LGBTQ students require special support.

4 steps for school leaders.

Even if they're not out, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning (LGBTQ) kids are statistically very likely to be enrolled in your school. Nationwide, about 3.5% of adults identify as LGBT—just over 11 million Americans. Though some people may not recognize they're not straight until well after high school, it occurs to some kids quite young. A Pew Research Center poll of 1154 LGB adults found the median age at which they first thought they were, or might be gay, lesbian, or bisexual was 10 to 13 years old.

Unfortunately, LGBTQ kids are also statistically likely not to feel like they really belong to your school. Many peer-reviewed studies have shown that LGBTQ students are at higher risk for bullying, teasing, harassment, physical assault, sexual assault, substance abuse, depression, and suicide-related behaviors. One nationally representative study of adolescents in grades 7-12 found that lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth were more than twice as likely to have attempted suicide as their heterosexual peers.

When I say that LGBTQ kids require special support, I'm not trying to suggest that their experience as part of a minority population is necessarily worse than what members of racial or religious minorities experience—or those with other differences. School can be a rough place for anyone who seems different at a given time! However, when, for example, a Jewish child is harassed or insulted, chances are that she knows some other Jewish kids or adults she can turn to for support. In contrast, it's very easy for LGBTQ kids to believe that they are alone. Here are some steps that help.

4 LGBTQ suggestions for school leaders

1. Educate yourself. In 1997 I was fortunate to join the faculty of a public high school that was already engaged in a conversation about how best to support every student in the school community, with specific concern for our non-straight kids. I soon learned about GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, whose mission is to ensure that every member of every school community is valued and respected regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. The GLSEN website is an excellent starting point for information and educator resources.

As someone who recently offended a student by using an outdated term, I know that the language related to LGBTQ issues (e.g. "gender identity" vs. "gender expression") can also be a challenge. GLAAD periodically updates references that you may find helpful: an LGB glossary and a guide for transgender issues, which includes terms to avoid.

2. Engage your staff. Of the 7,898 students (grades 6-12, from all 50 states and Washington, D.C.) that GLSEN polled for its 2013 National School Climate Survey, over half (51.4%) reported hearing homophobic remarks from teachers or other school staff. Of students who reported an incident of harassment or assault, 62% perceived that school staff did nothing in response.

There are people of good conscience who are not comfortable with the idea of homosexuality, or who believe that schools should have nothing to do with sexuality aside from certain units in health class. Based on two decades of consulting and presenting on LGBTQ-related issues, I believe that the best approach for leaders is to model respect for different points of view as you appeal to a deeper morality: this is about the kids. If teachers really care about kids, this means all kids—rich kids, poor kids, straight kids, gay kids.

You can make the case that all kids benefit from a more inclusive school. A study of more than 7,000 7th- and 8th-graders focusing on school climate and homophobic bullying found that all students, regardless of sexual orientation, reported the lowest levels of depression, suicidal feelings, alcohol and marijuana use, and unexcused absences when they were in a positive school climate and not experiencing homophobic teasing.

3. Maintain an inclusive school environment. The GLSEN survey showed that 56% of LGBT students felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation. About 1 in 3 LGBT students missed at least one entire day of school in the previous month because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable. Many LGBT kids avoid bathrooms and locker rooms, school functions and extracurricular activities, with words like "dyke," "faggot," and "that's so gay" pushing them away.

The Teaching Tolerance website has a lode of information on building an LGBT-inclusive environment, from Gay-Straight Alliance clubs (GSAs) and dress codes to gender-neutral restrooms and proms. There are materials for assessing your school's climate, and tips for responding constructively to common objections to LGBT-inclusive practices. They also have a Gender Spectrum Glossary.

4. Develop an inclusive curriculum. Only 19% of LGBT students in the GLSEN survey reported experiencing positive representations of LGBT people, history, or events in school; less than half said they could find information about LGBT-related issues in their school library.

