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VIEW FROM THE HIL

   News and Highlights from the WMU-HIL Literacy Leadership Project

"When the implementation facilitators came through for an instructional round, they gave us three suggestions where we could improve…We put together a leadership team from our staff to work with a facilitator on a weekly basis, and we developed a staircase to succeess by looking at literacy essentials to see what we were missing."
–Galesburg-Augusta Primary School Principal Shaun Sportel in a W Magazine feature article about the HIL Project

May 2019


HIL PROJECT DIFFERENCE
SPOTLIGHT ON SCHOOLS
FOCUS ON PARTNERS
UPCOMING EVENTS
directors' photo
We are seeing some impressive examples of literacy implementation work in Cohort A schools. Through Facilitator updates and school visits, we see signs of real changes in school conditions and classroom practices to support literacy success.

For instance, we see (and have captured on video) examples of:
  • A growing positive core in HIL schools
  • Increased shared responsibility and ownership
  • Deeper and more focused evidence-based decision-making
  • More robust and focused organizational learning
READ THE DIRECTORS' REPORT on the exciting literacy implementation work happening in schools. 

HIL PROJECT FEATURED IN W MAGAZINE

The HIL Project received some welcome recognition through a 4-page feature article in Western Michigan University's W Magazine. The story introduces HIL Project leaders and their professional passion for literacy and leadership. It provides a concise look at the HIL Project goals and model, and features the voices of Project facilitators and school leaders.

READ THE ARTICLE

Check out and share our new video!

This six-minute overview of the HIL Project lets you hear the voices of participants and discover the impact the HIL Project is having in schools across West Michigan. 
Welcome to the High Impact Leadership (HIL) Project Spring 2019

HIL PROJECT SUMMIT WELCOMED DR. NELL DUKE 

On March 19, 2019, the HIL Project welcomed keynote speaker Dr. Nell Duke to its Summit at the Bernhard Center on the WMU Campus. Dr. Duke delivered an inspirational keynote address, which connected the literacy and leadership elements of the HIL Project.
The engagement of HIL Project School Leadership Teams created great momentum as they approach the final months of the 2018-19 school year.
(Click the image to see a few photo highlights)

The excitement continues on June 24 and 25 at the HIL Summit in Grand Rapids. 

HIL PROJECT DIFFERENCE

Teacher leadership has positive effects on student achievement

by Dr. Jianping Shen, Project Co-director
Teacher leadership is commonly discussed in educational research and practice. Yet, the relationship between teacher leadership and student achievement has not been soundly established by empirical evidence. The HIL project research team has just completed a meta-analysis to examine the extent to which teacher leadership was related to students’ academic achievement. The results revealed that teacher leadership was positively related to student achievement (r=0.18).

Breaking the concept of teacher leadership down further, the following seven dimensions of teacher leadership are found to be positively related to student achievement:
  1. Promoting a shared school vision, mission and goals of student learning;
  2. Coordinating and managing beyond the classroom;
  3. Facilitating improvements in curriculum, instruction, and assessment;
  4. Promoting teachers’ professional development;
  5. Participating in policy and decision making;
  6. Fostering a collaborative culture in school; and
  7. Improving outreach and collaboration with families and community.
Among these seven dimensions, “facilitating improvements in curriculum, instruction, and assessment” not only has the largest absolute effect (r=0.21), it also has statistically significant relative effect with controls for all other teacher leadership dimensions. The above findings provide  not only empirical support to the HIL project’s approach to school renewal with an emphasis on teacher leadership, but also a framework of what to focus on when we practice teacher leadership.

Facilitators as the critical difference

by Dustin Anderson, HIL Assistant Project Director
It is a great personal joy to play a role in the data collection procedures for the HIL Project. Having a role as a listener and learner about how the HIL Project is being implemented across 75 very different schools provides me an opportunity to appreciate the passion, dedication, and outstanding capacity within facilitators, principals, and teachers in their implementation of the Essential Practices in Early Literacy!

Among information collected was great descriptions of the work from principals. They spoke of the focus on literacy that the HIL Project brought to their school through the weekly support of the facilitator. Not only have some teachers grown in intentionality of their literacy instructional strategies, but principals have spoken about the greater organization and utility of classroom libraries and other instructional strategies that support all instruction such as tier one, small group instruction, flexible grouping, and vocabulary strategies.


READ MORE about the critical difference HIL Facilitators make

SPOTLIGHT ON SCHOOLS

HIL Partner grant sends Lakeview teachers to reading conference

by John Gehrig, HIL Project Facilitator
Thanks to the generous donation from Mr. Chuck Swartzle, the owner of Besco in Battle Creek, four teachers from Lakeview Elementary were able to attend the Michigan Reading Association conference in Grand Rapids March 9 – 11. These four teachers gave up their weekend to spend time sharing and learning from other teachers.

