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10 MIN READ

Author: Steven Dahl, M.Ed.
Director of Professional Learning & Content Development
The Center for Educational Effectiveness

Author: Erich Bolz
V.P., Research & District Engagement
The Center for Educational Effectiveness

You may recall in our earlier pieces: The Tired School Improvement Initiatives Won’t Transform your School But This Will, and Minding the Gap Is Where It’s At, and Neutrality Is Your ‘Land of Opportunity’, we discussed how a policy-driven overreliance on student achievement data and structural implementation (think MTSS, PBIS, and any other flavor-of-the-month alphabet soup initiatives) has not led to national student achievement results we had hoped for - yet. Any initiative has great potential to produce desired outcomes when we understand and meet the relational needs of the organization.

A quick review of the salient points of the first three articles will help set the stage for the points emphasized here:

• Generating culture data that is actionable should be every leader’s priority.

• Readiness-to-benefit data (CEE’s “I vs. They Gap” analysis) is imperative prior to implementing a scaled change initiative.

• Assessing levels of neutrality (CEE’s “Land of Opportunity”) supports strategic action planning.

We invite leaders to consider these vital components as a sort of leadership ‘order of operations.’ That’s why in this blog we’ll emphasize how putting your RTB goggles on is not an event, but an ongoing process that applies to any context regardless of what you already are or plan to implement. We’ll also shed light on how leaders can make data actionable even when they feel stymied by systemic sluggishness.

Culture Is Not ‘One More Thing on the Plate’ - It Is the Plate

We believe knowing better is essential to doing better. However, just knowing what research suggests as the best approach doesn’t always lead to acting on it or implementing it effectively. It is the age old saying, ‘easier said than done.’ Whether it’s a districtwide framework or a new Tier 1 approach you are considering - both are prime examples of how a system can only ‘do better’ (implementation science) when it ‘knows better’ (evidence-based practices) and operates from high levels of trust.

How vital are relationships to the success of a school or district? Consider Roland Barth’s timeless insights:

“One incontrovertible finding emerges from my career spent working in and around schools: The nature of relationships among the adults within a school has a greater influence on the character and quality of that school and on student accomplishment than anything else.”

CEE’s Outlier Study findings, already referenced in this blog series, provide evidence of Barth’s insight. Academic performance indicators reflect the ‘family-like’ atmosphere experienced by students, staff, and families in healthy schools and districts.

And here is the real kicker…. any organization that ignores the impact of its culture on its capacity for implementation risks false starts, stagnation, or worse, rapid decline. Left unaddressed, implementation entropy results in the equivalent of a forgotten garden overrun by weeds and pests. The best course of action is to start at the root causal level with the intent of creating optimal growth conditions for all, accompanied by processes to assess implementation effectiveness ongoing. 

The taproot of transformation is what students see, hear, and experience each day that connects them to their learning, one another, their teachers, and their sense of belonging within the school’s community. If you want better ‘fruit’ (academic outcomes), pay attention to the ‘root’ (non-academic inputs).

What’s Culture Got to Do with Implementation Science?

Well, just about everything. Many will be familiar with the implementation resources provided through the National Implementation Resource Network (NIRN), a network of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Implementation Science refers to “the methods or techniques used to enhance adoption, implementation, or sustainability of a program or practice.” (Eccles & Mittman, 2006). NIRN’s Active Implementation Framework outlines four bi-directional, nonlinear stages (pg. 4):

“Stages (Exploration, Installation, Initial Implementation, Full Implementation) are not linear and each one does not have a crisp beginning or end. For example, there are times when an organization will move among stages due to changes in staff, funding, leadership, or unsuccessful attempts at employing the program or practice with high fidelity. There also may be instances in which an organization is in more than one stage at a time.”