When schools do post information related to sexuality, gender identity, and gender expression, it is often confined to health classes, the nurse's office, and the guidance department. Although it is important to have information in these places, having it only in these places can send a subtle message linking LGBT identity to illness or crisis. 

Rather, it's important for educators to own that history has set the record too straight: for thousands of years, great inventions, works of art, scientific discoveries, philosophical concepts, and social movements have been contributed by LGBT and straight people alike. From Socrates and Sappho to Leonardo da Vinci, from Eleanor Roosevelt to Alan Turing and Audre Lorde, non-straight people have enriched every subject ever taught in a school. It's just that we tend not to acknowledge it. But as Emily Style has argued, all students need curricular mirrors as well as windows.

Over three decades of teaching, Paula Alida Roy set as her main goal "the creation of a safe, inclusive classroom community in which any topic [could] be discussed respectfully and in which topics often considered too political or sophisticated for high school students [could] be normalized into the discourse of the subject and the class." Teachers ready for ideas about an inclusive classroom that takes students seriously as nuanced thinkers (and discussion partners) will appreciate Roy's 1997 essay "Language in the Classroom: Opening Conversations About Lesbian and Gay Issues in Senior High English.”

REFERENCES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website

Gallup website 

GLAAD website

GLSEN website

J. G. Kosciw, E. A. Greytak, N. A Palmer, & M. J. Boesen. The 2013 National School Climate Survey: The experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth in our nation’s schools. New York: GLSEN.

Paula A. Roy, “Language in the Classroom: Opening Conversations about Lesbian and Gay Issues in Senior High English” in James T. Sears and Walter L. Williams (eds.) Overcoming Heterosexism and Homophobia: Strategies that Work (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).

Pew Research Center website 

Teaching Tolerance website

[Image from thunderclap.it]

It needs to make sense in their world.

Minimize obstacles to implementation. In my city, the process of preparing paper and cardboard for recycling is sufficiently irritating that I force myself to undertake it only about 6 times per year. I generally pull the trigger when the growing mass of cereal boxes, Amazon packaging, pizza sleeves, bags of junk mail, magazines, and toilet paper tubes in the basement impedes access to the elliptical bike. This means setting aside a few hours on the correct Tuesday night to sort, crush, stack, tie and haul all the bundles out to the curb. 

Helping stomp pasta boxes a couple years ago, my friend Jonathan observed, "In a limited way, this is fun. But how many people are going to bother?" He had a point, I thought. It's pretty easy to toss empty cans into a blue bin you roll out every other Wednesday. But paper recycling feels like such a pointless hassle that a lot of people skip it. "It's too much of a hassle," I offered. "It's an apparently pointless hassle," Jon countered. "People accept hassles if they make sense. Work always involves some hassles. It's hassles that are also pointless that people have a hard time with." He used his young sons as an example. "Oscar and Leo are cool with hanging laundry on the line even though clothespins are a hassle because that's how clothes dry. It makes sense in their world." It makes sense in their world. I started thinking about that idea a lot. Whatever it is, whoever they are, if you really want them to do it, make it fit their world. People implementing programs--whether it's dual-stream recycling or professional learning communities (PLCs)--should strive to have the program make as much sense as possible in the world of their target user. Early automakers knew what they were doing when they marketed the first cars as "horseless carriages." Disney knew what it was doing when it wanted to figure out where to place trash cans: Once upon a time, Disney staff spent a morning handing out hard candy at the front gate of the Magic Kingdom and measured the distribution of discarded wrappers in order to estimate how far visitors were likely to walk before littering. Facebook knows what it's doing by partnering with news sites and sending notifications constantly. These are all ingenious efforts to align a desired behavior with the psychology, rhythm, or workflow of the target audience. In contrast, consider school technology roll-outs that require students to keep track of multiple passwords so they can consult multiple platforms so they can locate their homework. (Or insisting that students use a paper planner if they're less likely to misplace their smartphone.) Or evaluation frameworks that ask principals to attend to 31 different elements during a brief observation. Or professional development course offerings that don't address areas teachers are most concerned about. Once you've decided that a new practice, procedure, or program should be implemented, think very carefully about how to minimize needless hassles along the way.

