As we come to the close of 2023, the talk of goals is in the air. In the education world, it almost seems that the word “goals” has as much of a negative connotation as standard, or assessment, or IEPs – I don’t know know about you, but it feels like a very heavy word. I wonder if part of that reason is that so many of the goals we set in education seem either unattainable, intangible or even (unpopular opinion)- dumb. When a goal doesn’t hold meaning for the person responsible for meeting that goal, there’s a good chance it’s either not going to get met, or the person is going to burn out in the process.

One of the roles of the leader in any industry or organization is to cast a vision that the team can get behind, and even better, take ownership of! If you feel like you are trying to steer a ship in one direction, and your crew is threatening to jump off, it may be time to revisit your goals for the campus and students and the narrative that surrounds it.

While I think it’s important to have congruency in a district (everyone pushing the same direction), it’s important to understand that there may be different goals for different levels. For example, at the district level, the curriculum director and coordinators may present a backwards design lesson planning template with a vision-driven goal of seeing teachers plan collaboratively and easily together with a template that ensures that if done correctly, will bring alignment and equity knowing that everyone is planning for the standard.

The campus leadership may introduce this initiative and tool with gusto because their vision-driven goal is that students when taught with alignment, will increase their scores.

However, while data is an important tracker, test scores really shouldn’t (and probably won’t) be the vision-driven goal for the teachers. The teachers want to see students thinking at a high level. They want to use their planning time effectively and get a lot done so they don’t have to stay later planning. They want to know that they are hitting the learning target without having to guess at the level of thinking the students need to do. Their vision-driven goal may be getting a week’s worth of lessons planned in 1 planning session, and then watching their students on the scaffolded path to mastery because their planning was so on target.

When thinking about creating a vision-driven goal (or goals) for the spring semester, where do you start? Let me give you a few questions:

1. If your campus was running at the level you want it to be, what is happening in the classroom? What are you seeing the students doing? What are you seeing the teachers doing?
2. If your campus was running at the level you want it to be, what would the mornings look like- the very start of the day? How do the students feel about walking in the doors? How do the teachers feel about being there? How do the teachers and students react when they see each other?
3. If your campus was running at the level you want it to be, what is happening in PLCs or during planning time? What types of conversations are being had? What is getting done during these times? What do you see the teachers doing?

Now, depending on your campus, you may have additional questions, or even change these questions some, but it’s important to have a vision in your mind about where you want to take the campus. I encourage you to download the Vision-Driven Goal Setting Guide here. Take a moment, maybe even before moving ahead, and answer these questions.

Next, use data – both qualitative and quantitative, to determine where your campus is in each of the current areas. This would be a great place to get teacher (and student) input. Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

1. When I look in most classrooms now, I see…
2. In the mornings, students/teachers seem ____.
3. During PLC meetings, the primary conversations center around _____. The productivity in PLCs is __________.

Now for the fun part – it’s time to make the plan for growth. In order to set a vision-driven goal, it’s crucial to determine the missing piece or the bridge that will get your campus from where it is now, to where you want it to be. I highly encourage you to walk through these questions with your teachers, or at least with a teacher group. The last thing you want to do is continue to make a plan that no one is on board with! After going through the vision of the best-case campus, and the observations of where the campus is now, walk through these questions:

1. What is missing/needs to happen in the classrooms that we can control? (more engaging lessons, more processing time, academic dialogue, language strategies, processes/procedures)
2. In the mornings, what is missing/needs to happen to increase the culture? (Teachers rotate duty, everyone standing at their doors, high five every kid, parents as greeters, music playing in the morning, administrator present to take care of dress code/behavior so teachers can be positive).
3. During PLCs, what is missing/needs to happen to have more productive and effective PLCs focused on student growth? (PLC minutes, template, PLC training for PLC leaders, scheduled, modeled)

And now it’s time to make the vision-driven goal, backed by a plan. I recommend using a template similar to this:

To increase engagement in classrooms and lower behavior issues, we are going to implement 1 Best Practice strategy daily, intentionally scaffold every day in Tier 1 instruction using our Scaffolds List, and every teacher will have a procedure for entering the classroom, leaving the classroom, turning in work and an attention signal.

In the mornings, in order to increase the positive climate and alliances between teachers and students, we will have teachers as greeters, administrators as behavior enforcers, and music playing as students enter. Every student will be greeted positively by an adult, even if they need to be redirected.

In order to have data and instruction-driven conversations that are focused on student growth during PLCs, we will use the PLC template and turn in minutes. We will use a timer to stay on topic and have a clear goal of what we will accomplish during that PLC.

Notice, friends, there’s no assessment data here. You can have some assessment goals for your campus, but think with me – if students came into the building feeling valued, connected and positive, were met in the class with structure and best practice strategies, and had instruction planned based on student growth and aligned standards, your scores are going to go up.

Teachers, I want to talk to you for a minute – you can walk through this same process in your classroom. This is the perfect time to reflect on the first half of the year and set goals for the last half. What would your ideal class look like (with the current students you have been blessed with)? Where is your class now? What are the missing parts? What is your plan to create that ideal class?

Remember to download our free Vision-Driven Goal-Setting Guide! And at the time this blog is written, we are having our End of Year Sale, where all courses, trainings and resources are discounted for a very limited time! I know the hoops you have to jump through, so in order to take advantage of the sale, head to http://www.theresponsiveclassroom.org to get more info about the sale and request a meeting or an estimate by December 15th, 2023!

Thank you for loving kids!

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