieving districts "consistently expressed" that all students can learn and that schools could teach all students. The study also found that boards in high achieving districts were knowledgeable about teaching and learning, created a supportive workplace for staff, were involved with their communities and made student-centered, data-driven decisions.
To accomplish all those things, the board needs to focus on its governance role, Talbert said, and that role should be anchored in good policy.
IASB encourages boards to operate under its six Foundational Principles of Effective Governance, said Sandy Gundlach, field service director for divisions in central and southwestern Illinois. Following the principles gives the board responsibility to clarify the district's mission, connect with the community and monitor results - activities that are the real work of school boards and all a part of TSL.
Gundlach is often asked, "What is the role of the board in student learning?" And "How can the board have meaningful conversations about student assessments, curriculum and teaching strategies that center on goals, not means?"
"Here is a process school boards can use to have meaningful discussions about student learning, but within a policymaking framework that is board work, not staff work," she said.
TSL in action
Salem had just completed a policy manual update with IASB staff when they were approached by Gundlach to be a pilot for TSL. It seemed like a logical next step, according to board president Jenny Carlson. With the update process so fresh in their minds, "we wanted to know more about how to make policy work for us."
Then-Salem superintendent Gary Niehaus also saw this as a "right time" for his board to undertake such a time-intensive, introspective project. He and the board were enjoying a positive working relationship, and their overall relationship with the teachers and support staff was very collaborative. In addition, they had just completed a goal-setting exercise that had everyone focused already on student learning.
"With all of this as a foundation," Niehaus said, "Targeting Student Learning became an opportunity (for Salem) to practice something that has been in place. While the board was aware the policies were in place, the overview of how policy topics tied to board work was important to see."
By agreeing to be pilot districts for Targeting work, board members and their superintendents - the "governance team" - committed to several work sessions with IASB staff to go through the process step by step.
Step one allows the board to choose its policy topic, provides questions to help them begin discussing the topic and helps them develop an understanding of how their topic connects with student learning.
Step two assesses existing policy by continuing a question/answer format to determine if existing policies need to be revised or if new policies need to be developed. This session narrows the board's conversation, Talbert said, to focus on board policy work, rather than implementation issues.
Step three provides for an inclusive policymaking process involving others such as staff, students, parents or community members, and informed decision making, including data collection and analysis.
And step four helps the board turn good thinking into action by deciding what, if any, policy revisions should be made.
All too often, Talbert said, boards start with their work on the fourth step. The TSL process in sessions one, two and three, along with the workbook material, assure that the board lays a good foundation for its policymaking work in session four.
Both districts approached the sessions differently. The Salem board selected Parental Involvement as its policy topic and invited three building administrators and four faculty members to meet with the board and superintendent for the sessions. This allowed participants to break into smaller groups to look at specific policies.
In Brooklyn-Lovejoy, board members chose Delivery of Instruction, and their sessions were conducted with board members and the superintendent. Their work was done like a committee of the whole.
Both districts, however, looked at the process as one that would help board members become more familiar with their policies and make the connection between policy, administrative procedures, district practice and change in the district.
"I'm involved with the manual every day," Perkins said during the pilot session, but board members need to have a better working knowledge of the policies in order to make informed decisions. And by talking about policies, he said, the lines of communication open up into other arenas.
During their second work session, board members in Brooklyn scanned their manual for policy names that seemed related to instruction. After creating a long list, they reassessed their choices and began pulling out the policies that seemed to be key to instruction: philosophy, organization, arrangements, materials and selection of those materials.
Even though specific policies were pulled from very different parts of the manual, board members soon began to see how the various instructional policies needed to be aligned. This was especially evident when board vice president Patricia Melton stopped to point out that the district had a specific policy on technology, but had failed to incorporate any technology language in other policies that related to instruction.
Other board members agreed immediately with her assessment. And that's when the facilitators knew that the process was working. They had taken board members from a point where the policy manual was just a book to a point where it would provide a vehicle for what the board wants to accomplish.
Where they are now
Much has happened since last winter when the Salem and Brooklyn-Lovejoy boards first began their TSL pilot programs, including new superintendents for both districts. But both boards still agree that the targeting process has really helped them to focus on their governance role and to see the connections between policy and student learning.