Run better meetings.

Master these public leadership performances.

I once heard that people base up to 70% of their perception of leaders’ effectiveness on how well they run meetings.

From an empirical standpoint, the statistic is highly suspicious–the kind I’d expect to find under the cap of an iced tea bottle. But it also makes a lot of sense, especially in schools, when many faculty meetings occur at the end of the day with teachers feeling spent. If teachers show up after a stressful afternoon to listen to a series of updates that could have been e-mailed, or a vague explanation of some new directive, they’re going to form some unfavorable impressions about the quality of administration.

Meetings are public leadership performances. School leaders are required to run different kinds of meetings (contractual, ad hoc, etc.) with different sets of constituents. When I’m running them, here are the things I try to remember.

6 Tips for Running Better Meetings

1. Know the cost of people’s time. Everybody knows you don’t want to waste people’s time, but sometimes it helps to go ahead and put a dollar value on it. When I attended an especially vacuous meeting (run by someone else, I want to emphasize) several years ago, I began to ballpark the cost of the meeting to the school district in terms of salary. For an hour of the assembled 14 employees’ time, I estimated the waste at $700. A bad faculty meeting with 75 teachers wastes about $3075. You want to run meetings that are worth at least the salary of the participants. 

2. Plan a meaningful agenda. As you plan, focus on what is most important, including why it matters to get together to talk. Well-run meetings permit the exchange of ideas and viewpoints in real time. (If all you’re planning to do is disseminate information without much interaction from other participants, you don’t need a meeting.) What is the best way can to draw on the wisdom and capacity of the people assembled in the room? 

Try IDD. To announce the meeting's purpose at the outset, executives at Bain & Co. use a method they call "IDD" (Inform, Discuss, Decide) which they attribute to Intel and UC Berkeley. IDD begins every meeting with a single statement: “The purpose of this meeting is to inform you about X, to discuss Y and to decide on Z,” where Z is a specific, well-defined decision.

3. Consider interpersonal dynamics. If attendance isn’t mandatory, consider carefully who should be there and who doesn’t need to be. Also, depending on the agenda, it may be helpful to meet briefly with certain individuals beforehand. For instance, if you know that an influential party is going to have a hard time with an idea you’re about to present, you may wish to connect in advance. 

4. Start on time. Once you know how long it takes for people to arrive, choose an appropriate start time and stick to it. When I ran a daily staff meeting, I found it useful to build in 5 minutes after the start of the period for colleagues to grab coffee or use the restroom; everyone started happier and more focused. In general, the simplest way to get people there on time is to run worthwhile meetings.  

5. End on time (or early). Don’t cut a worthwhile conversation short, but also don’t meet for an hour if 25 minutes will suffice. 

6. For serious presentations, avoid PowerPoint. Instead, try the method that presentation guru Edward Tufte has taught to companies like Amazon:

Prepare a meeting memo using clear sentences, paragraphs, and data displays as necessary. This takes time, but clarity pays huge dividends. Your carefully prepared, concise memo becomes the central text for the meeting, including everything you’d like people to know about, consider, and discuss. In this way, everyone will literally be on the same page. At Amazon meetings, memos are usually 6 pages, but you might prefer 1-2 pages for a one-hour faculty meeting.  

Distribute the memo at the start of the meeting. Don’t expect people to read it in advance. Instead, allot reading time at the beginning of the meeting. Why? Because building in time shows that you understand people’s time is valuable. Also, “reading in advance” realistically means everything from “I read it when you sent it last week and now I forget” to “I skimmed it over yogurt this morning” to “I didn’t read it.” Staff meetings at Amazon start with 30 minutes of silent reading; for a one-hour faculty meeting, try 10-15 minutes.

