Deep Dive for Identifying High Leverage Practices and Structures around Curriculum

New Merhartbury Leadership Team

Planning for Staff Meeting on Tuesday April 7, 2014

Message we want to relay to staff: We want to hear what you think is going well and what you think we
could improve. Is there alignment between what we, as a leadership team, identified were high leverage
structures/practices and what the staff identifies during this exercise?
All of this information is helping us to create an adaptive School Improvement Plan that is
adaptive, that is living/breathing and guiding our work in the coming year.

Overarching Questions Staff will be asked to respond to (individually at first)

1.
2.
3.
4.

What is going well and how do you know that?

What are the areas of opportunity for improvement?
What structures and practice do we need in place for staff to be successful?
What structures and practices do we need in place for students to be successful?

Staff Meeting Schedule (Proposed)

7:15-7:35 Light Refreshments
7:35-7:40 Welcome (School Principal)
Framing the meeting: As a leadership team we have been working on a deep dive to re-focus
our efforts on the structures and practices that are going to move us forward and align our achievement
gains with the diligent work that we do here
Introduce facilitators (Associate Superintendent, Director of Professional Learning)

7:40-7:45 Pulse Check (Associate Superintendent)

Frame the work around moving forward and make connections to the overarching
questions: We are charting where we are going and want all staff to become part of the deep dive (have
their voices heard) (Director of Professional Learning)
Introduce BIRDS activity (Director of Professional Learning)

7:45-7:48 BIRDS activity (Ice Breaker/Team Building)

Set up 4 corners of the room with posters (Eagle, Peacock, Dove, Owl)
Project descriptions
Each person finds his/her flock and go to the appropriate corner

7:48-7:55 Conversation with flock

Name three of your strengths

7:55-8:00 Reflect and answer

What do you see as your strengths when working with others?
What do you see as your limitations?

8:00-8:02 Transition
How can we use this information to strengthen the ways in which we work together? (Director
of Professional Learning)
Project the 4 overarching questions and direct all staff back to their seats where there are now
post-it notes for them to write on

8:02-8:12 Self-Reflection and Response

Individually each staff member takes time to process the questions and write responses to each
one

8:12-8:25 Gallery Walk

Each person puts their sticky on the corresponding posters with the four different questions.
Find a bird from a different flock to do a Gallery Walk with and discuss what you are noticing,
what surprises you and what is missing as you rotate.
8:25-8:29 Whole Group Share-Out
2 Wows and 2 Wonders

8:29- Exit Ticket

Each person writes 2 Wows and 2 Wonders

8:30- End of Staff Meeting

*Leadership team takes all posters and meets at 2:00 that afternoon to analyze and
code this data in order to determine emerging trends
Analyzes this for alignment with the high leverage structures/practices identified
previously by leadership team members
Record this work in the form of a letter/charts
Share data with staff