VIEW FROM THE HIL
News and Highlights from the WMU-HIL Literacy Leadership Project
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Teacher leaders in HIL Project schools are using high impact leadership principles and practices to improve their instruction and see higher literacy achievement for students.
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Fall 2021
HIL PROJECT DIFFERENCE
SPOTLIGHT ON SCHOOLS
FOCUS ON PARTNERS
UPCOMING EVENTS
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 FROM THE DIRECTORS
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Year 5 of the High Impact Leadership (HIL) for School Renewal Project will be our busiest yet! HIL Project Facilitators are back to working in Cohort B schools rather than relying totally on virtual support. Cohort B schools are back to working with students in real classrooms with supplemental virtual learning where necessary. Literacy is still the focus for our work together.
This year, we hope to firmly embed the four High Impact Leadership (HIL) Principals for School Renewal into the day-to-day norms and culture of each Cohort B school. Essential Instructional Practice in Literacy to achieve that student learning target.
Year 5 is also laser focused on scaling-up and sustaining the HIL Model for School Renewal for the schools we served under the USDOE SEED grant as well as those we have yet to serve.
READ THE FULL REPORT
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Introducing...
our revised HIL Project website!
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Starting this fall you will see a different view from hilwmu.org. We have revised and updated our website, which now tells the story of school renewal, and the origin of the HIL Project, in a new way.
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First and foremost, we tried to make it easier for HIL Project schools and partners to easily find the resources they need . The Team Resources Page has links to key documents and operational resources for School Leaders and Facilitators.
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The website contains many video vignettes of principals, teachers, Facilitators and Coordinators talking about the work of school renewal as it unfolds in schools. Graphics, icons, and participant images make the site visually appealing, while illustrating the high impact leadership Principles and School Renewal Cycle, which are central to our work of leadership for literacy. Links to partner websites and foundational research help paint the complete picture of the HIL Project.
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Of special interest to those who want to learn more about the process of High Impact Leadership for School Renewal is our Professional Learning System Page. On it you will find the HIL Process Guide, links to future Edupaths Courses, Learning Maps, YouTube Videos, and even “HIL in a Bag” for hands-on learning.
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Our goals are to spread the good news about the HIL Model for School Renewal, and to provide Facilitators and School Leadership Teams easy-access to resources that will guide and focus their work.
We welcome your feedback on any of the resources on the revised website and invite your communication on any topic through email or any of the following social media:
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The link between research and practice
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By Dr. John Lane, HIL Project Research Support Team
There is an old maxim in the social sciences that there is nothing as practical as a good theory. Researchers like me, of course, would love it if this were true. But at the same time, history has not been kind. The tight link between research (theory generation and testing) and practice in education has never materialized as it has in other fields and occupations.
So, who’s to blame? Should practitioners be blamed for not responding to the theories researchers generate and then test to confirm? Should researchers be blamed because they are over-theorizing or conducting poor research that does not actually generate knowledge that practitioners would find most useful?
I want to suggest a third option: the complexities of schooling and educating children can be understood and organized into theories through research, but the complexities, once explained, cannot be so easily overcome by the simple application of “best practices.” I will also suggest reasons for hope that research and practice might establish a tighter link for the researchers and practitioners on the High Impact Leadership (HIL) Project.
READ HOW the HIL Project links research to practice.
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Using the Gold Standard Implementation Guide to close
the knowing-doing gap
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By Dr. Laurie Schmitt, HIL Project Coordinator
Our students need us to leverage strategies with the greatest impact to ensure high levels of learning. I have never known a teacher, principal, or elementary school team that is not trying to do the best for children every day. That said, how is it that some schools manage to achieve beyond what their peers do? How is it that even when there is widespread agreement on which high-impact instructional strategies are needed, there is a lack of implementation? We know what works for students, yet we are not all doing all those things. Pfeffer and Sutton refer to the disconnect between knowledge and action as the “knowing-doing gap.”
