Leadership Innovations Team

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National Recognition for Your School’s Most Promising Practices!

Posted January 8th, 2010 in News, Noteworthy

As part of the National Schools of Character awards program, the Character Education Partnership (CEP) gives annual Promising Practices awards to schools and districts in the United States and elsewhere for implementing unique and specific strategies in character education. Selected schools and districts receive an award certificate at the Promising Practices Awards Ceremony at the CEP National Forum on Character Education. In addition, a description of their winning practices appears in the National Schools of Character annual publication and on CEP’s website.

If your school or district has developed and successfully implemented a unique practice, CEP encourages you to apply for a Promising Practices award. They are not looking for a description of your whole character education program, but rather for a specific practice or aspect of your program that other schools may learn from and even replicate.
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The Latest from Jeanne Harmon: Baby Boomers in Washington

Posted March 25th, 2009 in News

I always look forward to Jeanne Harmon’s (Executive Director for the Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession) emails – they’re insightful, useful, and really relevant. Her latest on baby boomers in Washington State was no different:

The National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future recently published a report about the impending retirement of baby boomers and its projected effect on public schools. Their review produced a picture of the workforce across the nation but doesn’t give specifics for Washington.

The NCTAF report states:
- 1.7 million are approaching retirement (avg retirement age = 56)
- in 2011, the Baby Boomer generation will begin to retire in large numbers

To read the NCTAF report, see: www.nctaf.org

So what about Washington?
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Act Now to Access Funds from the Federal Stimulus Package – We Can Help You!

Posted March 25th, 2009 in Funding, News

The Federal Stimulus Package includes money for Washington State, but you’ll have to be ready to act fast – the competitive application process will start soon and you can expect a short timeline for 2009-10 dollars. Go to the OSPI website for the details or read below for the most pertinent information. We’ll keep you updated on new developments – check back often.

$44.5 Million for Washington State
The Federal Stimulus Package allocates $44.5 million for Washington State over the next two years – allocation will begin soon, so you need to be ready to submit your grant. Read more about the details on the OSPI site.

OSPI Will Announce the Application Process Soon
Once the state’s proposal for using stimulus package funds is approved by DOE, OSPI will use the iGrants system to notify superintendents and district fiscal managers regarding the application process for these competitive grants.

Time is of the Essence
Given the anticipated start date of July 1, 2009 for stimulus package grants awarded for the 2009-2010 school year, you can expect a relatively short timeline for the application process.

We Can Help You
If you want to take advantage of this huge opportunity but you’re not exactly sure where to start, we can help you pull your proposal together. We want to see your great school improvement work continue and we understand how the state budget is going to affect your school or district. Let’s talk about how we can work together to make sure you can access these funds.

We want to hear from you
Call or email us – we’d love to have a conversation with you about how you can tackle this opportunity. You can reach us by phone at 425-681-4446.

Click here to download a PDF of the informational flyer.

PTL Officially Joins Forces with Leadership Innovations Team

Posted January 8th, 2009 in News

Happy New Year! We’re excited to tell you about a Big Change…

Dear Friends,

We’re writing today to share some exciting changes that are in store for the new year. As of January 1st, Powerful Teaching and Learning into Practice and The Leadership Innovations Team have joined forces and merge into one, unified company.

Moving forward into 2009 we will continue to provide all of our current customized professional development solutions and services but we will operate solely under the Leadership Innovations Team name.

This is a big change, and one that we have thought about for a long time, but we believe that bringing these two companies together will enable us to deliver even more powerful solutions to help K-12 educators everywhere improve, grow, and increase student achievement levels. We remain dedicated to continuing to focus on instruction, leadership, and coaching.

We’ve included more information about the change below and we encourage you to contact us with questions or concerns that you may have. There’s also an entire web page dedicated specifically to information about the transition.

As always, we thank you for your ongoing support and partnership. We look forward to many years of working together to build stronger leaders, better schools, happier educators, increased achievement, and a better future for our children.

Sincerely,

Alison Olzendam and Heather Knight, Co-Presidents
The Leadership Innovations Team

Why we’re making the change:

• It’s a natural progression. PTL and LIT have enjoyed a successful partnership over the past year, delivering award-winning leadership development programs in tandem with results-driven programs for educators at every level. In fact, we’ve worked so closely, bringing the two companies together under the same umbrella seems almost more natural to us than operating separately. Consolidation will also allow us to deliver an even more streamlined set of solutions.
• To reduce confusion and allow us to be more flexible. The term “powerful teaching and learning” is used in many areas of the education field and it has led to some confusion about our work and related associations. Our mission is to provide customized solutions for K12 educators – basically, we want to help you figure out exactly what your school or district needs to do to improve. We are not tied to any single protocol or process – so we have more flexibility to work with your unique situation. We want our name to reflect that.
• We truly believe that leadership is the difference. Here is what we’ve come to realize over the past three years: leadership is the thing that makes powerful teaching and learning as a practice really work. Everyone must be a leader from where they stand. And everyone must have a leadership mindset in order to facilitate growth and improvement. Without a strong leadership emphasis, even the best programs, protocols, and systems will fail.

How this will affect you:
Other than visiting us at a different website address and some cosmetic branding changes, this shouldn’t affect you at all. All normal business operations (including contracts, accounting, scheduling, phone numbers, addresses, etc) will remain exactly the same. Even our powerfulteaching.com email addresses will continue to work for the next few months (they’ll forward directly to our new leadershipinnovationsteam.com addresses).

If you’ve got a few questions
We know you might have some questions about this, so we’d like to encourage you to feel free to use the feedback form on the website to let us know what’s on your mind. We’ll get back to you and we’ll also incorporate everything into the FAQ page.