Image: https://implementation.fpg.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/Implementation-Stages-Overview.pdf

While a district may have worked very hard to implement evidence-based practices (moving left to right), it doesn’t mean that unforeseeable circumstances won’t limit or quickly alter that implementation in the future (moving right to left). Staff attrition, changes in leadership, loss of funding (e.g., ESSER), and many other challenges can create reduced efficacy and fidelity. For many, the most obvious and recent example would be the impact of the pandemic on well-established programs that required significant alterations in their operational design.

The focus of systems has been on addressing ‘learning loss’ (outcomes). There must be an equally urgent effort made to restore and build anew the social, emotional and relational aspects for all learners so that personalized learning is universally accessible (inputs). Focusing on non-academics, or the Relational Trust and Supportive Community dimensions of your organization, is more than an academic exercise.

You cannot build a hothouse for student and staff flourishing if you don’t create the growing conditions.

What this means for educational leaders is that now, more than ever before, perceptual data needs to be prioritized to support existing and proposed implementations. Far from being trivial, anecdotal data, culture surveys can and should be a driving force for transformation. Perhaps a real-world testimony from a colleague will illustrate the point best.

Let Puzzling Data Foster Inquiry

Consider how Walla Walla Public Schools (WA) principal, and long-time CEE client Maria Garcia, acted based on perceptual data that puzzled her.

Martha’s CEE EES Staff Survey showed that many of her staff members felt students didn’t get what they needed in a timely manner. This baffled her because her intervention team had worked so hard to ensure ALL students got what they needed after the return to in-person learning, regardless of program eligibility. After some thought, she hypothesized that staff members were referring to the past two years of pandemic learning, when students certainly did not get what they needed. She acted on Erich’s advice and talked with staff members 1:1 to confirm that hypothesis. So, what happened next? In a word, magic!

“The conversations engendered by this simple but powerful leadership move helped me discover my hypothesis was wrong. Pandemic learning was not at the root of staff responses at all! The conversations centered almost entirely around special education and our district’s specific push for increased inclusion. They revealed that many staff members lacked a sufficient general background on special education eligibility and service provision, and knowledge of our school’s process and procedures.”

Leaders, there is so much good in this approach. By putting a piece of perceptual data at the center of an intentional 1:1 discussion, Martha publicly modeled the spirit of inquiry and curiosity she expects of her staff. Her staff was not averse to the initiative, they simply wanted more tools to implement the mandate. They were interested in receiving more focused professional development. Absent this process, Maria may have applied a “fix” to a problem that did not exist based upon a perceptual gap between leader and staff. Having closed that perceptual gap, both Maria and her staff worked collaboratively to increase readiness to implement a change in practice.

It is with this that we turn our attention to how perceptual data helps drive quality implementation of a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS).

Why MTSS Alone Will Not Transform Your System

Nationally, experts categorize a variety of large-scale implementation initiatives as being ‘multi-tiered’ in nature. RTI, PBIS and MTSS are the most notable. In the third blog of this series, Neutrality Is Your ‘Land of Opportunity’, we noted how the Powerless to Powerful framework provides a way to make any acronym-driven initiative actionable. The shift from NCLB to ESSA entailed an emphasis on the whole learner and multi-tiered responsiveness not based solely on student academic performance data. But, knowing that a system needs to shift to be driven by non-academic data, and making that shift, are two entirely different things. Simply put, having anchor documents outlining your MTSS and implementing MTSS is not the same as being able to observe it operationally at the classroom and individual student levels. Making your documented MTSS (and PBIS) framework observable at the individual staff and classroom level requires making your leadership practices observable. While that sounds trivially true, that is exactly where implementation fidelity issues most commonly arise.

In some districts, a ‘whole child’ approach has emerged to help coalesce this shift from an almost exclusive academic press focus to a balanced, supportive community approach tied together with relational trust. Perceptual data serves as an engine for transformation, not a passive caboose.

This approach is taking root at the highest levels of leadership as reflected in the AASA guide for re-designing school systems, An American Imperative: A New Vision of Public Schools (2021) articulating components of AASA Learning 2025.