REFERENCES

Jeff Denneen, “Finally, a meeting that’s worth your time,” LinkedIn, November 6, 2014. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141106184032-169567318-finally-a-meeting-that-s-worth-your-time, accessed April 12, 2016.

Michael Mankins and Jenny Davis-Peccoud, “Decision-focused meetings,” Bain Brief, June 7, 2011. http://www.bain.com/publications/articles/decision-insights-9-decision-focused-meetings.aspx, accessed April 12, 2016.

[Note: An earlier version of this post was published in December. Today’s revision includes the IDD method that a number of colleagues have recently found quite helpful, as well as new artwork by Roy Chambers, who will be collaborating with me as this project moves forward!]

Lead your school as Learner-in-Chief.

Model the struggle as well as the joy of learning. Social fears can tempt school leaders (and classroom teachers) to create the impression that they learn effortlessly, know it all, and never make mistakes. However, this is just about the worst image to project if you want to lead any organization to improve—let alone an institution of learning! Real learning requires missteps, mistakes, and failure. 

Erika Andersen has coached thousands of executives in a variety of industries as they contend with rapidly changing technology, new ways of doing business, and evolving consumer behaviors and expectations. If that sounds a lot like what school leaders deal with, keep reading for the traits Andersen has identified as essential for on-the-job learning.

4 ingredients for learning leaders 

Aspiration for learning is the deep desire to understand and master new skills. Rather than dwelling on negative aspects (It will take too long or I bet it's just a flavor of the month), imagine what will be gained from the learning. Just as athletes visualize perfect form and faster finish times, leaders can focus on higher faculty morale after developing skills related to emotional intelligence or distributed leadership.  

Self-awareness enables you to identify what you need to learn. Begin by accepting that the cognitive distortions coloring the way we view the world tend to be at least as potent when we view ourselves. To become more objective, Andersen recommends starting in your own head by paying attention to your "self-talk." For example, if your superintendent suggests that your building administration team isn't strong enough, you might react by telling yourself What? She's wrong. My team is strong. A more productive line of self-talk: Could she be right? How do I know my team is strong? What facts do I have to support that assessment? Question your assumptions about how good (or poor) a job you're doing. Then solicit feedback, especially from those who report to you.  

Curiosity is the capacity to think of and ask good questions. When you're faced with something you need to learn that you don't find interesting, Andersen suggests pretending for a little while. Treat it like a subject you're interested in, and practice similar questions: I wonder if this could help me ... ? How can I ... ? Why are other people passionate about this subject? As the essayist Cristina Nehring put it, "We grow interested in what we open ourselves to." 

Vulnerability is your tolerance for mistakes as you grow. Be patient with yourself as you make mistakes, but also be courageous enough to own mistake-making with colleagues and reports as you model willingness to become a novice again (and again). When you do, you give permission to teachers to do the same. When teachers feel free to present themselves as authentic learners—imperfect but curious and determined—students are more likely to reflect what Robert Wood and Albert Bandura found in the late 1980s: people who are encouraged to expect mistakes and learn from them early in the process of acquiring new skills demonstrate "heightened interest, persistence, and better performance" (Andersen, p. 101). 

REFERENCE

Erika Andersen, "Learning to Learn: Mental Tools to Help You Master New Skills," Harvard Business Review (March 2016): 98-101.

[Image from imstuition.weebly.com]

You can't paint the second coat before the first coat is dry.