The knowing-doing gap is there for many reasons in our schools and classrooms. Some of these include lack of depth of clarity of the evidence-based practice, lack of agreement on what fidelity of implementation looks like in practice, lack of support for implementation of a new practice, and inadequate resources to ensure implementation.
To bridge the knowing-doing gap, it helps to have processes and tools that aid implementation. The tool used in the HIL Project to help bridge the knowing-doing gap is our Gold Standard Implementation Guide (GSIG). It is the pivot point of the High Impact Leadership (HIL) School Renewal Process, connecting data to specific classroom and school-wide practices.
READ ABOUT HIL PROCESSES AND TOOLS (and view and example) that help close the knowing-doing gap
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SPOTLIGHT ON SCHOOLS
Redwood Elementary builds a community of readers
by Nicole Elder, HIL Project Facilitator
Getting kids excited about reading is a team effort, and Hartford’s Redwood Elementary is in it to win it. Their journey began two years ago when the elementary staff went through training for Daily 5 and CAFE with Gail and Doug Boushey as part of a county-wide effort to support literacy. Between the dedication of the staff, generous donation from the Pokagon Fund to build amazing classroom libraries, and initiatives built around celebration reading, student attitudes about reading have been impacted tremendously.
Over the past couple of years, Redwood staff have gone through a tremendous transformation in how they look at reading. They have moved away from non-reading incentives and toward celebrating reading. Using high impact leadership (HIL) principles and processes has helped!
READ ABOUT THE TRANSFORMATION in how Redwood staff look at reading and how students benefit
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Summer was full of fun, with Redwood Elementary staff offering multiple community stops each week. Students and families could pick out books and enjoy a read-aloud together--all part of Redwood's transformation to a "celebration of reading."
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SPOTLIGHT ON SCHOOLS
Learning as an organization at Pine Island Elementary
By Hilary Meulenberg, HIL Project Facilitator
The HIL Project’s Leadership Principles for School Renewal build capacity and support sustainability to continue the school’s priority focus. HIL Project Schools value the Leadership Principles as well as the structure of a School Renewal Cycle.
At Pine Island Elementary in Comstock Park, the literacy leadership team and district literacy coach Katie Austin are focused on a vital principle: Organizational Learning. The goal is to focus on the practice of “Systems Thinking & Alignment.” They want to ensure that students are receiving guaranteed and viable Tier 1 instruction across the grade levels.
READ MORE about the how the HIL Phases and Principles are flourishing across content areas and building a sense of shared ownership, leadership, and sustainability.
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At Pine Island Elementary in Comstock Park, the school leadership team is focusing on the practice of “Systems Thinking & Alignment” to ensure students receive guaranteed and viable Tier 1 instruction across all content areas, grade levels, and learning modalities.
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SPOTLIGHT ON SCHOOLS
Sustaining a shared leadership culture at Sand Lake Elementary
By Julie Scott, Principal of Sand Lake Elementary School
Sand Lake Elementary, part of Tri County Area Schools, serves about 475 students in grades 3–5. We are a Cohort A-HIL school and have been working with our HIL Facilitator, Teresa McDougal, since the beginning of the HIL Project in 2018. This year at Sand Lake Elementary, we are moving to sustain our cycles of improvement independent of the HIL project and our facilitator. While Teresa still checks in to see how we are doing, she no longer works directly with our team to set goals or formulate plans.
While we have had many small victories during our time with the HIL project, perhaps one of the greatest achievements has been improving our school culture around cycles of improvement. It has had an impact on everything we have done subsequently. We built a strong leadership team that meets regularly with goal setting in mind.
READ MORE about how high impact leadership (HIL) principles help school leaders set manageable goals within short cycles of improvement and the difference this makes for teachers and students.
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Sand Lake staff make time for leadership retreats to take an accounting of our current realities. Twice a month, they meet to discuss goals, look at data, and discuss how to support the work being done in the school.