Systemic redesign must happen within an intentional, relationship-based culture that is:

• Whole Learner Focused: The entire system must attend to the social, emotional, cognitive, mental health and trauma-based needs of ALL learners.

• No Learner Marginalized: ALL children, families and staff must be embraced, valued equally and served with equity—regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, socioeconomic circumstance or disability.

  Source: AASA, https://www.aasa.org/professional-learning/learning-2025

We want to encourage our reader that systems both large and small are making this same shift to a more relationally based culture. Consider the scaling efforts made by Gwinnett County Public Schools as shared by Dr. Tinisha Parker on CEE’s Outliers in Education podcast, To Reach All, Reach Each & Every. GCPS started CEE’s Educational Effectiveness Surveys and the Student Universal Wellness Surveys in the 22-23 school year. You can also read the district’s case study, reflecting the priority placed on perceptual data being made actionable and visible in all 142 school improvement plans.  

The point is that systems who now know better are doing better with more sophisticated use of perceptual data, analysis, and action planning. They are also distributing leadership to ensure that there are no gaps in practice that create barriers or inequities.

A Whole System Approach to Support the Whole Child

Currently, many states are embracing MTSS as the umbrella acronym for all other components of their comprehensive, tiered response systems spanning academic, social, emotional and behavioral needs. This shift is relational. Consider Tacoma School District’s Signature Whole Child Practices:

Three Signature Whole Child Practices in Tacoma:

1. Warm Greetings - Educators and staff enthusiastically, kindly, and caringly greet youth when they step onto the bus, walk into the building or enter a classroom- wherever they go, they greet them with respect and warmth.

   Learn more about Warm Greetings

2. Relationship-building Circles - In our classrooms, clubs, and athletics, Group Circles support building community, empathy, and equitable storytelling.
   Learn more about the Group Circle

3. Emotion Checks - Emotion checks offer an opportunity to identify what emotions are present in the moment and what is needed to regulate and understand how others feel. 
   Learn more about an Emotion Check-In

There are even resources for staff and families available to support the social and emotional learning needs of all students. The goal of creating an equitable learning organization for all comes into focus:

“The whole child approach is part of a current, larger conversation around equity in education. It is essential to understand that equity is different from equality, in that equality means that all students get the same thing. But when schools strive to provide equity, every child gets what they need.”

Watch Tacoma Principal Andre Stout’s ‘whole child elevator speech’ which exudes a relationally driven approach to building culture. As he summarizes, “It really supports kids in a way that they can say, “It is good to be good.’” While students won’t know the intricacies of MTSS, they are experts at discerning when they feel genuinely cared for.

MTSS Is People and Process Driven

If you have your leadership transformation goggles on and in working order, you start to see your work differently, and we would argue, more clearly. Consider the MTSS Framework for districts in Washington State which epitomizes similar work nationally. There are some amazing resources available for all to better understand the fabric of MTSS conceptually and operationally. The image below illustrates the emphasis we make that people and process(es) drive system transformation that impacts student achievement, not vice versa.

Image: MTSS Components and Resources (ospi.k12.wa.us)

The heart of Washington State’s MTSS approach centers on relationships as teams, cascading structures, provision of services along a continuum, and collaborative decision-making based on quality data. MTSS is a systematic approach to organizing the work of adults, not for labeling or sorting students. Simply put, a relationally driven culture.

For example, there is no such thing as a “Tier 2 student”. Moreover, when properly understood, MTSS is not equal parts Tier 1 – Tier 2 – Tier 3 (i.e., 33% per tier) but should be heavily slanted toward effective Tier 1 universally accessible core instruction to prevent a disproportionate need for Tier 2 and 3 services. To ensure that is the case, a high level of communication, collaboration and coordination must exist to maintain an ongoing implementation.

MTSS does not exist in a relational vacuum.

This brings us full circle and back to how leaders can lead transformation by prioritizing perceptual data.