It was an amazing weekend, listening to educators from around the state share their ideas around literacy. Keynote speakers Pernille Ripp, Stephanie Harvey, Penny Kittle, and Kelly Gallagher were inspirational as they shared their expertise, and also talked of the incredibly difficult job of teaching reading and writing. They were incredibly empathetic about the daunting job that teachers face day to day in motivating and engaging their students and inspiring them to become passionate readers and writers.

The big take-away from the weekend was to be an advocate for your students and yourselves. Teachers must be willing to speak up and fight for what is best for their students.

As they met for lunch and dinner, they talked of how they would take their excitement and enthusiasm back to the school. As we all know, the life of a teacher is very stressful. In the quest to provide the best possible education for their students—while being faced with new challenges from the district and state level—teachers often feel beat down and unappreciated. These four Lakeview teachers left motivated and inspired to come back to their school and rejuvenate their colleagues!
Lakeview staff pictured from left to right: Kelsey Deibert, Kindergarten teacher; Stephanie Barron, 4th-grade teacher; John Gehrig, HIL Project Facilitator; Penny Kittle, Kelly Gallagher, Sarah Hughey, 4th-grade teachers; Kasey Ward, 3rd-grade teacher.

SPOTLIGHT ON SCHOOLS

Lawrence Elementary School: Keeping a laser focus on literacy

by Cheryl-Marie Manson, HIL Project Facilitator

Walking through the halls of Lawrence Elementary School in Van Buren County, it is obvious what their focus is: READING. With every teacher’s “personal why” for literacy posted just outside each classroom, students can’t help but be reminded of this laser focus as they enter. Many teachers have also included their students’ “personal why” for literacy as well, with many students speaking to the power of reading a story and escaping from the day-to-day to live another life. Some students even talk about using reading as a way to escape anxiety.

READ MORE about what's happening at Lawrence Elementary.
In order to ensure that all students have the potential to read prolifically through their elementary years, Lawrence teachers and paraprofessionals have embraced and fully implemented Anita Archer’s Instructional Routines in every classroom.

SPOTLIGHT ON SCHOOLS

Celebrating Mulick Park Elementary

by Carolyn Moe, Mulick Park 1st Grade Teacher and HIL Teacher Leader; and 
Doni St. Amour, HIL Facilitator

Mulick Park Elementary School in Grand Rapids has been headed in the “right” direction for several years. The partnership with the HIL Project is a welcomed and natural progression for this data driven, collaborative, and results focused school.

Working together as a staff to use available data to guide instruction has been a focus since first becoming named by the State of Michigan as a "Priority School." This work included being familiar with available data and knowing how to use it. Teachers continue to collaborate in making grade-level data charts and working as a whole staff to analyze the scores.

Professional development and our Professional Learning Community (PLC) are planned and aligned to meet the meet the needs of our students. For example, in the content areas of reading and writing, specific measurable goals have been written and then PD is designed around helping staff to meet the goals.

READ MORE about Mulick Park's "why," and "what" and "how" they are moving forward toward improved literacy achievement
Planned professional learning communities (PLCs) give at Mulick Park Elementary teachers an opportunity to reflect on teaching practices, student achievement, differentiated instruction techniques, and implementation of instructional moves and goals. The school culture is supportive and cohesive, and the tight-knit staff supports one another and strives to build relationships with students. …Having positive leadership and making all  professional learning meaningful and connected to school improvement goals adds to the increase in student achievement. 

FOCUS ON PARTNERS

HIL Facilitators Engage in a Community of Practice Dialogue with MAISD

Image of authorBy John Kraus, Director of Instructional Services, Muskegon ISD

With a desire to learn from authentic experiences in the field, three HIL Facilitators serving elementary schools in Muskegon county met April 26, 2019, with the Muskegon Area Intermediate School District (ISD) Literacy Team to engage in a Community of Practice dialogue around leadership development.

This dialogue surfaced themes for consideration about how an ISD team could provide leadership support to principals and teacher leaders. By asking each HIL Facilitator to “share their journey” about the school they serve, the ISD team learned which aspects of developing high impact leadership were contextualized for each school and which aspects were common foundations upon which to build high quality practices and systems.

MAISD organized this meeting to help envision enhanced or new services that might be developed to support schools who are not a part of the HIL project. Some themes emerged around critical components needed to help building leaders improve outcomes for children. These included:

  • An intentional effort on the part of the Facilitator to develop a trusting relationship with school leaders. This takes time and patience
  • Priority focus on helping school leaders assess and address building culture and climate— prior to focusing on instructional practices
  • High levels of support and practice for school leaders and teachers in making meaningful use of data
  • A laser-like focus on a limited number of priorities.  A focus on only one or two initiatives must be communicated and modeled by school leaders, along with permission to let other initiatives move to the back burner

The greatest gains among HIL Project schools were seen when the HIL Facilitator also established a positive relationship with the ISD or in-district Literacy Coach. While the focus of “who” they are working with is different, each entity is working with the building leadership, Literacy Leadership Team, and teachers to achieve the same transformative outcome of improving literacy skills for all children.

