Classroom Visits
With the first week of school under our belts, I feel ready to set new personal goals for my work this coming year. The need to get to know educators as well as the needs of our schools and students calls for time to be spent in classrooms. I have worked with the principals to create a schedule of these visits because I learned that if I do not schedule it, “it” won’t happen.
While I’ll be certainly around the schools informally quite often, each week I will be spending about 2 hours in an individual school, meeting with the principal to review the budget, school improvement goals, and other matters of concern and visiting 3-4 classrooms for about 10 minutes each. The purpose of these formal visits is not for evaluation but instead is to help me understand the needs of our students, teachers, and schools. It’s too easy for superintendents to lose touch with the reality of teaching and learning.
It’s important for educators to know that this is about me being able to meet high expectations for my work as a superintendent and for supporting the work of the principals, rather than me ensuring individual teachers are meeting the expectations for their work. As a former Massachusetts administrator, I had been focusing on how my practice shores up against the Massachusetts Evaluation System’s superintendent rubric and will probably continue to do so since RI has no comparable rubric and, frankly, the work is not much different from state to state. The first two indicators on this rubric focus on the superintendent’s impact on curriculum and instruction. Under “exemplary” it reads:
- Empowers administrators to employ strategies that empower staff to create rigorous standards-based units of instruction that are aligned across grade levels and content areas. Continually monitors and assesses progress, provides feedback, and connects administrators to additional supports as needed. Is able to model this element.
- Supports administrators to collaborate on developing strategies that enable educators to consistently develop series of interconnected, well-structured lessons with challenging objectives and appropriate student engagement strategies, pacing, sequence, materials, and grouping and identifies specific exemplars and resources in each area. Is able to model this element.
- While observing principal practice and artifacts, ensures that principals know and employ effective strategies and practices for helping educators improve instructional practice. Is able to model this element.
- Sets and models high expectations for the quality of content, student effort, and student work district-wide and empowers administrators, educators and students to uphold these expectations consistently. Is able to model this element.
- Employs strategies that ensure that principals know and consistently identify teaching strategies and practices that are meeting the needs of diverse learners while teaching their content. Is able to model this element.
Wow! To achieve such a high standard requires skill, knowledge, time, and effort. Even aiming for proficient is a challenge. Most important, no one could achieve such standards without frequent observations of instruction. While I’m certainly “not there yet,” my aim is for exemplary and so my visits to schools will be most important.
I will be sure to provide advance notice of when I will be spending time in each school, not so that you can plan anything special, but to respect the fact that these visits are non evaluative but nevertheless, some may be apprehensive about visits by the superintendent.
Do know that I am most interested in seeing the reality of life in our classrooms. Teachers should not feel the need to showcase an exemplary lesson. They may tell students I’ll be dropping by but need not stop the lesson for introductions. I’m most interested in the instructional core — the interaction of curriculum, teachers, and students and would rather not disrupt that interaction, if possible. By the end of the year my goal is to visit each and every teacher’s classroom.
Many teachers will want to know my thoughts about what I saw in the classroom even though it doesn’t “count” for evaluation. For this reason, I’ll provide teachers with a short note after the visit. When I meet with the principal following my visits my focus will be on school trends rather than on individuals.
During my 8 years away from Rhode Island, a new evaluation system was put into place that provides a cultural shift for each and every one of us. After achieving tenure, I don’t recall classroom visits by either school or district administrators. Additionally, current expectations for classroom instruction and for leading schools are challenging for even the most talented educators.
Through my work and my own improvement journey I hope to show you my commitment to support your work as Smithfield educators.
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