On interventions and wait-time. A number of educator friends enjoy home improvement as much as I do. It's satisfying to repaint a room or refinish a chair and see how some time and effort make a concrete change that can be appreciated immediately. Well, not exactly immediately, which you know if you've scraped, spackled, and sanded a wall to prep for painting. But compared to the piecemeal and ongoing work of teaching or school leadership, weekend do-it-yourself projects can feel immensely gratifying for results-oriented people. (Which may explain why handy persons are often found standing there after a job, sipping a lovely beverage and admiring their work!) Because prepping to paint usually takes longer than I think it will (always longer than I want), painting feels like a reward. I am literally ready to roll: first the primer, then the first coat of color, then the second. However, regardless of how pumped I might be to get the job done, this part can't be rushed. I can't paint the next coat before the first coat is dry. For one thing, wet paint doesn't adhere to wet paint. It just becomes more wet paint. Second, I don't know which areas might need a little more attention because the wall is a little drier and more absorbent, and look at that crack in the plaster there--why didn't I see that before? School-based interventions are obviously a good deal more complex than wall-based interventions with Sherwin-Williams Ovation® Interior Latex. Yet schools often fail to allow sufficient time to assess interventions and see how things are looking. In the late 1990s education scholar Rick Hess surveyed reform initiatives in 57 urban districts and determined that school systems on average gave a major reform only 18 months to "work" before attempting some other plan, which was often radically different. Of course urban superintendents don't tend to last long, and they face constant pressure to get results now, but this "policy churn" is like waiting 20 minutes for paint to dry before trying to hang wallpaper on it. (Or deciding maybe we don't need this wall anyway. Wait, is it a load-bearing wall?) Hess was the first I heard espouse the idea that any policy is 10% what it says and 90% how it's implemented. I did my student teaching in a school that had embraced block scheduling with good results, so I was interested to hear what people had to say about it when I joined the faculty of a different high school with more typical 42-minute periods. "We tried that," I heard. "It didn't work." How had they tried it? For two weeks, six years earlier, in the middle of the year. Based on a jarring 10-day experiment, block scheduling was judged a failure. At the macro-level, in recent years the State of New Jersey supported professional learning communities (PLCs) for just about 18 months before turning its attention to new teacher evaluation frameworks and the adoption of Common Core Content Standards and a system of Student Growth Objectives and a new high-stakes test linked to the Common Core. This perfect storm of policy churn had teachers and school leaders reeling even before the governor announced last spring that the Common Core would be dropped (but not the related high-stakes test) in favor of new NJ Content Standards. Hess presents research on high-performing schools suggesting that the best schools sustain focus and develop expertise in specific approaches to teaching and learning. This is not as simple as letting paint dry, but the impact (i.e. better schools) can improve many, many homes in the years to come.

REFERENCE Frederick M. Hess, Spinning Wheels: The Politics of Urban School Reform (Brookings Institution Press, 1998).

[Image of the author and a student member of Project '79 about to pause between coats during the preparation of No Phone Booth, an interactive soundscape installation, April 2015.]

Let students lead learning.

Steps for co-constructing educational experiences. The surest way to make school feel relevant to kids is to ask kids to help make school. As an instructor in an alternative education setting within a large public high school for 14 years, I was encouraged to depart from traditional curricular sequences and explore different ways to get kids fired up about the power of their own minds. Dozens of experimental units later, I know that when students and teachers collaborate to determine what projects should be done and why, the classroom seems to generate its own energy. 

Co-construction is not just a series of student-led lessons. According to British headteacher Tom Sherrington, it's important to clarify that co-construction refers to student ownership of the whole learning process. Sherrington identifies four major aims of co-constructing learning experiences:

For students to develop skills and confidence as highly effective independent learners, taking ownership of their learning, including content, sequencing, mode of delivery and assessment. 

For students' prior knowledge to serve as a relevant starting point for further learning.

For students to take risks with their learning, exploring modes of learning and communication that they do not experience in traditional school environments. 

For teachers and students to unleash creative energy as typical roles break down, and teaching and learning processes merge. 

Elements of a sample co-construction process, adapted from Tom Sherrington:

Teacher leads a discussion on a topic with a focus on exposing and exploring students' prior knowledge--including misconceptions and areas of doubt.

Students suggest ideas for key questions and areas of further study or inquiry.

Guided by the teacher, the class discusses a logical sequence through these questions.

