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BUILDING TRUST AND HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS TO LEVERAGE ASSESSMENT
What we talk about is less important than how we talkabout it and why we talk about it.
—Angela Freese
It is the beginning of the first quarter at Kennedy Elementary School, and Emily is the veteran on her grade-level team, starting her third year of teaching second grade but her fifth year at Kennedy. Emily is well loved by her students and their families, and she has a true passion for teaching and learning. Her principal has begun to elevate her into leadership roles in the building, and she has recently been appointed chair of the building leadership team. Her energy is infectious, and she is a workhorse. She has the kind of stamina that a marathoner would envy.
Because of some retirements and transfers over the summer, Emily gets a brand-new set of teammates to begin this school year. Her three new colleagues are not new to teaching and bring a variety of experiences. Scott has moved from a neighboring district and has taught for seven years. Jordan has spent the last several years at home raising her children and is eager to get back into a school setting. Susan has just completed her master’s degree and transferred from a fifth-grade teaching position at another school in the district to a second-grade position at Kennedy. Everyone clicks from the beginning, and the team takes opportunities to get to know each other personally as well. The team members agree that this is shaping up to be one of their best years of teaching—simply because they have each other!
At the end of the first quarter, Emily feels as though she and her teammates are cruising along in their first year together. However, as the team prepares for its weekly collaborative team meeting one morning, there is an unfamiliar emotional dynamic in the room. The team has just given an end-of-quarter common assessment in mathematics. The team members worked together to design the assessment—choosing standards, writing the questions, setting the scoring criteria, and agreeing on what mastery would look like. They created a Google sheet to organize all their student data in one place so that they can discuss the data together. They looked forward to celebrating their work and seeing where they can improve as a team. The meeting agenda is set to review the data, highlight patterns and trends, and plan next steps for corrective instruction and enrichment.
Up to this point, the team’s meeting agendas helped lay the foundation for the team to function well together. The team members spent time developing their team norms and commitments, studied their state standards and reviewed the skills and concepts needed for students to show proficiency, developed lessons to teach those standards, and discussed instructional strategies they enjoy using with their students. They have not yet had an opportunity to review student work samples or analyze any collective data.
As the first-quarter team leader, Emily begins the meeting by reviewing the team’s collective commitments and then dives into the agenda. “Thanks to everyone for entering your data into our shared spreadsheet,” Emily begins. “Now we can see how all our students performed by class and as a whole grade level. We can really start to make meaning of how our teaching is impacting student learning!”
Jordan feels anxious about the meeting. She is skeptical of the process, and her data do not show the proficiency levels she hoped for. “I’m not so sure about this, Emily. I mean, why do we have to look at all our students together? Why can’t we just examine our own class data and make adjustments based on what our individual results show?”
“I know it feels strange the first time, Jordan,” says Scott. “We did something similar in my former district. Talking about our students as a whole helps us see our areas of strength as well as think about our next steps. Remember, one of our team norms is that we accept collective responsibility for each of our students. Working together as a team will make each of us stronger in our practice so that each of our students can become stronger.”
Jordan still isn’t convinced that this is the right plan for the team. With her data exposed, she feels as though people will pass judgment on her skill set as a teacher.
Susan, who has stayed quiet thus far, speaks up and echoes Jordan’s concerns. “I agree with Jordan. I just don’t understand why we have to put all our data out for everyone to see. Some of us did better than others. Emily, this whole data review thing was your idea, and your students got the best scores of any of us. Why did you really want us to share our data and compare us to each other?”
Emily sits in silence. She can’t figure out what has gone wrong. Here she is, with her teammates who have become both colleagues and friends, and they are divided. Emily realizes that, although they have strong congenial relationships, they have not prepared themselves for the collaborative opportunity that this data conversation presents. In the face of this dissonance, Emily wonders, “Where do we go from here?”
Ponder Box
Have you ever felt like Emily in this team’s story—you’ve designed great structures and been intentional in your planning, but all of a sudden, everything derails? Or have you felt like Jordan—vulnerable and exposed and fearful of what people might think about you and your teaching? How did you respond in these situations? What impact did your response have on your team? What next step should this team take?
This chapter will examine the importance of connecting all members of a school community so they produce the kind of effort that is needed to help all students succeed. As Fisher and Frey (2015) point out, “None of the relationships in the classroom is wholly separate from another” (p. 3). In this chapter, we examine relationships and the following aspects of building a collaborative culture: building the foundation of trust, defining collaboration, establishing norms and guidelines, valuing collective analysis, moving from positional hierarchy to collective commitment, and fostering healthy professional relationships.
• Zoom in: How do my behaviors and words show others that I am worthy of their trust?
• Zoom out: What strategies can we utilize to build trust among our colleagues? How will we intentionally plan opportunities within our organization to grow connections and develop relationships among members of teams?
• Panoramic: How might we seek, gather, discuss, and respond to evidence from our stakeholders that we are building trust and that positive adult relationships are strengthening the intended outcomes of our work as an organization?
Building the Foundation of Trust
Trust is the key when we ask educators to take risks, alter longstanding practices, and respond to assessment data in ways previously unseen. In cases where trust is lost, we see educators resort to doing their best in their own classrooms, and we get pockets of excellence instead of schools or districts of excellence. Educators spend their energy on self-protection and overcompliance—especially with those who have the power to discipline them—and this takes energy away from the collective purpose of the school.
Stephen Covey (2006) addresses the myths about trust in The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything. Table 1.1 provides a summary of these myths and the corresponding realities.
Table 1.1: Myths About Trust Versus Corresponding Realities
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