1. Establish initial readiness to benefit from analysis of perceptual data

2. Leverage perceptual (non-academic) and academic outcome data to support ongoing implementation efforts (e.g., effective MTSS teaming)

3. Take actions to create an intentional, relationship-based culture

For many leaders, the overwhelming sense of urgency to support high-quality implementation is palpable. Scaling widespread change and inconsistent levels of support top the list of factors leaving them feeling isolated and often in a ‘wait and see’ mode. Thankfully, the 1:1 technique outlined in Blog 3 and reinforced here provides a powerful way to address the immediacy leaders feel to transform their system today. And, directly related to every leader’s growth, we suggest you consider another option that will accelerate your efforts to make data actionable.

Skip the Leadership Wait Line with Actionable 360 Data

Once a leader understands the power of making perceptual data actionable, they will seek new ways to generate even more of it. Such leaders implement a leadership 360 review to show a high value on perceptual feedback from a range of stakeholders (peers, parents, staff, supervisor, etc.). The purpose of any leadership 360 process is not merely for the feedback – though it is essential. Feedback is sought to support reflection and to prioritize actions aligned to the feedback and the organization’s priorities. Dr. Brad Johnson’s NAESP blog on this topic is an excellent summary of the value of embracing leadership 360 reviews.

As noted by Dr. Johnson, selecting a quality leadership review instrument is vital. CEE’s Leadership360 (L360) is aligned to both PSEL and SLP leadership standards to ensure you are acting in alignment with professional best practice. You also have the flexibility to customize your participant list, with no ceiling. Want the feedback from 40 different individuals? No problem. Doing this will establish the priority you place on relationship-driven change.

Make your L360 data actionable by cross walking feedback to the substantive issues surfaced through your culture surveys. Or, if your district uses a social emotional and behavioral screener (SEB) such as CEE’s Student Universal Wellness Screener (SUWS), you might center 1:1 conferencing questions around student data. Frankly, it doesn’t get more actionable than asking your staff, “I noticed in the Student SUWS data a high percentage of students report not feeling like they have a trusted adult to go to at our school. Why do you think that is their perception?” Better yet, pose that question directly to students.

Many think that leaders have shied away from engaging in 360 reviews out of fear of receiving harsh criticism. We think leaders avoid using a 360 review because they believe it won’t give them useful information to act upon. The most compelling reason to embrace a quality leadership 360 review is that it will refine your focus, help build relational trust, and ultimately lead to the positive outcomes you and your organization desires.

Grow Together To Go Far

We recognize we’ve covered a lot of ground in this 4-part blog series aimed at disrupting the status quo chase of acronym-based improvement efforts that simply will not create desired outcomes unless the necessary relational-growth conditions are in place. By focusing on specific strategies to create these conditions, we hope to inspire you to do better - because you know better.

1. Reject using lagging summative academic data as the center of your improvement initiatives. Rather, focus on your system’s (in this order) demographic, perceptual, and contextual data realities on your way to improving academic achievement.

2. Embrace culture as job one, and guard against defaulting to the prevailing efforts in our profession to solve the community issues through structural changes. You are probably not one ‘fill-in-the-blank’ training away from the promised land of school transformation. Nor are you one more perceptual survey away–unless you commit to making that data actionable.

3. Embrace short-cycle PDSA cycles fueled by perceptual data. Use 1:1 questions to surface data themes, make the themes public, empower your community to take collective action, and articulate the non-academic and academic measures to be used.

Business sector author Patrick Lencioni best summarized the opportunity before you, “If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.” Don’t go at it alone.

We believe deep and lasting change starts with the approach shared over these four blogs. Take action with perceptual data and you’ll close any perceptual gaps that hinder. If you see academic outcome data falling below expectations, consider your culture data as the leading indicator of readiness to enact any other structural, programmatic, or acronym-based change.

And, now that you know better, you can do better.

To learn more about how The Center for Educational Effectiveness can assist you in measuring culture, and making perceptual data actionable, please visit: https://www.effectiveness.org/products-services.

If this article has challenged your thinking and you would like to discuss further, please connect with us. Click here to schedule a conversation.

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