The Power of 360

Posted June 25th, 2008 in News

Let’s face it, we are all nervous about soliciting feedback from others. If you ask the question, what if you don’t like the answer? You still have to deal with it.

Being reflective about our practice as educators or administrators is about taking some risks, but remaining committed to constant improvement is essential to our end goal: providing the best possible education for tomorrow’s leaders.

Someone just shared this article about the 360 process with me, and I think it is an amazing example of how powerful it can be. This quote, in particular, really drove it home:

Gill, who also did a 360-degree review last year, said it’s helpful both to him and to school board members, who may have little or no contact with most district employees. “It’s good to know how people feel, to get that raw, anonymous feedback,” he said. “It helps shape the decisions you make.”

If you are curious about how a 360 process works, and how you might get the ball rolling, check out our Extraordinary Leaders Institute page.

Meet Our New Partner: PTL and CEE Align to Raise Student Achievement

Posted April 24th, 2008 in News

We’re thrilled to announce our new partnership with the Center for Educational Effectiveness to provide dynamic, well-rounded, results-oriented professional development solutions for educators.

With years of experience working with hundreds of schools, both organizations bring a strong commitment to empowering educators to raise student achievement through a combination of analysis, reflection, action-planning, leadership development, and rigorous attention to improving instructional practice.

What’s the Scoop
The partnership will leverage the strength of each organization: Using the Instructional Team Profile (ITP), CEE creates a comprehensive, visual data portfolio based on 7 highly effective practices for instruction:

1. Effective, Standard-based Instruction
2. High Quality, Student-centered Instruction
3. High Levels of Student Engagement
4. Use of Assessment For Student Learning
5. Positive Behavior Management Strategy
6. Clear Evidence of Student Learning
7. Collaboration and Teamwork for Effective Instruction

This data portfolio is friendly, useful, and meaningful to your school population and pinpoints student needs to indicate intervention steps. CEE provides organizations with data that informs appropriate changes in curriculum, instructional practice, assessment and the systems that are in place to increase student learning and achieve second order changes.

The ITP will enable Powerful Teaching and Learning Into Practice to help schools and districts interpret and dig deeper into this data and, more importantly, put it to work. It provides a powerful formative tool to establish a common vocabulary and will enable teachers and teams of teachers to view their instructional skills, as perceived by themselves and their team members.

About the Survey
THE ITP— Instructional Team Profile
The ITP—”Instructional Team Profile” is a formative feedback tool designed to promote collaboration, common language and consistent practice in support of effective classroom instruction.

• Research-based
• A formative profile
• Provides results that support and focus professional development
• Provides a framework of common language around effective instruction
• Unlike many observation protocols, this tool looks beyond student behavior

For more information on the ITP, you can visit our resources page to check out a sample survey or download the brochure from CEE. If you have questions or feedback about the new partnership with CEE, we’d love to hear from you.

Feel free to contact us directly, or leave a comment.

Cheers,
Heather

Podcast #2: Russ Waterman from Eastmont High School

Posted April 4th, 2008 in Motivation, News, Success Stories

To start listening right away, just hit “play now” below:

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The feedback from our first podcast was overwhelming and since it was so clear that listening to other educators talk about implementation was so powerful, we put together another one for you.

This time I spoke to Russ Waterman, Assistant Principal at Eastmont High School. Russ and I had a chance to discuss how Eastmont High School has been able to start a teacher-driven, grass roots movement around Powerful Teaching and Learning.

The interview is about 15 minutes long and we’ll have a transcript available in the next day or two in case you’d prefer to read along. Use the tools at the bottom of this post to listen directly from this page or in a separate pop-up, however you’d prefer. I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback if you have a moment to leave a comment or send an email!

PTL in Wapato Middle School: Q&A with Linda Heade

Posted February 26th, 2008 in News, Success Stories

We recently began work with Wapato Middle School, and I had a chance to catch up with Linda Heade, the SIF at WMS, so she could give me some feedback about how the early stages of their implementation have been progressing. I thought I’d share our exchange – I was particularly interested in her feedback around why the program has been successful.

Continue reading…

More From OSPI: Principal Support – Leadership Training and Executive Coaching Presentation

Posted February 3rd, 2008 in News, Reading and Resources

If there’s one thing that you can count on it’s this: I love talking about leadership.

Seriously. Get me started and you’re going to have a hard time shutting me up. So I was elated to find that my presentation at OSPI’s conference last week was full. A whole room full of people to share my passion with!

I was presenting on behalf of my company, the Leadership Innovations Team (PTL’s partner organization) and covered Leadership Training and Executive Coaching and I did my best to really dig into these two areas of professional development with the limited time that I had. We discussed the research, the payoff, and the basics about how coaching works and why its one of the most effective professional development tools available today.

I had a great group (by the way, thank you to everyone who attended!) and I feel great about the presentation.

I wanted to take a moment to share my slides with everyone who wasn’t able to attend. Please leave a comment or contact us if you have any questions or would like additional information on coaching, leadership, or professional development in general.

You can also download a PDF of this presentation from our Resources page.

Enjoy! I’d love hear your feedback!

Cheers,
Heather

Check Out Alison’s Presentation from the OSPI Conference: Bridging the Implementation Gap

Posted January 31st, 2008 in News

Alison and Heather just got back from the 2008 OSPI Conference in Spokane, Washington and were thrilled to be able to present to packed houses for both of their sessions.

We’re working on getting all of the supporting handouts and slides up and available on the resources page but, for now, feel free to take a peek at the deck from Alison’s presentation:

They’ll be available as a PDF soon!

Heather Knight’s ” Leadership Training and Executive Coaching: Ensuring New Principal Support is Effective, Consistent, and Research-Based” presentation (from the Leadership Innovations Team) will be available shortly as well.

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