MAISD would like to thank Laurie Schmitt and Doug Greer from the HIL project for their guidance and attendance at this Community of Practice dialogue. With their expert knowledge of the project and of the people serving our schools, we believe we can expand the learnings from the HIL to serve our constituent districts in a much broader and sustainable manner in the area of high impact leadership.

FOCUS ON PARTNERS

Godfrey-Lee hosts ‘celebration of literacy’ to thank donors


Godfrey-Lee Public Schools hosted a "celebration of literacy" on Wednesday, April 24th at the Godfrey-Lee Early Childhood Center in Wyoming, Michigan. The event acknowledged and celebrated new reading opportunities for students thanks to donors who dramatically increased the number of books students have access to in classrooms and media centers.

The new books were purchased through a generous gift by the Guido A. and Elizabeth H. Binda Foundation and other local partners. Enhancing the number of books at Godfrey Elementary School and the Godfrey-Lee Early Childhood Center was a key recommendation coming out of the schools’ work with the High Impact Leadership (HIL) Project.

“Making sure that students have easy access to high-quality, culturally relevant reading materials is an essential practice in literacy,” HIL Project Director Dr. Patricia Reeves said. “We are so grateful for strong partners like the Binda Foundation who are making such a difference for the young readers at Godfrey-Lee.”

READ MORE about the event and the donors.
READ MEDIA COVERAGE about the event.
The $15,000 Binda Foundation gift was given in honor of Dr. Vern Boss, retired superintendent of Kent ISD and Trustee emeritus of the Binda Foundation. The funds were issued as a challenge grant that raised an additional $15,000 in matching funds from individuals and community partners in just a matter of months.

Leading Now, Reading WOW!

Don't miss all the latest news and happenings featured in the Leading Now, Reading WOW! widget on the www.HILwmu.org home page! If you haven't visited lately, here's a sampling of what you've missed:
  • Updates and photos from Cohort A schools
  • News about ways local businesses and charitable foundations are enhancing literacy work at HIL Project schools
  • Stories about the impact that high integrity, high fidelity literacy practices are making in schools
  • and more!
Visit the HILwmu.org home page often to learn what's new and exciting at HIL Project!

SNAPSHOT

Here’s a glimpse into the leadership for literacy learning that happens every day in our HIL Project schools!

The Muskegon Heights Public School Academy System recently saw an awesome turnout for a professional learning event…on a Saturday no less! In this photo, the Muskegon Heights team is practicing explicit instruction of Foundational Skills. “We are so energized and excited to reboot literacy instruction on Monday!” says Assistant Superintendent Jennifer Saylor.  “We are also so grateful that our HIL partnership supported this great learning and fellowship opportunity for our team!

Correction:

The February issue of View from the HIL, the article “East Leonard Elementary School: A story of literacy leadership” neglected to give credit to author Karen Hart. We apologize for that error, and have corrected the article that appears online.
READ OR SHARE the corrected article

How can you help?

Some HIL Project schools are benefiting from the generosity of local businesses and charitable foundations. These donors recognize the good work happening and want to leverage their giving through partnerships poised for success. 
We acknowledge with appreciation their support and invite others to join them.

Thank you:

BESCO Water Treatment
Binda Foundation
Metal Flow Corporation
Perrigo Charitable Foundation
United Way

Contact us to learn how individuals and organizations can enhance literacy efforts at HIL Project schools, AND receive recognition for their generosity.
Learn how to contribute

Upcoming events

Cohort B On-boarding

This month, we will start the on-boarding process for Cohort B schools with a series of information sessions for principals, superintendents, district instructional leaders, and ISD/ESA superintendents and instructional support leaders. These sessions will provide a timeline and overview of activities and processes to:
  • Ensure a smooth transition for Cohort A schools to the sustainability plan
  • Ensure a smooth on-boarding for Cohort B schools 
Details are being shared through direct communications to Cohort A and Cohort B districts and supporting ISDs/ESAs.  
COHORT B EVENTS
All events run from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.
These events are for Cohort B superintendent and principal teams


Wednesday, May 29 at Mecosta-Osceola ISD
Thursday, May 30 at Van Buren ISD
Tuesday, June 4 at Muskegon ISD
Wednesday, June 6 at KRESA
Tuesday, June 11 at Kent ISD

SUMMITS

June 24 and 25, 2019 at the GVSU Eberhard Center in Grand Rapids.  
October 17, 2019 (location TBD)

FACILITATOR WORKSHOPS

June 14, 2019
August, 23 2019
September 13, 2019 

October 11, 2019
Visit the HIL website
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