"This has really refocused our board about how to set goals that have ends rather than means to them," Carlson said of her Salem board.
Because board members wanted to continue this new way of approaching policy and to do more in-depth work on parent involvement, they have been working through the process again, on their own. At a late-September meeting, they were to collect more information, with a goal of deciding what their next steps would be in October.
"We have reviewed all our policies dealing with parental involvement," Carlson said, "especially those that deal with special needs students."
At this point, the board has not come across any policies that they need to revise or add, she said, possibly because the manual was updated recently and kept up-to-date using IASB's Policy Reference Education Subscription Service (PRESS).
In Brooklyn, Melton said she wants to get a TSL discussion on her board's agenda soon, because even with a new superintendent, she would like to see her board continue the process.
Both superintendents involved with the pilots said they plan to adopt at least parts of the targeting process with their new board.
Niehaus, now superintendent at Charleston CUSD 1, still believes the process is one that can be practiced when needed, and he plans to frame upcoming policy discussions with his new board around the targeting model.
Perkins, now superintendent at Granite City CUSD 9, said his new board already had a good policy review schedule in place, but review was done through a board committee of two. Recently he asked the board if they were looking at policies just to revise them or with the intent to improve the district. Now the entire board is beginning to look at a policy, asking what it means and deciding if that was what the board really intended.
And by using the entire board, Perkins said, the thinking behind policy work has a broader base than before.
"Often this work has been done by the administration for the board of education," Niehaus wrote last spring. "Targeting training has given the board an opportunity to see how they can bring more to the table."
Is this for everyone?
If a board is committed to student learning, has an updated policy manual and wants to make certain its policies are aligned with learning priorities, Talbert said, then TSL may be an appropriate workshop for that board.
Workshops are an integral part of learning for school board members, according to Angie Peifer, IASB school board development director.
"Board members are not born knowing how to do this work," Peifer said. "Training is essential to bring people along to have the skills to know how to do these things.
"Workshop participation can lead to new knowledge and skills that, when combined with the desire to improve student learning, may instill in your board a habit of aiming for improvement and targeting student learning," she added.
"Many school boards do not understand the significance of how policy drives a school system, or how a large portion of agenda time should be focused on policy discussion," Salem board president Carlson said, "but seldom do boards set aside time in their meetings for policy discussion. More often, board work centers on approving administrative processes.
"In order to be true visionaries of their district and be able to see the 'ends' instead of 'means,' a focus on policy by the board is crucial," Carlson added. "The difficulty of focusing on policy lies in knowing where to begin this discussion."
Targeting Student Learning, Carlson said, teaches boards how to begin these discussions as well as a step-by-step method that results in a monitored process so that the board can see if they achieved the desired results through their policies.
"Now," she said, "our policies are more than a resource in problematic situations. They have become a valuable visioning tool that sets the direction of our district."
Her assessment was shared by Brooklyn's vice president Melton, who admitted this was a very different way of doing business for her board. But, she added, "This is very helpful. It gave us more of a focus to deal with issues. Even with a new superintendent, I would like to see us continue."
Targeting workshop opportunities
School boards interested in learning more about Targeting Student Learning may want to attend the panel presentation "Focusing on the Real Work of Boards" at this year's Joint Annual Conference in Chicago.
Sandy Gundlach, director of field services for Abe Lincoln, Kaskaskia, Southwestern and Two Rivers divisions, Cathy Talbert, senior director of policy services, and Jenny Carlson, president of the Salem School District 111 board, will explain the project and talk about Salem's experiences at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, November 22, in the Columbus C/D Ballroom in the Hyatt Regency East Tower.
IASB staff also is available to lead in-district workshops on Targeting Student Learning. For more information, contact your IASB field services director at 217/528-9688, or 630/629-3776.
Targeting your policies
Targeting Student Learning is a new way for school boards to think about their policy manuals in a way that will focus board work on student achievement and provide a framework for managing their policy work.
The following are the eight policy categories identified as most directly related to student learning, with recommended policy topics within each category:
Governance And Planning
Academic Standards and Assessment
Education Program
Curriculum
Learning Environment
Professional Standards
Parent/Community Engagement