Student volunteers take ownership of different sections, either by planning out the whole unit in advance or, more organically, a few lessons at a time. The former is more solid and easier to manage; the latter is more flexible and responsive. Alternating student-led lessons with teacher-led lessons enables the teacher to manage the process, adjusting pacing and ensuring that key feedback processes are undertaken.

Process checks need to be carried out on a regular basis: What have we learned so far? Are we still on track? Where are we going next? Who is taking the lead? Adjust plans accordingly.

Summative assessments and review sessions may be designed to reflect any level of rigor. Sherrington suggests that giving a sense of teacher-designed final assessments to students at the start of the process can help them shape the unit "more sharply"; I have enjoyed asking students to design assessments from essay questions to performance-based assessments. Begin by asking What should we be able to know, understand, and do when we're done?

REFERENCE

Tom Sherrington, "Towards Co-Constructed Learning: How To Get It Started." Blog post on HeadGuruTeacher.com, August 27, 2012. Accessed March 16, 2016.  

[Image of Project ‘79 students who led the 2015 Chromebook pilot]

It's the kids, stupid.

The best indicator of a school's values is probably not its mission statement.

Check out the master schedule and labor agreements.

You have just been hired in a new school district as the high school principal. You did your homework before applying, and learned a fair amount more during several rounds of interviews. (By the way, you killed it out there. They loved you. Congratulations!) You know a certain amount about the school already, but as the building leader, you want to understand what your school actually values when it comes to the core work of teaching and learning. Where do you turn?

In your new office, your eyes suddenly alight on the school's mission statement, polished and framed on the wall. Although there are some meaningful mission statements, you know that most of them reveal more about what a school believes it values than what it actually does. The calligraphed paragraph you're reading contains familiar phrases about "love of learning" and "global citizenship," and the aspiration to "educate all children to their full potential." Not super helpful. Your search continues, until ... Eureka! Your e-mail inbox asks you to review the master schedule for the building for the upcoming school year.

Master schedules present much more than teachers' schedules, room assignments, and course sections. Because placing course sections also means placing students in specific rooms with specific teachers at specific times, the master schedule also in effect contains every student schedule. If you also learn the process by which the master schedule was developed, you can get a sense for how professionals interact and how key decisions are made.

In contrast to the lovely but vague language of most mission statements, master schedules contain concrete, specific reflections of how the school values teaching and learning. For instance, you might examine the schedule to determine whether it includes built-in opportunities for Special Education teachers and their co-teachers to co-plan and confer. If not, the value of inclusive education is likely more professed than practiced.

Questions to ask about the Master Schedule

Which classes seem to be driving the schedule? Why? 

Which are the smallest sections--honors classes, or classes for students with greater learning challenges? 

Are the most experienced teachers teaching the most advanced students? ... the least advanced students? Is there a mix?

How much time is allotted for teachers to plan together and discuss student progress?

Do teachers have opportunities for PD experiences during the school day (such as support from mentor teachers, or release time for other professional learning and inquiry)?

How does the school respond to students who are not succeeding academically? What courses or other interventions are scheduled for students who desire or require extra help? 

Who has a role in the decisions leading up to the creation of the schedule? Is there collaboration between administrators, counselors, instructional leaders, and teachers or team leaders?  

What requests of teachers receive highest priority (e.g. preferred course level, room assignment, time of day)?

Do students have access to an advisory experience to make best-fit decisions about life after high school? If they apply to college, are they supported throughout the process?

According to retired superintendent Torch Lytle, another source for values-in-practice is labor agreements. In a public school, salary schedules and benefits tend to get the most attention when teacher contracts are negotiated. However, these collective bargaining agreements—ranging, in print form, from slender to voluminous—also detail work rules, disciplinary procedures and other aspects of the relationship between the teachers’ union and the district. Variations of the questions above--How are football coaches compensated as compared to the set designer for the spring musical?--will illuminate a range of indicators for what a given school considers important.

REFERENCE Materials from the National Association of Secondary School Principals