The recent release of the film Lincoln unleashed a plethora of interest in our 16th president. I’ve read several reviews of the movie and learned that one of Lincoln’s lesser known acts was to standardize the width of railroad tracks. This relatively obscure action made transportation of goods more efficient, and in turn, led to an increase in commerce. One of my goals for KPBSD is to increase our students’ learning by standardizing that which is common to all our schools and students. This standardization includes the obvious such as what we must teach and how we evaluate staff. It also includes more subtle items such as how we plan our professional development. We cannot however, expect standardization of all things by our schools.
Our principals are charged with first learning their site’s strengths and then using this knowledge to create a site identity that will serve as a foundation on which their students can excel. This could be the recognition that several staff members at an elementary school have a good knowledge of science content that could lead to them collaborating so that science concepts are woven into non-science instruction. Or, it might be a school staff embracing a behavioral program that helps to define the school’s culture. The site identity is an important part of a school’s improvement efforts and is the counterbalance to district level standardization.
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Site identity, the counterbalance to standardization
The recent release of the film Lincoln unleashed a plethora of interest in our 16th president. I’ve read several reviews of the movie and learned that one of Lincoln’s lesser known acts was to standardize the width of railroad tracks. This relatively obscure action made transportation of goods more efficient, and in turn, led to an increase in commerce. One of my goals for KPBSD is to increase our students’ learning by standardizing that which is common to all our schools and students. This standardization includes the obvious such as what we must teach and how we evaluate staff. It also includes more subtle items such as how we plan our professional development. We cannot however, expect standardization of all things by our schools.
Our principals are charged with first learning their site’s strengths and then using this knowledge to create a site identity that will serve as a foundation on which their students can excel. This could be the recognition that several staff members at an elementary school have a good knowledge of science content that could lead to them collaborating so that science concepts are woven into non-science instruction. Or, it might be a school staff embracing a behavioral program that helps to define the school’s culture. The site identity is an important part of a school’s improvement efforts and is the counterbalance to district level standardization.