What was the speaker’s main message?

Gardner inspired principals to look at the level of expectations and practices in their schools, challenging principals to select one of four high-leverage practices to improve the standards of operation and instruction. The four practices she noted were engaging in instructionally focused conversations (evaluation, feedback, and coaching), building a productive climate (encouraging trust, efficacy, continuous improvement, culture, climate), facilitating collaboration and PLCs with teachers working authentically to improve practice and support student learning, and managing personnel and resources strategically through strategic staffing, allocation of other resources, and time management of the principal.

What is one strategy that you will implement immediately?

I was challenged to reflect on which one of the four high-leverage practices I should focus my energy on when I return home. For me, facilitating collaboration and PLCs with teachers, working authentically to improve practice and support of student learning is where I should prioritize my work. While my team has many strengths and amazing work happening, we can continue to grow in our open reflection of data linked to observable action based upon the reflective conversations.

What is one strategy that will help you with instructional leadership?

Presenting the information and research with staff on where we are as a nation with reaching the standards for our learners will be a tool to help share urgency and a need to continue to reflect and grow in order to be the best for our students while also helping our team see the challenges we are facing are not unique to our school.

What are resources you will check out?

• The 2018 TNTP Opportunity Myth Study
• The 2021 Report “How Principals Affect Students and Schools,” commissioned by The Wallace Foundation
• The Harvard Graduate School of Education Principal Center

What are some relevant or surprising stats you learned?

Garner impactfully shared shocking information from the 2018 TNTP Opportunity Myth Study. She affirmed what many principals in the room concurred with, noting the data below:

• Only 44 percent of teachers expected their students to have success with the grade-level standard, even though a greater percentage believed in the standards.
• 71 percent of students are having success on assignments but only 17 percent of the assignments met the grade level standard, so they are not actually performing at grade level, even though the assignment grades show student success.
• An average, a student experiences 530 hours in core classes on assignments that are not grade-level appropriate.
• Out of 900 core lessons observed in the TNTP Opportunity Myth Study, 295 presented grade-level content but only 8 percent had grade-level content and asked the students to do the thinking.

Notes by Amy Balsbaugh, principal of Bonfield Elementary in Lititz, Pennsylvania. Read more session notes in the NAESP Conference Blog.