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PARTNER PROFILE
MASA Fall Conference welcomes HIL Project
In September, members of the High Impact Leadership (HIL) Project Management Team presented at the Fall 2021 Conference of the Michigan Association of Superintendents and School Administrators (MASA), whose mission is to develop leadership and unity with its membership to achieve the continuous improvement of public education in Michigan. The conference was an exciting event, and we were honored to help promote the mission of continuous improvement through our session, School Renewal for Transformative Change.
True transformative change is challenging. Competing initiatives, deeply held assumptions, firmly entrenched habits and routines, and misaligned systems can undermine even the most passionate commitment to change for better student outcomes. The fact remains, creating truly equitable learning opportunities and outcomes requires transformative work, and transformative work requires a special kind of leadership. The HIL Model for School Renewal offers school leaders an actionable frame and achievable process to hone in on the changes that will make a critical difference for all students and narrow persistent achievement gaps.
The HIL Team was able to provide administrators with an overview of the HIL School Renewal approach and share examples of how they used this approach to achieve transformative change within a controlled study. Participants engaged in an exploration of how they might use the HIL School Renewal Process to achieve transformative change in their own schools.
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Check out what's happening at HILwmu.org!
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Team resources for Facilitators and School Leaders
The HIL website now features helpful links to the resources HIL teams use most often.
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Team resources for Facilitators and School Leaders
The HIL website now features helpful links to the resources HIL teams use most often.
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Leading Now, Reading WOW!
Don't miss all the latest news and happenings featured in the Leading Now, Reading WOW! widget near the bottom of the HILwmu.org home page! If you haven't visited lately, here's a sampling of what you've missed:
- Updates about Project activities
- Stories about the impact that high integrity, high fidelity leadership practices are making in schools
- and more!
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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
Laura Bush Foundation for America's Libraries
Metal Flow Corporation
Perrigo Charitable Foundation
Pokagon Fund
Red Line Designs
Scholastic Corporation
United Way
Contact us to learn how individuals and organizations can enhance literacy efforts at HIL Project schools, AND receive recognition for their generosity.
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Upcoming Events
All dates subject to change based on State and National travel and assembly restrictions in place at the time of the event. At all times, we are committed to regularly engaging our teams using creativity and technology as necessary.
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SUMMITS
October 18-29
Self-Scheduled Asynchronous
Principal & Teacher Leader Summit
March 7-18, 2021
Self-Scheduled Asynchronous
Principal & Teacher Leader Summit
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FACILITATOR WORKSHOPS
October 8, 2021
November 12, 2021
December 10, 2021
January 14, 2022
February 11, 2022
March 9, 2022
April 21, 2022
May 13, 2022
June 10, 2022
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HIL SCHOOL RENEWAL ROUNDS
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GELN DIRECTORS PARTNER VIRTUAL MEETINGS
December 2, 2021
February 24, 2021
April 28, 2022
June 23, 2021
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OTHER LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
MEMSPA Annual Conference
December 8-10, 2021
This year's theme is Everyone Has A Story To Tell. Presenters will empower Principals, Assistant Principals, Aspiring Administrators, Central Office Leadership and Teacher Leaders to return to their districts rejuvenated and invigorated.
Learn more and register here.
Four Assessment Capabilities:
What they are and why our children would want their teachers to have them
January 18, 2022
If our skillful use of assessment is the lever to support all children to become capable learners, then what are the assessment capabilities our practicing teachers must have from day one?
Learn more and register here.
Building Classroom Libraries:
Essential Instructional Practices in Literacy
This series of courses was created by a subgroup of the ISD Early Literacy Coaching Network to provide support to district literacy leadership teams focused on building and supporting classroom libraries within their school. The courses are aligned with the Essential Instructional Practices in Early and Elementary Literacy.
Click here to learn more.
(To access courses, you will need an EduPaths account and be logged in.)
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